A BARN 75 



of Elizabethan days, calm and complacent though the 

 Armada be at hand. There are the ricks just the same, 

 here is the barn, and the horses are in good case ; the 

 wheat is coming on well. Armies may march, but these 

 are the same. 



When his waggon creaks along the road towards the 

 town his eldest lad walks proudly by the leader's head, 

 and two younger boys ride in the vehicle. They pass 

 under the great elms ; now the sunshine and now the 

 shadow falls upon them ; the horses move with measured 

 step and without haste, and both horses and human folks 

 are content in themselves. 



As you sit in summer on the beach and gaze afar over 

 the blue waters scarcely flecked with foam, how slowly 

 the distant ship moves along the horizon. It is almost, 

 but not quite, still. You go to lunch and return, and 

 the vessel is still there ; what patience the man at the 

 wheel must have. So, now, resting here on the stile, 

 see the plough yonder, travelling as it were with all 

 sails set. 



Three shapely horses in line draw the share. The 

 traces are taut, the swing-tree like a yard braced square, 

 the helmsman at the tiller bears hard upon the stilts. 

 But does it move ? The leading horse, seen distinct 

 against the sky, lifts a hoof and places it down again, 

 stepping in the last furrow made. But then there is a 

 perceptible pause before the next hoof rises, and yet 

 again a perceptible delay in the pull of the muscles. 

 The stooping ploughman walking in the new furrow, 

 with one foot often on the level and the other in the 

 hollow, sways a little with the lurch of his implement, 

 but barely drifts ahead. 



While watched they scarcely move; but now look 

 away for a time and on returning the plough itself and 



