RUSTIC SOUNDS ii 



on its loud chant-like tone. This sound is con- 

 nected with recollections of riding in the empty 

 hay-cart, from the sea-green stack mysteriously 

 growing in the corner of the field back to where hay 

 waited to be carted. The inside of the hay-cart 

 was enchantingly poHshed, and also full of hay-seed, 

 which had a charm for me. The ha3^-making at 

 Down was a leisurely affair, with many women 

 gossiping as they gently turned the hay. There 

 was, however, one man of whom we children were 

 much afraid, a fierce red-eyed old labourer who 

 acted as foreman, and did not hesitate to show that 

 he thought us out of place in a hay-field. 



One sound there was peculiar to Down, — I mean 

 the sound of drawing water. In that dry chalky 

 country we depended for drinking-water on a 

 deep w^ell from which it came up cold and pure in 

 buckets. These were raised by a wfre rope wound 

 on a spindle turned by a heavy fly-wheel, and it was 

 the monotonous song of the turning wheel that 

 became so familiar to us. The well-house, gloomily 

 placed among laurel bushes, had a sort of terrifying 

 attraction for us, and I remember dropping pebbles 

 and waiting — it seemed ages — for them to fall into 

 the water below. We believed the well to be 

 365 feet deep, also that this was the height of the 

 dome of St. Paul's — I have never tested the truth 

 of either statement. The opening was roofed in 

 by a pair of hinged flaps, or doors, and I especially 

 liked the moment when the rising bucket crashed 

 into the doors from below, throwing them open 

 with a brutal and roystering air, which one forgave 

 it as having made a long and dangerous journey 



