Cottage Folk

A dull red sun had just set amid purple storm-clouds behind the Sussex Downs. Nevertheless the twilight was falling softly beneath a wet west wind that had made the land full of colour and the sea full of shadow all day.

From the stubble-field where the “hoppers” were lighting their camp-fires, one could just see the sea through a dip in the land beneath the hill where the old farm stood among the ash-trees.

Against the privet hedge that hemmed the road, a girl leaned with her back to the marsh-land that spread westward from the hollow between the hills. The half-picked hop-gardens were to right of her, and, to left, the stubble-field where her comrades were laughing and chattering around the water-budge that had been drawn up in its midst. The girl’s head lay black upon the sunset, but she was not of a dark complexion—her hair was light brown, and her skin was only tanned from exposure, an exposure to which she had not, perhaps, always been used, for the shape that showed beneath her thin cotton dress was slenderer than that of most field-workers.

She stood there a moment watching the moving groups yonder, and then passed out through the gate on to the road. As she slammed it to behind her, a tall young woman came swinging up a path to the left, her black locks somewhat dishevelled and her bodice loose at the throat.