And it suddenly rushed into my mind that the time would no doubt
come when the conduct of apples, being plucked from the mother tree,
would inspire us, and we should say: "They're really very good!" And I
wondered, were those future watchers of apple-gathering farther from me
than I, watching sheep-shearing, from the postman? I thought, too, of the
pretty dreams being dreamt about the land, and of the people who dreamed
them. And I looked at that land, covered with the sweet pinkish-green of
the clover, and considered how much of it, through the medium of sheep,
would find its way into me, to enable me to come out here and be eaten by
midges, and speculate about things, and conceive the sentiment of how
good the sheep were. And it all seemed queer. I thought, too, of a world
entirely composed of people who could see the sheen rippling on that
clover, and feel a sort of sweet elation at the scent of it, and I
wondered how much clover would be sown then? Many things I thought of,
sitting there, till the sun sank below the moor line, the wind died off
the clover, and the midges slept. Here and there in the iris-coloured
sky a star crept out; the soft-hooting owls awoke. But still I lingered,
watching how, one after another, shapes and colours died into twilight;
and I wondered what the postman thought of twilight, that inconvenient
state, when things were neither dark nor light; and I wondered what the
sheep were thinking this first night without their coats.
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