was visible in all the green land. And it was quiet--with a strange, a
brooding tranquillity. The fields and hills seemed to mock the scars of
road and ditch and furrow scraped on them, to mock at barriers of hedge
and wall--between the green land and white sky was a conspiracy to
disregard those small activities. So lonely was it, so plunged in a
ground-bass of silence; so much too big and permanent for any figure of
man.

Across and across the brown loam the laborer doggedly finished out
his task; scattered the few last seeds into a corner, and stood still.
Thrushes and blackbirds were just beginning that even-song whose
blitheness, as nothing else on earth, seems to promise youth forever to
the land. He picked up his coat, slung it on, and, heaving a straw bag
over his shoulder, walked out on to the grass-bordered road between the
elms.

"Tryst! Bob Tryst!"

At the gate of a creepered cottage amongst fruit-trees, high above the
road, a youth with black hair and pale-brown face stood beside a girl
with frizzy brown hair and cheeks like poppies.

"Have you had that notice?"

The laborer answered slowly:

"Yes, Mr. Derek. If she don't go, I've got to."

"What a d--d shame!"