ver were the stalactites of a huge cave. At
this end the scent of sheep and wool and men had not yet routed that home
essence of the barn, like the savour of acorns and withering beech
leaves.

They were shearing by hand this year, nine of them, counting the postman,
who, though farm-bred, "did'n putt much to the shearin'," but had come to
round the sheep up and give general aid.

Sitting on the creatures, or with a leg firmly crooked over their heads,
each shearer, even the two boys, had an air of going at it in his own
way. In their white canvas shearing suits they worked very steadily,
almost in silence, as if drowsed by the "click-clip, click-clip" of the
shears. And the sheep, but for an occasional wriggle of legs or head,
lay quiet enough, having an inborn sense perhaps of the fitness of
things, even when, once in a way, they lost more than wool; glad too,
mayhap, to be rid of their matted vestments. From time to time the
little damsel offered each shearer a jug and glass, but no man drank till
he had finished his sheep; then he would get up, stretch his cramped
muscles, drink deep, and almost instantly sit down again on a fresh
beast. And always there was the buzz of flies swarming in the sunlight
of the open doorway, the dry rustle of the pollarded lime-trees in the
sharp wind outside, the bleating of some released ewe, upset at her own
nakedness, the scrape and shuffle of heels and sheep's limbs on the
floor, together with the "click-clip, click-clip" of the shears.

As each ewe, finished with, struggled up, helped by a friendly shove, and
bolted out dazedly into the pen, I could not help wondering what was
passing in her head--in the heads of all those unceremoniously treated
creatures; and, moving nearer to the postman, I said:

"They're really very good, on the whole."

He looked at me, I thought, queerly.

"Yaas," he answered; "Mr. Molton's the best of them."

I looked askance at Mr. Molton; but, with his knee crooked round a young
ewe, he was shearing calmly.

"Yes," I admitted, "he is certainly good."

"Yaas," replied the postman.

Edging back into the darkness, away from that uncomprehending youth, I
escaped into the air, and passing the remains of last year's stacks under
the tall, toppling elms, sat down in a field under the bank. It seemed to
me that I had food for thought. In that little misunderstanding between
me and the postman was all the essence of the difference between that
s