ands of different hues, one above
the other, like the strata of a geological map. Some of the hay was put
up damp, some in good condition, and some had been browned by bad
weather before being carted.

About the straw-rick, and over the chaff that everywhere strews the
earth, numerous fowls search, and by the gateway Chanticleer proudly
stands, tall and upright, the king of the rickyard still, as he and his
ancestors have been these hundreds of years. Under the granary, which is
built on stone staddles, to exclude the mice, some turkeys are huddled
together calling occasionally for a "halter," and beyond them the green,
glossy neck of a drake glistens in the sunshine.

When the corn is high, and sometimes before it is well up, the doors of
the barn are daily open, and shock-headed children peer over the hatch.
There are others within playing and tumbling on a heap of straw--always
straw--which is their bed at night. The sacks which form their
counterpane are rolled aside, and they have half the barn for their
nursery. If it is wet, at least one great girl and the mother will be
there too, gravely sewing, and sitting where they can see all that goes
along the road.

A hundred yards away, in a corner of an arable field, the very windiest
and most draughty that could be chosen, where the hedge is cut down so
that it can barely be called a hedge, and where the elms draw the wind,
the men of the family crowd over a smoky fire. In the wind and rain the
fire could not burn at all had they not by means of a stick propped up a
hurdle to windward, and thus sheltered it. As it is there seems no
flame, only white embers and a flow of smoke, into which the men from
time to time cast the dead wood they have gathered. Here the pot is
boiled and the cooking accomplished at a safe distance from the litter
and straw of the rickyard.

These people are Irish, who come year after year to the same barn for
the hoeing and the harvest, travelling from the distant West to gather
agricultural wages on the verge of the metropolis.

In fine summer weather, beside the usual business traffic, there goes
past this windy bare corner a constant stream of pleasure-seekers,
heavily laden four-in-hands, tandems, dog-carts, equestrians, and open
carriages, filled with well-dressed ladies. They represent the abundant
gold of trade and commerce. In their careless luxury they do not
notice--how should they?--the smoky fire in the barren corner, or the
s