a blaze of passionate light and colour.

As he stood there, feeling a keener joy than he could ever remember the
personal having given him, all his philosophy, all his changing beliefs
in what was most worth while, resolved themselves into the passionate
cry: "Let beauty not die for me.... May dawn and sunset, twilight and
storm, hold their thrill to the last; may the young moon still cradle
magic and the old moon image peace; may the wind never fail to blow
freedom into my nostrils, and the sunlight strike to my heart till I
die. And if colour, light, shadow, and sound of birds' calling all fall
away from my failing senses, at least let the touch of earth be sweet to
my fingers and the air to my eyelids."

BOOK V

HARVEST

CHAPTER I

THE FOUR-ACRE

A little boy was riding into Cloom farmyard astride a big carthorse,
whistling and beating time with a toy switch upon its irresponsive
flanks. He was so small that his bare brown legs stuck straight out on
either side of him, but he sat upright and clutched the dark tangled
mane firmly. The horse planted his big gleaming hoofs with care, his
broad haunches heaved slightly as he went, and the child swayed securely
to the action. Beside the horse's arched neck walked an old man, less
sure of step than the animal; the child drummed with his sandalled feet
against the round sides of his steed and managed to kick the old man as
he did so.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Granpa!" he said in a clear treble, laughing a little,
not because he thought it was funny to have hit his grandfather, but
because it was such a fine day and it was so jolly on the big horse, and
he knew his grandfather would understand that he could not help laughing
at everything. The old man put up his hand and laid it gently on the
slim brown leg, keeping it there till the horse stopped in the middle of
the yard, when he held up both his arms and the boy slipped down into
them.

"Jim!" called at woman's voice from the house. "Jim! Hurry up; it's past
lesson-time."

"Bother!" said Jim regretfully; "it's always lesson-time just as I'm
really occupied. I wish I was a grown-up and could do what I liked."

The old man did not contradict him with a well-worn platitude, because
he knew that in the way the child meant grown-ups did have a great deal
of freedom.

"You wouldn't like to be as old as I am, would you, Jim?" he asked. Jim
regarded him thoughtfully; evidently this was the first time he had ev