Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Clarke and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net SECRET BREAD BY F. TENNYSON JESSE Author Of "The Milky Way," "Beggars On Horseback," Etc. "_Bread eaten in secret_..." New York George H. Doran Company Copyright, 1917, By George H. Doran Company Printed In The United States Of America TO EUSTACE TENNYSON D'EYNCOURT JESSE MY FATHER AND FRIEND CONTENTS BOOK I--SOWING Prologue CHAPTER I High Adventures in a Farmyard II The Mill III The Kitchen IV Pagan Pastoral V Head of the House VI Reactions VII The Chapel VIII Seed-Time IX Fresh Pasture X Hilaria XI The Place on the Moor XII Some Ambitions and an Announcement XIII The Wrestling XIV The Wind upon the Grass-Field BOOK II--GROWTH CHAPTER I A Family Album II What Men Live By III First Furrow IV The Shadow at the Window V Lull Before Storm VI The Bush-Beating VII The Heart of the Cyclone VIII New Horizons IX Hidden Springs X Blind Steps XI Glamour XII Sheaves XIII The Stile XIV A Letter XV Blown Husks XVI The Grey World XVII The Cliff and the Valley XVIII The Immortal Moment BOOK III--RIPENING CHAPTER I Under-Currents II The Passage III Phoebe Pays Toll IV The Discovering of Nicky V Centripetal Movement VI The Nation and Nicky VII Paradise Cottage Again VIII What Nicky Did IX Judith's White Night X Lone Trails XI Ways of Love XII Georgie BOOK IV--THE SHADOW OF THE SCYTHE CHAPTER I Questions of Vision II Autumn III Bodies of Fire IV The New Judith V The Parson's Philosophy VI "Something Must Come to All of Us..." VII Earth BOOK V--HARVEST CHAPTER I The Four-Acre II Archelaus, Nicky, Jim III The Letters IV Hester V Reaping VI Threshing VII Garnered Grain Epilogue BOOK I SOWING SECRET BREAD PROLOGUE There was silence in the room where James Ruan lay in the great bed, awaiting his marriage and his death--a silence so hushed that it was not broken, only faintly stirred, by the knocking of a fitful wind at the casement, and the occasional collapse of the glowing embers on the hearth. The firelight flickered over the whitewashed walls, which were dimmed to a pearly greyness by the stronger light without; the sick man's face was deep in shadow under the bed canopy, but one full-veined hand showed dark upon the blue and white check of the counterpane. All life, both without and within, was dying life--waning day at the casement, failing fire on the hearth, and in the shadowy bed a man's soul waiting to take wing.