forcing its way out again through the narrow window. The edge, as it
were, of a sunbeam lit up the rude chamber crossed with unhewn beams and
roofed above with unconcealed tiles, whose fastening pegs were visible. A
great heap of golden scales lay in one corner, the hops fresh from the
drying. Up to his waist in a pocket let through the floor a huge giant of
a man trod the hops down in the sack, turning round and round, and now
his wide shoulders and now his red cheeks succeeded. The music twirled
him about as a leaf by the wind. Without the rich blue autumn sky; within
the fragrant odour of hops, the hum of the threshing circling round like
the buzz of an immense bee. As the hum of insects high in the atmosphere
of midsummer suits and fits to the roses and the full green meads, so the
hum of the threshing suits to the yellowing leaf and drowsy air of
autumn. The iteration of hum and monotone soothes, and means so much more
in its inarticulation than the adjusted chords and tune of written music.
Laughing, the children romped round the ricks; they love the threshing
and flock to it, they watch the fly-wheel rotating, they look in at the
furnace door when the engine-driver stokes his fire, they gaze
wonderingly at the gauge, and long to turn the brass taps; then with a
shout they rush to chase the unhappy mice dislodged from the corn. The
mice hide themselves in the petticoats of the women working at the
'sheening,' and the cottager when she goes home in the evening calls her
cat and shakes them out of her skirts. By a blue waggon the farmer stands
leaning on his staff. He is an invalid, and his staff, or rather pole, is
as tall as himself; he holds it athwart, one end touching the ground
beyond his left foot, the other near his right shoulder. His right hand
grasps it rather high, and his left down by his hip, so that the pole
forms a line across his body. In this way he is steadied and supported
and his whole weight relieved, much more so than it would be with an
ordinary walking-stick or with one in each hand. When he walks he keeps
putting the staff, which he calls a bat, in front, and so poles himself