The High Street was fuller than usual. Labourers slouched along it, tired and contented. A wain, with a pole at each corner pointing to heaven, the carter with patched corduroys and long whip plodding at the head of his team, was carrying a party of haymakers home. Under the great chestnut in the market-square a group of dusty horses stood, the sweat drying on them. Wages had been paid--the best wages of the year too: for all had worked overtime; Sunday was ahead of man and woman and beast alike; the most strenuous weeks of the year were over, and the most quiet to come. The lorry ran swiftly down the hill, out of the village. At the spot where a lane runs off to Littlington, it swerved suddenly to the right. Ernie, sitting on the rail, swayed over the side to look. They were passing a girl, walking soberly along, her back to the village. Clearly she had just come from the fields, for she wore an orange-coloured turban wisped about her black hair, a long loose earth-coloured gabardine, stained with toil, and short enough to disclose the heavy boots of the agricultural worker. She was a big young woman, broad of shoulder, large of limb, who walked in spite of her heavy foot-wear with an easy rhythm that caused Ernie's heart to leap. The lorry flashed by. The girl did not look up, marching steadfastly forward, careless of the passing vehicle; but Ernie caught a glimpse of her profile. In a moment he was on his feet. The lorry was travelling fast. Ernie tapped at the partition which divided the body of the car from the driver, and peered through the glass. The man at the wheel heard, but shook a grim head. He did not mean to stop. Home and beer and the week-end rest lay before him. Ernie, far too impetuous to think, did not hesitate. He jumped at the road, fleeting swiftly away beneath him. It rose up like a careering wave and struck him viciously. Whether he fell on his feet, his hands and knees, or his back, he never afterwards knew. That he was shocked into unconsciousness is clear, and that his body continued its ordinary functions unconcerned and guided he knew not by what mysterious power. He woke, as it were, still jarred from shock, and aching throughout him, to find himself steadily tramping along a road. The objective world surged in on him. He put up his hand to ward off the huge green seas that came lolloping along to overwhelm him. Riding the charging billows were a host of immense black ogres, dreadful in their impassivity, and with blind eyes, who yet had seen him and were set on his destruction. Then he resumed himself. The billows were the hills; the careering ogres the row of bee-hive stacks dumped peacefully on the rise upon his right.