Sons of the Morning. Eden Phillpotts

not apparent. Mr. Libby could sing charming songs, and within the past week he was richer by a legacy of five hundred pounds. On the previous day he had come back from London to Little Silver, and now, still putting off his return to work, stood among the folk of Bear Down and posed as a person of some consequence. Sally's conduct woke indignation elsewhere than in her father's breast. Mr. Henry Collins glared at the grey figure of Gregory. The big-nosed man was a new hand at Bear Down; but one fortnight in the company of Sally had served to enslave Henry's maiden heart. He was in love with Miss Cramphorn, but thus far had hidden his secret.

      Beside the rising hayrick, sitting in sunshine with his face to the others, an old, bald labourer ate bread and onions and drank from a little cider barrel. His countenance showed a marvellous network of wrinkles; his scant hair, reduced to tufts above his ears, was very white; his whiskers were also white, and his eyes, blue as the summer sky, wore an expression of boyish frankness. His small, clean-shaved mouth was pursed like a young child's.

      "'Tis pity," he said, resuming the former topic, "'tis pity as missis can't find a way to mate wi' her cousin, Maister Myles Stapledon, him what be comin' to pay a visit presently. A snug man they say, an' a firm-footed—solid every way in fact. I mind last time he comed here—more'n ten year ago. A wise young youth even then."

      "Ban't purty Miss Endicott's sort by the sound of un," said Gregory Libby; then, accepting a drink of cider from a horn mug which Sally brought him, he drew forth a cigar from a yellow leather case. This he presently lighted, marched about, and puffed with great show of satisfaction, not oblivious to the attention he attracted.

      "A strange fashion way to take tobacco," said the ancient, who was called Churdles Ash.

      "So it is then," assented Mr. Cramphorn; "an' what's more, I ban't gwaine to allow 'tis a fit an' proper way of smokin' for the likes of him. What's five hunderd pound when all's said?"

      "'Twill blamed soon be five hunderd pence, if the man's gwaine to broadcast it away 'pon fantastic machines like them, as awnly gentlefolks have any business with," said Samuel Pinsent, another labourer, who passed for a great wit, chiefly by reason of a Merry-Andrew power to pull remarkable faces. He was a red man with weak eyes; and his fellows alleged him impervious to all feminine attractions.

      "For Sundays an' high rejoicings a cigar may pass now an' again," argued Henry Collins. "Not as I'm saying a word for Greg Libby," he added in violent haste, as he caught Sally's eye. "He'm a puny twoad an' always was—brass or no brass. What do the likes of him want wi' stiff collars 'pon week-days? Let un go back to his job, which was hedge-tacking, an' not done tu well neither, most times."

      "He'm the monkey as have seed the world," said old Ash, lighting a black pipe and crossing his hands over his stomach.

      Mr. Collins mopped his forehead, and looked up from where he sat. Then he tightened the leather thongs that fastened in his trousers below the knees and answered as he did so—

      "Seed the world! Him! I knaw what he seed. He seed a cheap tailor in the Edgware Road, Paddington way; an' he seed a wicked back street or two; an' no doubt a theayter——"

      "That'll do, if you please, Henery," said Mr. Cramphorn. "Me an' Ash, as weern't born essterday, can guess all the rest. I ban't in nature suspicious——"

      Then in his turn Jonah was interrupted.

      "Ess fay, you be, my son," declared Mr. Ash.

      "Anyway," answered the parent, darkly scowling, "I see my darter pulling eyes at the fule an' I won't stand it—wouldn't for twice five hunderd pound."

      "No need to fright yourself," said Churdles Ash, shaking his head. "Libby's not a marryin' man—tu selfish to marry while his auld mother's alive to slave for him an' kiss the ground he walks on. Besides, there's your other darter—Margery. He'm so set 'pon wan as t'other; but 'tis all philandering, not business."

      "He'll end by havin' a sore back anyways if I see much more of it. Sally to marry him indeed! Shaw me a purtier gal than Sally this side Exeter an' I'll give 'e a gawlden sovereign!"

