172 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



"I think I will, for I can hear that Mary is behind 

 with the separator." 



"She's a good girl, but she hasn't got your patience, 

 my dear." 



" Oh, here, Sam, here's the change," she said, giving 

 him the bunch of maize. 



In Cornwall many of the women looked less English 

 than the men. The noticeable men were fair-haired 

 and of fair complexion, blue-eyed and rather small- 

 headed, upright and of good bearing. The noticeable 

 women had black hair, pale, seldom swarthy, faces, very 

 dark eyes. Perhaps the eyes were more foreign than 

 anything else in them : they were singularly immobile 

 and seldom changed in expression with their voices. 

 Several of the dark-eyed, black-haired women had a 

 beauty of a fearless character like gypsy women, in 

 their m.ovement and expression. But the wives of small 

 farmers and miners on piecework look old very soon 

 and are puckered and shadowy in the face. Some of 

 these middle-aged and old women suggested an early 

 and barbarous generation. The eyes were small and 

 deep-set, and the face narrowed forward like an animal's; 

 which gave the whole a peering expression of suspicion 

 and even alarm. The eyes of most human beings are 

 causes of bewilderment and dismay if curiously looked at; 

 but the strangest I ever saw were in an old Cornish 

 woman. They were black and round as a child's, with 

 a cold brightness that made them seem not of the 

 substance of other eyes, but like a stone. They were 

 set in a narrow, bony face of parchment among grey 

 hair crisp and disarrayed. I saw them only for a few 



