beginning of the break-up," persisted Emma, with a feeling of contempt
for the slowness and dulness of the young man.

A grin spread over his good-natured features.

"It don't look like it," he said, nodding towards the yard. Emma turned
to catch the meaning of his remark. Old Martha stood in the middle of a
mob of poultry scattering handfuls of grain around her. The turkey-cock,
with the bronzed sheen of his feathers and the purple-red of his wattles,
the gamecock, with the glowing metallic lustre of his Eastern plumage,
the hens, with their ochres and buffs and umbers and their scarlet combs,
and the drakes, with their bottle-green heads, made a medley of rich
colour, in the centre of which the old woman looked like a withered stalk
standing amid a riotous growth of gaily-hued flowers. But she threw the
grain deftly amid the wilderness of beaks, and her quavering voice
carried as far as the two people who were watching her. She was still
harping on the theme of death coming to the farm.

"I knew 'twere a-coming. There's been signs an' warnings."

"Who's dead, then, old Mother?" called out the young man.

"'Tis young Mister Ladbruk," she shrilled back; "they've just a-carried
his body in. Run out of the way of a tree that was coming down an' ran
hisself on to an iron post. Dead when they picked un up. Aye, I knew
'twere coming."

And she turned to fling a handful of barley at a belated group of guinea-
fowl that came racing toward her.