WHEATFIELDS 81 



the reaper to rest, the fight too stays, the ranks do not 

 retreat, and victory is only won by countless blows. The 

 boom of a bridge as a train rolls over the iron girders 

 resounds, and the brazen dome on the locomotive is 

 visible for a moment as it passes across the valley. But 

 no one heeds it the train goes on its way to the great 

 city, the reapers abide by their labour. Men and women, 

 lads and girls, some mere children, judged by their 

 stature, are plunged as it were in the wheat. 



The few that wear bright colours are seen : the many 

 who do not are unnoticed. Perhaps the dusky girl here 

 with the red scarf may have some strain of the gipsy, 

 some far-off reminiscence of the sunlit East which caused 

 her to wind it about her. The sheaf grows under her 

 fingers, it is bound about with a girdle of twisted stalks, 

 in which mingle the green bine of convolvulus and the 

 pink-streaked bells that must fade. 



Heat comes down from above ; heat comes up from 

 beneath, from the dry, white earth, from the rows of 

 stubble, as if emitted by the endless tubes of cut stalks 

 pointing upwards. Wheat is a plant of the sun : it loves 

 the heat, and heat crackles in the rustle of the straw. 

 The pimpernels above which the hook passed are wide 

 open : the larger white convolvulus trumpets droop 

 languidly on the low hedge : the distant hills are dim 

 with the vapour of heat ; the very clouds which stay 

 motionless in the sky reflect a yet more brilliant light 

 from their white edges. Is there no shadow ? 



There is no tree in the field, and the low hedge can 

 shelter nothing; but bordering the next, on rather higher 

 ground, is an ash copse, with some few spruce firs. 

 Resting on a rail in the shadow of these firs, a light air 

 now and again draws along beside the nut-tree bushes of 

 the hedge, the cooler atmosphere of the shadow, perhaps 



