Harvest

lly v

ed up the hill beside the carriage, to the high point where both she a

the small enclosures and the hedgerow timber, that make all the difference between the English midlands and, say, the plain of Champagne, or a Russian steppe. Across the wide, many-coloured scene, great clouds from

p filled it. The gully ran far and deep into the heart of the forest country, with a light railway winding along the bottom, towards an unseen road. The steep sides of the valley-Rachel and Janet stood on the edge of one of them-were covered with felled trees, cut the preceding winter, and left as they fell. The dead branch and leaf of the trees had t

cried

roached a group of figures and horses congregated at the head of the valley, near an engine puffing smoke. Then something invisible happened, and presently a trolley piled h

g all the time of a letter she had received that morning from her sol

Deliberate loot and malice everywhere, and tales of things done in the villages that make one see red. We captured a letter to his wife on a dead German this morning: 'Well,

he English timber girls, was forbidden. But what were they saying among themselves-what were they thinking-these peasants, some perhaps from the Rhineland, or the beautiful Bavarian country, or the Prussian plains? Janet had travelled a good deal in Germany before the war, using her holidays as a mistress in a secondary school, and her small savings, in a k

hill the Canadian forestry camp; whilst just beneath t

on their left, another great tree s

seen all this bef

saw anything

anet had noticed with surprise that it was Rachel herself who, when the harvest was nearly over, had revived the subject of the camp, and planned the drive for

them in a trice, ready for loading. Round the engine and at the starting-place of the trolleys was a busy crowd: lean and bronzed Canadians; women in leather breeches and coats, busily measuring and marking; a team of horses showing

ge. A stately woman, black-haired, in coat and breeches like the rest, with a felt hat, and a badge of authority, touches of green besides on

ing, with hand

scene, isn't it? Life doesn't stand still nowaday

nharnessed the pony

nd walked on beside them, describing the differen

ts them on to the trolley. But before the hooks get them-you see the girls there?-they do all the measuring; they note everything in their books and they mark every log. All the payments of the camp, the wages paid, the sums earned b

ian?" as

lls and, camps under him. So he volunteered a year ago to bring over a large Forestry batta

raised he

n Elles

was aware of a thin, handsome face bronzed by exposure, a pair of blue eyes, rather pale in colour, to which the sunburn of brow and cheek gave a singular brilliance, and a well-cut, determin

ee the camp?" he sai

too busy t

nted just now. Let me he

out hi

h the timber girls at their measuring. As the two visitors approached, land-women and forest-women eyed each other with friendly looks, but without speech. For talk, indeed, the business in hand was far too strenuous. The logs were coming in fast;

in Janet's ear, amid the din of the engines, "but

ound the wild

o c

e. The officers come-some of them-every Saturday. We take down the partitions in our

culty with the men w

kind, everything they should be. But then," she added proudly, "my girls are the pick-educated women all of

explaining the organization of the camp to Rachel as they slowly climbed th

down on the scene below. "We on our farm, or you here? I've never had mo

head back w

ish. Oh, yes, there's plenty of work-for the moment. But it'll be all done

ed to A

king of Canada. D

dded hastily: "But I n

clever too-couldn't make anything of it in Canada. I had a couple of square miles of forest to look afte

're not

of money. Then came the war. My brother joined up with the Canadian army. I stayed behind to try and settle up the business, till the States went in, too. Then they set me and some other fellows to raise a Forestry battalio

talk flowed on. He was frank about himself, and full of self-confidence; but there was a winning human note in it, and Rachel listened eagerly, talking readily, too, whenever there was an opening. They climbed to the top of the hill where they stood on the northern edge of the forest, looking across the basin

ve two corporals of their own who keep order. Oh, of course we have our eyes open. There are some sly beggars am

wed, nothing would induce her to risk it. There were a good many on Colonel Shepherd's estate, and she sometimes met them, bicycl

u!" he repeat

mean. It seems

he land army dress

I'm at

e said candidly. "These girls here look awfu

narily becoming. But she puzzled him. There was something about her quite different from the girls of the hostel. She appeared to be older and riper than they; yet he did not believe she was a day more than five-and-twe

at an Englishwoman, I'd know the reason why!"

