a quick easy gait and springy step, quite distinct from the Saxon stump.
When the corn is cut these bivouac fires go out, and the camp
disappears, but the white ashes remain, and next season the smoke will
rise again.

The barn here with its broad red roof, and the rickyard with the stone
staddles, and the litter of chaff and straw, is the central rendezvous
all the year of the resident labourers. Day by day, and at all hours,
there is sure to be some of them about the place. The stamp of the land
is on them. They border on the city, but are as distinctly agricultural
and as immediately recognisable as in the heart of the country. This
sturdy carter, as he comes round the corner of the straw-rick, cannot be
mistaken.

He is short and thickly set, a man of some fifty years, but hard and
firm of make. His face is broad and red, his shiny fat cheeks almost as
prominent as his stumpy nose, likewise red and shiny. A fringe of
reddish whiskers surrounds his chin like a cropped hedge. The eyes are
small and set deeply, a habit of half-closing the lids when walking in
the teeth of the wind and rain has caused them to appear still smaller.
The wrinkles at the corners and the bushy eyebrows are more visible and
pronounced than the eyes themselves, which are mere bright grey points
twinkling with complacent good humour.

These red cheeks want but the least motion to break into a smile; the
action of opening the lips to speak is sufficient to give that
expression. The fur cap he wears allows the round shape of his head to
be seen, and the thick neck which is the colour of a brick. He trudges
deliberately round the straw-rick: there is something in the style of
the man which exactly corresponds to the barn, and the straw, and the