We took our places under a five o'clock morning sky, and the larks
cried down to us as we stood knee-deep in the fragrant dew-steeped
grass, each man with his gleaming scythe poised ready for its
sweeping swing. Old Dodden led by right of age and ripe
experience; bent like a sickle, brown and dry as a nut, his face a
tracery of innumerable wrinkles, he has never ailed a day, and the
cunning of his craft was still with him. At first we worked
stiffly, unreadily, but soon the monotonous motion possessed us
with its insistent rhythm, and the grass bowed to each sibilant
swish and fell in sweet-smelling swathes at our feet. Now and then
a startled rabbit scurried through the miniature forest to vanish
with white flick of tail in the tangled hedge; here and there a
mother lark was discovered sitting motionless, immovable upon her
little brood; but save for these infrequent incidents we paced
steadily on with no speech save the cry of the hone on the steel
and the swish of the falling swathes. The sun rose high in the
heaven and burnt on bent neck and bare and aching arms, the blood
beat and drummed in my veins with the unwonted posture and
exercise; I worked as a man who sees and hears in a mist. Once, as
I paused to whet my scythe, my eye caught the line of the
untroubled hills strong and still in the broad sunshine; then to
work again in the labouring, fertile valley.

Rest time came, and wiping the sweat from brow and blade we sought
the welcome shadow of the hedge and the cool sweet oatmeal water
with which the wise reaper quenches his thirst. Farmer Marler
hastened off to see with master-eye that all went well elsewhere;
the farm men slept tranquilly, stretched at full length, clasped
hands for pillow; and old Dodden, sitting with crooked fingers