and went herself
towards the harvest field.

There they stood--the rows of golden "shocks" or stooks. The "shockers"
had just finished their day's work. She could hear the footsteps of the
last batch, a cheerful chatter, while talk and laughter came softened
through the evening air. The man who had been driving the reaping machine
was doing some rough repairs to it in a far corner of the field, with a
view to the morrow, and she caught sight of her new bailiff, Hastings,
who had waited to see everybody off, disappearing towards his own
cottage, which stood on a lonely spur of the down. The light was fast
going, but the deep glow of the western sky answered the paler gold of
the new-made stubble and the ranged stooks, while between rose the dark
and splendid masses of the woods.

Rachel stood looking at the scene, possessed by a pleasure which in her
was always an ardour. She felt nothing by halves. The pulse of life beat
in her still with an energy, a passion, that astonished herself. She was
full of eagerness for her new work and for success in it, full of
desires, too, for vague, half-seen things, things she had missed so
Far--her own fault. But somewhere in the long, hidden years, they must,
they should be waiting for her.

The harvest was magnificent. She had paid the Wellins a high price for
the standing crops, but there was going to be a profit on her bargain.
Her mind was full of schemes, if only she could get the labour to carry
them out. Farming was now on the up-grade. She had come into it at the
very best moment, and England would never let farming go down again,
after the war, for her own safety's sake.

_The War_! She felt towards it as to some distant force, which, so far as
she personally was concerned, was a force for good. Owing to the war,
farming was booming all over England, and she was in the boom, taking
advantage of it. Yet she was ashamed to think of the war only in that
way. She tried to tame the strange ferment in her blood, and could only
do it by reminding herself of Hastings's wounded son, whose letter he had
showed her. And then--in imagination--she began to see thousands of
others like him, in hospital beds, or lying dead in trampled fields. Her
mood softened, the tears came into her eyes.

Suddenly--a slight whimper--a child's whimper--close beside her. She
paused in amazement, looking round her, till the whimper was renewed; and
there, almost at her feet, cradled in the fragrant hol