THE COUNTRY-SIDE: SUSSEX. 77 



that man should starve. To-day the sparrows are just 

 as busy as ever of old, chatter, chirp around the old 

 barn, while the threshing machine hums, and every now 

 and then lowers its voice in a long-drawn descending 

 groan of seemingly deep agony. Up it rises again as 

 the sheaves are cast in — hum, hum, hum ; the note rises 

 and resounds and fills the yard up to the roof of the 

 barn and the highest tops of the ricks as a flood fills a 

 pool, and overflowing, rushes abroad over the fields, past 

 the red hop-oast, past the copse of yellowing larches, 

 onwards to the hills. An inarticulate music — a chant 

 telling of the sunlit hours that have gone and the 

 shadows that floated under the clouds over the beautiful 

 wheat. No more shall the tall stems wave in the wind 

 or listen to the bees seeking the clover-fields. The lark 

 that sang above the green corn, the partridge that shel- 

 tered among the yellow stalks, the list of living things 

 delighting in it — all have departed. The joyous life of 

 the wheat is ended— not in vain, for now the grain be- 

 comes the life of man, and in that object yet more 

 glorified. Outwards the chant extending, reaches the 

 hollows of the valley, rolling over the shortened stubble, 

 where the plough already begins the first verse of a new 

 time. A pleasant sound to listen to, the hum of the 

 threshing, the beating of the engine, the rustle of the 

 straw, the shuffle shuffle of the machine, the voices of 

 the men, the occupation and bustle in the autumn after- 

 noon ! I listened to it sitting in the hop-oast, whose 

 tower, like a castle turret, overlooks and domineers the 

 yard. In the loft the resounding hum whirled around, 

 beating and rebounding from the walls, and forcing its 

 way out again through the narrow window. The edge, 

 as it were, of a sunbeam lit up the rude chamber crossed 

 with unhewn beams and roofed above with unconceale/1 



