The Open Air 



the whole and reign above absolute peace. It is a 

 curious sight to see the early harvest morn all 

 hushed under the burning sun, a morn that you 

 know is full of life and meaning, yet quiet as if man's 

 foot had never trodden the land. Only the sun is 

 there, rolling on his endless way. 



Roger's head was bound with brass, but had it 

 not been he would not have observed anything in 

 the aspect of the earth. Had a brazen band been 

 drawn firmly round his forehead it could not have 

 felt more stupefied. His eyes blinked in the sun- 

 light; every now and then he stopped to save him- 

 self from staggering; he was not in a condition to 

 think. It would have mattered not at all if his head 

 had been clear; earth, sky, and sun were nothing 

 to him; he knew the footpath, and saw that the 

 day would be fine and hot, and that was sufficient 

 for him, because his eyes had never been opened. 



The reaper had risen early to his labour, but the 

 birds had preceded him hours. Before the sun was 

 up the swallows had left their beams in the cow- 

 shed and twittered out into the air. The rooks and 

 wood-pigeons and doves had gone to the corn, the 

 blackbird to the stream, the finch to the hedgerow, 

 the bees to the heath on the hills, the humble-bees 

 to the clover in the plain. Butterflies rose from the 

 flowers by the footpath, and fluttered before him to 

 and fro and round and back again to the place whence 

 they had been driven. Goldfinches tasting the first 

 thistledown rose from the corner where the thistles 

 grew thickly. A hundred sparrows came rushing up 

 into the hedge, suddenly filling the boughs with 

 brown fruit; they chirped and quarrelled in their 

 talk, and rushed away again back to the corn as he 

 stepped nearer. The boughs were stripped of their 



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