s himself and longer, and tumbles now and again with
it, in the deeper part of the stubble.

We, the men, kept marching onwards down the flank of the yellow wall,
with knees bent wide, and left arm bowed and right arm flashing steel.
Each man in his several place, keeping down the rig or chine, on the
right side of the reaper in front, and the left of the man that followed
him, each making farther sweep and inroad into the golden breadth and
depth, each casting leftwards his rich clearance on his foregoer's
double track.

So like half a wedge of wildfowl, to and fro we swept the field; and
when to either hedge we came, sickles wanted whetting, and throats
required moistening, and backs were in need of easing, and every man had
much to say, and women wanted praising. Then all returned to the other
end, with reaping-hooks beneath our arms, and dogs left to mind jackets.

But now, will you believe me well, or will you only laugh at me? For
even in the world of wheat, when deep among the varnished crispness of
the jointed stalks, and below the feathered yielding of the graceful
heads, even as I gripped the swathes and swept the sickle round them,
even as I flung them by to rest on brother stubble, through the whirling
yellow world, and eagerness of reaping, came the vision of my love, as
with downcast eyes she wondered at my power of passion. And then the
sweet remembrance glowed brighter than the sun through wheat, through my
very depth of heart, of how she raised those beaming eyes, and ripened
in my breast rich hope. Even now I could descry, like high waves in the
distance, the rounded heads and folded shadows of the wood of Bagworthy.
Perhaps she was walking in the valley, and softly gazing up at them. Oh,
to be a bird just there! I could see a bright mist hanging just above
the Doone Glen. Perhaps it was shedding its drizzle upon her. Oh, to
be a drop of rain! The very breeze which bowed the harvest to my bosom
gently, might have come direct from Lorna, with her sweet voice laden.
Ah, the flaws of air that wander where they will around her, fan her
bright cheek, play with lashes, even revel in her hair and reveal her
beauties--man is but a breath, we know, would I were such breath as
that!

But confound it, while I ponder, with delicious dreams suspended, with
my right arm hanging frustrate and the giant sickle drooped, with my
left arm bowed for clasping something more germane than wheat, and my
eyes not minding b