They passed one or two pairs of labourers going home, then a group of
girls in overalls, then a spring cart containing four workmen behind a
ragged pony, no doubt the builder's men who had been at work on the Great
End repairs. They all looked at her curiously, and Rachel Henderson
looked back at them--steadily, without shyness. They were evidently aware
of who she was and where she was going. Some of them perhaps would soon
be in her employ. She would be settling all that in a week or two.

Ah, there was the house. She leant forward and saw it lying under the
hill, the woods on the slope coming down to the back of it. Yes, it was
certainly a lonely situation. That was why the house, the farm lands,
too, had been so long unlet, till old Wellin, the farm's nearest
neighbour, having made a good deal of money, had rented the land from
Colonel Shepherd, to add to his own. The farm buildings, too, he had made
some use of, keeping carts and machines, and certain stores there. But
the house he had refused to have any concern with. It had remained empty
and locked up for a good many years.

The wagonette turned into the rough road leading through the middle of a
fine field of oats to the house. The field was gaily splashed with
poppies, which ran, too, along the edges of the crop, swayed by the
evening breeze, and flaming in the level sun. Though lonesome and
neglected, the farm in July was a pleasant and picturesque object. It
stood high and the air about it blew keen and fresh. The chalk hill
curved picturesquely round it, and the friendly woods ran down behind to
keep it company. Rachel Henderson, in pursuit of that campaign she was
always now waging against a natural optimism, tried to make herself
imagine it in winter--the leafless trees, the solitary road, the treeless
pasture or arable fields, that stretched westward in front of the farm,