Thus they had harvested at Anderby since those far-off years when the Danes broke in across the headland and dyed with blood the trampled barley. Thus and thus had the workers passed, and the children waved their garlands following the last load home. Thus had Mary and other Mary Robsons before her welcomed back the master of the harvest.
She held out her hands to him with a cry of greeting.
The girls vanished along the road, their dresses fading like pale flowers into the twilight.
The master raised his head to her and for the first time she saw his face. It was not John who rode behind as master of the harvest at Anderby, but David—David with his eager face and smiling lips, riding in triumph behind the singing harvesters.
She called to him. Her voice rang strangely through the quiet air. She opened her eyes suddenly and stared across the empty field to find he was not there. She turned and ran, not looking back till she was in the house.
Outside across the waiting fields moved a quiet wind stirring the grey seas of wheat and barley to plaintive whisperings of sound. Bats flitted below the trees around the garden. In the pasture the horses tore at the dewy grass. One by one the lights vanished from the windows of the house.
The harvest moon rose.
Before six next morning Violet appeared at the door of the room where John and Mary lay waiting for the morning.
"Some men are in the yard. They want to see you," she said, her small face quivering with distress.