      "An' I'll give 'e another!" declared Mr. Collins.

      At this moment Jonah's second daughter, together with one Mrs. Loveys, housekeeper at Bear Down, appeared. The latter was an ample, elderly widow. She had a capacious bosom, bare arms, and a most kindly face. Her late husband, Timothy Loveys, after a lifetime of service at Endicott's, passed within a year of his master; and upon his death Mr. Cramphorn had won promotion and was now head man. As for Margery, a thin, long-faced girl, cast in mould more fragile than her sister, she worked as dairymaid at the farm. She too was personable, but her slimmer contour, reserved manner, and sharp tongue contrasted ill, in masculine opinion, with Sally's physical exuberance and good temper.

      The women who now came to fetch empty utensils and baskets stayed awhile, and Mrs. Loveys asked a question.

      "An' what for be you offerin' gawlden sovereigns so free, Henry Collins?" she inquired with a side glance.

      "To find a purtier maiden than Sally, ma'am."

      Margery laughed and blushed, with her eyes on Mr. Libby.

      "What about missis?" she asked.

      "Missis," answered Jonah, "be a lady. She'm built on a different pattern, though with like material. No disrespect to her, as I'd shed my life's blood for, but the differ'nce betwixt she an' my Sally's the differ'nce betwixt sunlight an' moonlight."

      "Between a wind-flower an' a butivul, full-blawed cabbage rose," hazarded Mr. Collins.

      "Yet theer's them as would liefer have the windflower," said Margery, who secretly believed herself very like her mistress, and dressed as near to Honor as she dared. Mrs. Loveys nodded approval of this statement; Mr. Cramphorn stoutly questioned it.

      "What d'you say, Churdles?" asked Pinsent; "or be you tu auld to call home the maids you felt kind-like towards in last century when you was full o' sap?"

      "I say 'tis time to go to work," replied Mr. Ash, who never answered a question involving difference of opinion between his friends. "Come, Collins, 'Thirty Acres' to finish 'fore sundown, an' theer's full work 'pon it yet! An' you, Tommy Bates; you fall to sharpenin' the knives for the cutter, this minute!"

      He rose, walked with spreading feet and bent back across the road, then dipped down into a great field on the other side. There lay a machine-mower at the edge of the shorn hay, to the nakedness of which still rippled a russet ocean of standing grass. Colourless light passed in great waves over it; the lavender of knautias, together with too-frequent gold of yellow rattle, flashed in it; and the great expanse, viewed remotely, glowed with dull fire of seeding sorrels. Above, danced butterflies; within, the grasshoppers maintained a ceaseless stridulation; and soon the silvery knives were again purring at the cool heart of the undergreen, while ripe grassheads, flowers, sweet clovers, tottered and fell together in shining lines, where Churdles Ash, most just embodiment of Father Time, pursued his way, perched aloft behind two old horses. At each corner the jarring ceased a moment, and the old man's thin voice addressed his steeds; then an angle was turned, and he tinkled on again under the dancing heat. Elsewhere Tommy Bates prepared another knife, and sharpened its shark-like teeth with a file; Pinsent brought up a load of hay from a further field; Cramphorn ascended one rick, and took the harvest from the forks; while Sally and Collins turned the drying grasses at hand, and pursued the business of tossing them with dexterity begotten from long practice. Mr. Libby crept about in the near neighbourhood of the girl, but conscious that Jonah, from the high vantage of the rick, kept sharp eyes upon her, adventured no horseplay, and merely complimented her under his breath upon her splendid arms.

      Meanwhile, Christopher Yeoland had seen Honor to her home and so departed.

      Bear Down lay in the centre of hay lands immediately beneath the Moor. Above it stretched the heather-clad undulations of Scor Hill, and beneath subtended forest-hidden slopes. The farm itself was approached through a little avenue of sycamores, whose foliage, though it fell and turned to sere, black-spotted death sadly early in most autumns, yet made dimpled play of cool shadow through summer days on the great