some cruelty."

"That's all rot. Utter rot. You don't know what you're talking
about.... It's milking time. There's Gwinnie semaphoring. Do you know old
Burton's going to keep us on? He'll pay us wages from this quarter. He
says we were worth our keep from the third day."

"Do you want to stay on here?"

"Rather."

"Very well then, so do I. That settles it."

"Get up," she said, "and come along. Gwinnie's frantic."

He sat up, bowed forwards, his hands hanging loose over his knees.
She stood and looked down at him, at the arch of his long, slender
back dropping to the narrow hips. She could feel the sudden crush of
her breath in her chest and the sighing throb in her throat and her
lips parting.

He grasped the hands she stretched out to him at arms' length. She set
her teeth and pressed her feet to the ground, and leaned back, her weight
against his weight, tugging.

He came up to his feet, alert, laughing at the heavy strength of her
pull. As they ran down the field he still held, loosely, like a thing
forgotten, her right hand.

* * * * *