er stiff.

Saturday was cloudless; a perfect day. The field she was working in lay
on a slope. It was the last field to be cut, and the best wheat yet,
with a glorious burnt shade in its gold and the ears blunt and full. She
had got used now to the feel of the great sheaves in her arms, and the
binding wisps drawn through her hand till she held them level, below the
ears, ready for the twist. There was no new sensation in it now; just
steady, rather dreamy work, to keep her place in the row, to the
swish-swish of the cutter and the call of the driver to his horses at the
turns; with continual little pauses, to straighten and rest her back a
moment, and shake her head free from the flies, or suck her finger, sore
from the constant pushing of the straw ends under. So the hours went on,
rather hot and wearisome, yet with a feeling of something good being
done, of a job getting surely to its end. And gradually the centre patch
narrowed, and the sun slowly slanted down.

When they stopped for tea, instead of running home as usual, she drank it
cold out of a flask she had brought, ate a bun and some chocolate, and
lay down on her back against the hedge. She always avoided that group of
her fellow workers round the tea-cans which the farmer's wife brought
out. To avoid people, if she could, had become habitual to her now.
They must know about her, or would soon if she gave them the chance. She
had never lost consciousness of her ring-finger, expecting every eye to
fall on it as a matter of course. Lying on her face, she puffed her
cigarette into the grass, and watched a beetle, till one of the
sheep-dogs, scouting for scraps, came up, and she fed him with her second
bun. Having finished the bun, he tried to eat the beetle, and, when she
rescued it, convinced that she had nothing more to give him, sneezed at
her, and went away. Pressing the end of her cigarette out against the
bank, she turned over. Already the driver was perched on his tiny seat,
and his companion, whose business it was to free the falling corn, was
getting up alongside. Swish-swish! It had begun again. She rose,
stretched herself, and went back to her place in the row. The field
would be finished to-night; she would have a lovely rest-all Sunday I
Towards seven o'clock a narrow strip, not twenty yards broad, alone was
left. This last half hour was what Noel dreaded. To-day it was worse,
for the farmer had no cartridges left, and the rabbits w