Page 352 of 788

The women, reaping, had already begun their usual song, gloomy,

melancholy, and monotonous as a rainy day, all the sadder since

its sound soaked into the mist without an echo; the sickles

clinked in the grain, and the meadow resounded. A line of mowers

cutting the rowen whistled ceaselessly a jingling tune; at the

end of each swath they stopped, sharpened their scythes, and

rhythmically hammered them. The people could not be seen in the

mist; only the sickles, the scythes, and the songs hummed

together like the notes of invisible music.

In the centre, the Steward, seated on a pile of grain, turned his

head gloomily, and did not look at the work; he was gazing on the

highway, at the cross-roads, where something unusual was going

on.