XYIII. 



HAYMAKING BEGINS. 



THE early season has told upon the hay more than upon 

 any other crop this year, perhaps ; and the thick swathes 

 are already lying in long parallel curves upon the bulging 

 side of Stonebarrow Hill. There is no more beautiful 

 sight among all the beautiful sights of the country than to 

 see the scythes following one another in measured rhythm 

 along a convex undulation on the hill-side, and to watch 

 the swathes forming, as if by magic, in regular ranks 

 behind each mower as he moves quickly and skilfully 

 across the transformed field. It is a graceful combina- 

 tion of natural beauty and simple human art : a combina- 

 tion in which each rather adds to than diminishes the 

 effect of the other. Behind the mowers, in the still un- 

 cut portion of the meadow, the grasses sway and bend 

 before the wind in broken curves looking almost as 

 though the whole mass were moving swiftly like a river 

 in the direction of the breeze. But in the foreground, 

 the long even line of the mown edge stands up sharply 

 like a wall with human regularity ; and still nearer, the 

 great sweeping rows of fresh hay lie one in front of the 

 other with human consecutiveness. In the level field 

 that fills up the alluvial valley below, one can see the 

 same thing more strikingly displayed ; for there the 

 crop is crimson clover, a wide expanse of such color as 

 we rarely find on English meadows ; and it has been cut 

 into squarely for fresh fodder, so that a great rectangular 

 patch of green runs abruptly into the serried ranks of 



