ALL day long the whirr of the reaper and binder had rattled from distant fields in a monotone of sound broken at regular intervals by guttural cries when the horses at a corner turned on their tracks, and later in the afternoon by desultory gunshots, when from the golden triangle of wheat rabbits darted over the fresh stubble. All day long Jenny, obeying some deep instinct, prepared for the ordeal. The sun blazed over the spread harvest; the fields crackled with heat; the blue sky seemed to close upon the earth, and not even from the whole length of Trewinnard Sands was heard a solitary ripple of the tide. In the garden the claret-colored dahlias hung down their tight, uncomfortable flowers; geraniums, portulacas, nasturtiums, sunflowers and red-hot pokers burned in one furnace of bloom. Red admiral butterflies soared lazily up and down against the gray walls crumbling with heat, and from flower to flower of the scarlet salvias zigzagged the hummingbird hawkmoths. Granfa Champion, wiping with gaudy bandana his forehead, came out to plant daffodil bulbs stored in the green shadows of a cool potting shed.
"Now, you know you mustn't go digging in this sun, Mr. Champion," said reproving May.
"My cheeks are so hot as pies," declared Granfa.
"Do come and sit down with us," said Jenny.
"I believe I mustn't start tealing yet awhile," said the old man, regretfully plunging his long Cornish spade into the baked earth, from which insufficient stability the instrument fell with a thump on to the path.
"Well, how are 'ee feeling, my dear?" asked Granfa, standing before Jenny and mopping his splendid forehead. "None so frail, I hope?"
"She isn't feeling at all well. Not to-day," said May.
"That's bad," said Granfa. "That's poor news, that is."
"I feel frightened, Mr. Champion," said Jenny suddenly. Somehow this old man recalled Mr. Vergoe, rousing old impulses of childish confidence and revelation.
"Feeling frightened, are 'ee? That's bad."