Then their heads were just visible as they stood upright, but when they stooped to use the hook they disappeared.

Yonder, however, a solitary man in his shirt-sleeves perched up above the corn went round and round the field, and beside him strange awkward arms seemed to beat down the wheat.

He was driving a reaping machine, to which the windmill-like arms belonged.
Beside the road a shepherd lingered, leaning on a gate, while his flock, which he was driving just as fast and no faster than they cared to eat their way along the sward, fed part on one side and part on the other.

Now and then two or three sheep crossed over with the tinkling of a bell.

In the silence and stillness and brooding heat, the larks came and dusted themselves in the white impalpable powder of the road.