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 unconcealed 
