"Now I bet you it's those Boches!" she cried as she came up. "Setting fire to the corn they've just got in! Well, I s'pose nobody can be astonished at them? Come on, girls, let's see what it is they have done—come on! At the double——"
With a clatter of Land boots on the hard road we took to our heels together and ran!
CHAPTER XXXV
"FIRE, FIRE!"
"An enemy bath done this."
—PARABLE OF THE TARES.
We ran, taking a short cut to the farm over the stubble of the cornfield which had been reaped that afternoon.
As we ran I kept saying to myself: "The big barn! Can it be the big barn that's on fire?"
For that would have meant nearly all the wheat of this whole big field destroyed and done for.
We ran, passing the gate beside which lay the dumpy little gleaners' sheaves of every ear that the children had found after our heel-rakes had combed out the field. Oh! would that represent all that was left of this afternoon's harvesting?
The wind in our faces brought us a drift of smoke, a smell of wood burning, the sound of shouting.