It is all work, and no moody consciousness--all work,
and will end in sleep.
I leave them soon, and make my way up the stone steps to the "corn
chamber," where tranquillity is crowned. In the whitewashed room the
corn lies in drifts and ridges, three to four feet deep, all silvery-dun,
like some remote sand desert, lifeless beneath the moon. Here it lies,
and into it, staggering under the sacks, George-the-Gaul and
Jim-the-Early Saxon tramp up to their knees, spill the sacks over their
heads, and out again; and above where their feet have plunged the patient
surface closes again, smooth. And as I stand there in the doorway,
looking at that silvery corn drift, I think of the whole process, from
seed sown to the last sieving into this tranquil resting-place. I think
of the slow, dogged ploughman, with the crows above him on the wind; of
the swing of the sower's arm, dark up against grey sky on the steep
field. I think of the seed snug-burrowing for safety, and its mysterious
ferment under the warm Spring rain, of the soft green shoots tapering up
so shyly toward the first sun, and hardening in air to thin wiry stalk.
I think of the unnumerable tiny beasts that have jangled in that pale
forest; of the winged blue jewels of butterfly risen from it to hover on
the wild-rustling blades; of that continual music played there by the
wind; of the chicory and poppy flowers that have been its lights-o' love,
as it grew tawny and full of life, before the appointed date when it
should return to its captivity.
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