esn't want to be a nuisance in war t

smi

always say, and-exc

laug

e can-the m

the old-fashioned woman," he said obstinately. "It isn't

what they

tting your own way, see

s a trifle

We're not the ignorant babes our grandmothers wer

re revolutionary point of view. Secretly, he was a good deal repelled by some of his companion's opinions, and her expression of them. She quoted Wells and Shaw, and he hated both. He was an idealist and a romantic, with a volume of poems in his pocket. She, it seemed, was still on a rising wave of rebellion, moral and social, like so many women; while his

unexpected veins and pockets of something much softer and more appealing. She had astonishing returns upon herself; and after some sentiment that had seemed to him silly or even ou

ead their canopy of leaf, and through their close stems ran dark aisles of shadow. Below them was the tree-strewn hill-side. In the hollow Rachel could see Janet Leighton and Mrs. Fergusson among the measuring girls; the horses moving to and fro; the Canadian lumber-men catching at and guiding the logs; the trolleys descending the valley; while just

he man who had been standing among the dead brushwood on the other side of the descending timber, abou

cry fo

ound, and writhing in great pain. The prisoner's cap had fallen off, and revealed a young German lad of nineteen or twenty, hardly conscious, and groaning pitifully at interva

the body," Ellesborough explained. "Give him

le fingers he began t

ps. "I must go down and get some men and a stretcher. They won't know what to do without me. My

swift, investi

terrup

t to do, and

llar and very gently tri

Ellesborough's face softened. He bent over him and said something in German. R

if you can, and try an

se to his feet. "I sh

etch a stretcher, and if possible a doctor, from the small camp hospital which Mrs. Fergusson had pointed out to her near the gate. Meanwhile, for a few minutes, she was alone with this suffering lad. Was he fatally hurt-dying? She managed to get some b

n captured in the fighting of July, perhaps in his first action. Captain Ellesborough had said to her that there was no fighting spirit among any of the prisoners. They were thankful to find themselves out of it, "safely captured," as one of them h

n the face of Captain Ellesborough. She would have hated him if he had shown any touch

d Janet climbing rapidly towards her. And behind them ca

*

d was carried to hospital, where the surgeon shook his head

new woman, with its widening horizons, its atmosphere of change and discovery, its independence of men, soothed some deep smart in her that Janet was only now beginning to real

that she should find herself driving the pony-carriage up the hill, while Ellesborough and Rachel walked behind, and at a lengthening distance. Once or twice she looked back, and saw that the captain was gathering some of the abounding wild flowers which had sprung up on

anada. Well, such things, in the case of a girl with the temperament of Rachel, are only meant to be absorbed in another love affair. They are t

r ignorance surprised him, and the next, some shrewd or cynical note in what she was saying scattered the ingénue impression, and piqued his curiosity afresh. She was indeed crassly ignorant about many current affairs in which he himself was keenly interested, and of which he supposed all educated women must by now have learnt the ABC. She could not have given him the simplest historical outline of the great war; he saw that she was quite uncertain whether Lloyd George or Asquit

different thing. But it do

in the Dominion, he presently calculated, about seven or eight years; but she avoided names and dates, how adroitly, he did not perceive till they had parted, and he was thinking over their walk. She must have gone out to Canada immediately after leaving school. He gathered that her father had been a clergyman, and was dead; that she knew the prairie life, but had never been in British Columbia, and only a f

tting; the clouds had been flung aside, and he shone full upon the harvest world-such a harvest world as England had not seen for a century. There they lay, the new

h, with an approving smile, as he pointed towar

've got three fields sti

e the best.

nsfigured in the light, the wind bl

ee you?" he asked

iled a

nd some of it threshed. I shall be

s off, running like a fawn afte

ps had struck deepest had been the sweetness of her as she hung above the injured boy. He went slow