Harvest | Page 6

no picking and choosing now.
If they were eighty I should have to take them! till the harvest's got in.
There are two girls coming from the Land Army, and you've clinched
that other girl from the village?"
Hastings nodded.
"Well, I dare say we shall get the harvest in somehow," she said,
standing at the gate, and looking over the fields. "Miss Leighton and I
mean to put our backs into it. But Miss Leighton isn't as strong as I
am."
Her eyes wandered thoughtfully over the wheat-field, ablaze under the
level gold of the sun. Then she suddenly smiled.
"I expect you think it a queer business, Mr. Hastings, women taking to
farming?"
"Well, it's new, you see, Miss Henderson."
"I believe it's going to be very common. Why shouldn't the women do
it!" She frowned a little.
"Oh, no reason at all," said Hastings hurriedly, thinking he had
offended her. "I've nothing against it myself. And there won't be men
enough to go round, after the war."
She looked at him sharply.
"You've got a son in the war?"
"Two, and one's been killed."
"Last year?"
"No, last month."
Miss Henderson said nothing, but her look was full of softness. "He
was to have been allowed home directly," Hastings went on, "for two
or three months. He was head woodman before the war on Lord
Radley's property." He pointed to the wooded slopes of the hill. "And
they were to have given him leave to see to the cutting of these woods."
"These woods!" Miss Henderson turned a startled face upon him. "You
don't mean to say they're coming down!"
"Half of them commandeered," said Hastings, with a shrug. "The

Government valuers have been all over them these last weeks. They're
splendid timber, you know. There's been a timber camp the other side
of the hills a long while. They've got Canadians, and no doubt they'll
move on here."
Miss Henderson made another quick movement. She said nothing,
however. She was staring at the woods, which shone in the glow now
steadily creeping up the hill, and Hastings thought she was protesting
from the scenery point of view.
"Well, the Government must have the wood," he said, with resignation.
"We've got to win the war. But it does seem a pity."
"I don't know that I should have taken the farm," she said, under her
breath--
"If you had known? I wish I'd thought to tell you. But it was really only
settled a few days ago."
"I don't like having a lot of strange men about the farm," she said
abruptly, "especially when I have girls to look after."
"Oh, the camp's a long way from the farm," he said consolingly. "And
these woods will come last."
Still Miss Henderson's face did not quite recover its cheerfulness. She
looked at her watch.
"Don't let me keep you, Mr. Hastings. I'll lock up the house, if you'll
tell me where to leave the key."
He showed her where to put it, in a corner of the stable, for him to find
on the morrow. Then, in her rapid way, Miss Henderson offered him
the post of bailiff on the farm, from the date of her entry. He agreed at
once; his salary was settled, and he departed with a more cheerful
aspect than when he arrived. The hopefulness and spring of youth had
long since left him, and he had dreaded the new experience of this first
meeting with a woman-farmer, from whom he desired employment
simply because he was very badly off, he was getting old, and Mr.
Wellin's widow had treated him shabbily. He had lost his nerve for new
ventures. But Miss Henderson had made things easy. She had struck
him as considerate and sensible--a "good sort." He would do his best
for her.
Rachel Henderson, left to herself, did not immediately re-enter the
house. She went with a face on which the cloud still rested to look at
the well which was to be found under the cart-shed, at the eastern end

of the house.
It was covered with a wooden lid which she removed. Under the shed
roof there was but little light left. A faint gleam showed the level of the
water, which, owing to the long drought, was very low. Hastings had
told her that the well was extremely deep---150 feet at least, and
inexhaustible. The water was chalky but good. It would have to be
pumped up every morning for the supply of the house and stables.
The well had a brick margin. Rachel sat down upon it, her eyes upon
that distant gleam below. The dusk was fast possessing itself of all the
farm, and an evening wind was gustily blowing through the cart-shed,
playing with some old guano sacks