One of the New Voters 



eaten his bread-and-cheese for supper there, and that 

 fragments might have dropped between the boards. 

 There were none. They mounted the boards and 

 sniffed round him; they would have stolen the food 

 from his very pocket if it had been there. Nor could 

 they find a bundle in a handkerchief, which they would 

 have gnawn through speedily. Not a scrap of food 

 was there to be smelt at, so they left him. Roger had 

 indeed gone supperless, as usual; his supper he had 

 swilled and not eaten. His own fault; he should 

 have exercised self-control. Well, I don't know; let 

 us consider further before we judge. 



In houses the difficulty often is to get the servants 

 up in the morning; one cannot wake, and the rest 

 sleep too sound much the same thing; yet they 

 have clocks and alarums. The reapers are never 

 behind. Roger got off his planks, shook himself, 

 went outside the shed, and tightened his shoelaces 

 in the bright light. His rough hair he just pushed 

 back from his forehead, and that was his toilet. His 

 dry throat sent him to the pump, but he did not 

 swallow much of the water he washed his mouth 

 out, and that was enough; and so without breakfast 

 he went to his work. Looking down from the stile 

 on the high ground there seemed to be a white cloud 

 resting on the valley, through which the tops of the 

 high trees penetrated; the hedgerows beneath were 

 concealed, and their course could only be traced by 

 the upper branches of the elms. Under this cloud 

 the wheat-fields were blotted out; there seemed 

 neither corn nor grass, work for man nor food for 

 animal; there could be nothing doing there surely. 

 In the stillness of the August morning, without song 

 of bird, the sun, shining brilliantly high above the 

 mist, seemed to be the only living thing, to possess 



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