Chapter I 



IAWN broadened into day- 

 light as the teams came 

 out to the clover land at 

 White Oaks. Neighbor- 

 ing fallowers had been at 

 work since they could see 

 a hand before them, but 

 Major Baker, the master of White Oaks, was 

 merciful to his beasts, especially his plough- 

 beasts. He knew they got their best sleep 

 in the hour or two before dawn, as he knew 

 also that for fallowing they needed all the 

 strength sleep and rest could give. He liked 

 to think of them stretched at ease, sometimes 

 even snoring as a tired man snores. Waking 

 them to be fed about the second chicken- 

 crow, was, to his way of looking at things, 

 haste without speed. 



The clover lay upland, in broad undulant 

 reaches, without a stump or a serious gall to 

 break its expanse. Here or there sparse 



