he 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 were dealt
with by hullabaloo and sticks and chasing dogs. Rabbits were vermin, of
course, and ate the crops, and must be killed; besides, they were good
food, and fetched two shillings apiece; all this she knew but to see
the poor frightened things stealing out, pounced on, turned, shouted
at, chased, rolled over by great swift dogs, fallen on by the boys and
killed and carried with their limp grey bodies upside down, so dead
and soft and helpless, always made her feel quite sick. She stood very
still, trying not to see or hear, and in the corn opposite to her a
rabbit stole along, crouched, and peeped. 'Oh!' she thought, 'come out
here, bunny. I'll let you away--can't you see I will? It's your only
chance. Come out!' But the rabbit crouched, and gazed, with its little
cowed head poked forward, and its ears laid flat; it seemed trying to
understand whether this still thing in front of it was the same as those
others. With the thought, 'Of course it won't while I look at it,' Noel
turned her head away. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a man
standing a few yards off. The