Harvest

Two old labourers came out of the lane leading to Great End Farm. Both carried bags slungon sticks over their shoulders. One, the eldest and tallest, was a handsome fellow, withregular features and a delicately humorous mouth. His stoop and his slouching gait, thegray locks also, which straggled from under his broad hat, showed him an old man-probably very near his old-age pension. But he carried still with him a look of youth, and hehad been a splendid creature in his time. The other was short of stature and of neck, bentbesides by field work. A broadly-built, clumsy man, with something gnome-like about him, and the cheerful look of one whose country nerves had never known the touch of worry orlong sickness. The name of the taller man was Peter Halsey, and Joseph Batts was hiscompanion.It was a fine July evening, with a cold north wind blowing from the plain which laystretched to their right. Under the unclouded sun, which by its own "sun-time" had onlyreached half-past four in the afternoon, though the clock in the village church had alreadystruck half-past five, the air was dry and parching, and the fields all round, the road itself, and the dusty hedges showed signs of long drough