“Say Peterloo, my general, say Peterloo.”
“Ay, Peterloo,” he replied, with a splendid curl of the lip —“Easy conquests!”
“‘He came, he saw, he conquered,’” Lettie recited.
“Are you coming?” he said, getting more angry.
“When you bid me,” she replied, taking my arm.
We went through the wood, and through the dishevelled border-land to the high road, through the border-land that should have been park-like, but which was shaggy with loose grass and yellow mole-hills, ragged with gorse and bramble and briar, with wandering old thorn trees, and a queer clump of Scotch firs.
On the highway the leaves were falling, and they chattered under our steps. The water was mild and blue, and the corn stood drowsily in “stook”.
We climbed the hill behind Highclose, and walked on along the upland, looking across towards the hills of arid Derbyshire, and seeing them not, because it was autumn. We came in sight of the head-stocks of the pit at Selsby, and of the ugly village standing blank and naked on the brow of the hill.
Lettie was in very high spirits. She laughed and joked continually. She picked bunches of hips and stuck them in her dress. Having got a thorn in her finger from a spray of blackberries, she went to Leslie to have it squeezed out. We were all quite gay as we turned off the high road and went along the bridle path, with the woods on our right, the high Strelley hills shutting in our small valley in front, and the fields and the common to the left. About half-way down the lane we heard the slurr of the scythe-stone on the scythe. Lettie went to the hedge to see. It was George mowing the oats on the steep hillside where the machine could not go. His father was tying up the corn into sheaves.
Straightening his back, Mr Saxton saw us, and called to us to come and help. We pushed through a gap in the hedge and went up to him.
“Now then,” said the father to me, “take that coat off,” and to Lettie, “Have you brought us a drink? No; — come, that sounds bad! Going a walk I guess. You see what it is to get fat,” and he pulled a wry face as he bent over to tie the corn. He was a man beautifully ruddy and burly, in the prime of life.
“Show me, I’ll do some,” said Lettie.
“Nay,” he answered gently, “it would scratch your wrists and break your stays. Hark at my hands”— he rubbed them together —“like sandpaper!”
George had his back to us, and had not noticed us. He continued to mow. Leslie watched him.
“That’s a fine movement!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” replied the father, rising very red in the face from the tying, “and our George enjoys a bit o’ mowing. It puts you in fine condition when you get over the first stiffness.”
We moved across to the standing corn. The sun being mild, George had thrown off his hat, and his black hair was moist and twisted into confused half-curls. Firmly planted, he swung with a beautiful rhythm from the waist. On the hip of his belted breeches hung the scythe-stone; his shirt, faded almost white, was torn just above the belt, and showed the muscles of his back playing like lights upon the white sand of a brook. There was something exceedingly attractive in the rhythmic body.
I spoke to him, and he turned round. He looked straight at Lettie with a flashing, betraying smile. He was remarkably handsome. He tried to say some words of greeting, then he bent down and gathered an armful of corn, and deliberately bound it up.
Like him, Lettie had found nothing to say. Leslie, however, remarked:
“I should think mowing is a nice exercise.”
“It is,” he replied, and continued, as Leslie picked up the scythe, “but it will make you sweat, and your hands will be sore.”
Leslie tossed his head a little, threw off his coat, and said briefly:
“How do you do it?” Without waiting for a reply he proceeded. George said nothing, but turned to Lettie.
“You are picturesque,” she said, a trifle awkwardly, “quite fit for an Idyll.”
“And you?” he said.
She shrugged her shoulders, laughed, and turned to pick up a scarlet pimpernel.
“How do you bind the corn?” she asked.
He took some long straws, cleaned them, and showed her the way to hold them. Instead of attending, she looked at his hands, big, hard, inflamed by the snaith of the scythe.
“I don’t think I could do it,” she said.
“No,” he replied quietly, and watched Leslie mowing. The latter who was wonderfully ready at everything, was doing fairly well, but he had not the invincible sweep of the other, nor did he make his same crisp crunching music.
“I bet he’ll sweat,” said George.
“Don’t you?” she replied.
“A bit — but I’m not dressed up.”
“Do you know,” she said suddenly, “your arms tempt me to touch them. They are such a fine brown colour, and they look so hard.”
He held out one arm to her. She hesitated, then she swiftly put her finger-tips on the smooth brown muscle, and drew them along. Quickly she hid her hand into the folds of her skirt, blushing.
He laughed a low, quiet laugh, at once pleasant and startling to hear.
“I wish I could work here,” she said, looking away at the standing corn, and the dim blue woods. He followed her look, and laughed quietly, with indulgent resignation.
“I do!” she said emphatically.
“You feel so fine,” he said, pushing his hand through his open shirt-front, and gently rubbing the muscles of his side. “It’s a pleasure to work or to stand still. It’s a pleasure to yourself — your own physique.”
She looked at him, full at his physical beauty, as if he were some great firm bud of life.
Leslie came up, wiping his brow.
“Jove,” said he, “I do perspire.”
George picked up his coat and helped him into it, saying: “You may take a chill.”
“It’s a jolly nice form of exercise,” said he.
George, who had been feeling one finger-tip, now took out his pen-knife and proceeded to dig a thorn from his hand. “What a hide you must have,” said Leslie.
Lettie said nothing, but she recoiled slightly.
The father, glad of an excuse to straighten his back and to chat, came to us.
“You’d soon had enough,” he said, laughing to Leslie.
George startled us with a sudden, “Holloa.” We turned, and saw a rabbit, which had burst from the corn, go coursing through the hedge, dodging and bounding the sheaves. The standing corn was a patch along the hill-side some fifty paces in length, and ten or so in width.
“I didn’t think there’d have been any in,” said the father, picking up a short rake, and going to the low wall of the corn. We all followed.
“Watch!” said the father, “if you see the heads of the corn shake!”
We prowled round the patch of corn.
“Hold! Look out!” shouted the father excitedly, and immediately after a rabbit broke from the cover.
“Ay — Ay — Ay,” was the shout, “turn him — turn him!” We set off full pelt. The bewildered little brute, scared by Leslie’s wild running and crying, turned from its course, and dodged across the hill, threading its terrified