cornfields immediately without London on the southern side are among
the first to be reaped. Regular as if clipped to a certain height, the
level wheat shows the slope of the ground, corresponding to it, so that
the glance travels swiftly and unchecked across the fields. They scarce
seemed divided, for the yellow ears on either side rise as high as the
cropped hedge between.

Red spots, like larger poppies, now appear above and now dive down again
beneath the golden surface. These are the red caps worn by some of the
reapers; some of the girls, too, have a red scarf across the shoulder or
round the waist. By instinctive sympathy the heat of summer requires the
contrast of brilliant hues, of scarlet and gold, of poppy and wheat.

A girl, as she rises from her stooping position, turns a face, brown, as
if stained with walnut juice, towards me, the plain gold ring in her
brown ear gleams, so, too, the rings on her finger, nearly black from
the sun, but her dark eyes scarcely pause a second on a stranger. She is
too busy, her tanned fingers are at work again gathering up the cut
wheat. This is no gentle labour, but "hard hand-play," like that in the
battle of the olden time sung by the Saxon poet.

The ceaseless stroke of the reaping-hook falls on the ranks of the corn:
the corn yields, but only inch by inch. If the burning sun, or thirst,
or weariness forces the reaper to rest, the fight too stays, the ranks
do not retreat, and victory is only won by countless blows. The boom of
a bridge as a train rolls over the iron girders resounds, and the brazen
dome on the locomotive is visible for a moment as it passes across the
valley. But no one heeds it--the train goes on its way to the great
city, the reapers abide by their labour. Men and women, lads and girls,
some mere children, judged by their stature, are plunged as it were in
the wheat.

The few that wear bright colours are seen: the many who do not are
unnoticed. Perhaps the dusky girl here with the red scarf may have some
strain of the gipsy, some far-off reminiscence of the sunlit East which
caused her to wind it about her. The sheaf grows under her fingers, it
is bound about with a girdle of twisted stalks, in which mingle the
green bine of convolvulus and the pink-streaked bells that must fade.

Heat comes down from above; heat comes up from beneath, from the dry,
white earth, from the rows of stubble, as if emitted by the endless
tubes of cut stalks pointing up