across this land: it's a nasty, stiff, clayey, dauby bit of
ground, and thou and I must fall to, come next Monday--I beg your
pardon, cousin Manning--and there's old Jem's cottage wants a bit
of thatch; you can do that job tomorrow while I am busy.' Then,
suddenly changing the tone of his deep bass voice to an odd
suggestion of chapels and preachers, he added. 'Now, I will give
out the psalm, "Come all harmonious tongues", to be sung to
"Mount Ephraim" tune.'

He lifted his spade in his hand, and began to beat time with it;
the two labourers seemed to know both words and music, though I
did not; and so did Phillis: her rich voice followed her father's
as he set the tune; and the men came in with more uncertainty,
but still harmoniously. Phillis looked at me once or twice with a
little surprise at my silence; but I did not know the words.
There we five stood, bareheaded, excepting Phillis, in the tawny
stubble-field, from which all the shocks of corn had not yet been
carried--a dark wood on one side, where the woodpigeons were
cooing; blue distance seen through the ash-trees on the other.
Somehow, I think that if I had known the words, and could have
sung, my throat would have been choked up by the feeling of the
unaccustomed scene.

The hymn was ended, and the men had drawn off before I could
stir. I saw the minister beginning to put on his coat, and
looking at me with friendly inspection in his gaze, before I
could rouse myself.

'I dare say you railway gentlemen don't wind up the day with
singing a psalm together,' said he; 'but it is not a bad