GOING WESTWARD 233 



the cherry-coloured clusters of the guelder-rose break 

 through the rain and the gently changing grey of the 

 cornland and green of the valley, until several farms of 

 thatched brick gather together under elms and mellowing 

 chestnuts and make a crooked hamlet. Or at a bend in 

 the road a barn like a diminutive down stands among ricks 

 and under elms; behind is a red farm and church tower 

 embowered; in front, the threshing machine booms and 

 smokes and an old drenched woman stands bent aloft 

 receiving the sheaves in her blue stiff claws. Close by, 

 a man leads a horse away from a field and its companion 

 looks over the gate with longing, and turns away and 

 again returning almost jumps it, but failing through fear- 

 fulness at seeing the other so near the bend in the road, 

 races down the hedge and back and stands listening to 

 the other's whinny, and then scattering the turf dashes 

 into an orchard beyond and whinnies as he gallops. 



In majesty, rigid and black, the steam ploughs are 

 working up against the treeless sky; and, just seen in the 

 rain, the white horse carved upon the hill seems a living 

 thing, but of mist. 



Now, as if for the sake of the evening bells and the 

 gleaners, the rain withholds itself, and over the drenching 

 stubble the women and children, in black and grey and 

 dirty white, crawl, doubled up, careless of the bells and 

 of the soft moist gold of the sun that envelops them, as 

 of the rain and wind that after a little while cover up the 

 gold upon the field and the green and rose of the sky. 



And so to the inn. Why do not inns have a regular 

 tariff for the poorish man without a motor-car ? Let inn- 

 keepers bleed the rich, by all means, but why should they 

 charge me one shilling and ninepence for a cod steak or a 



