TO THE LIGHTHOUSEwhat had been done to it? seeing how old Kennedywas supposed to have charge of it, and then hisleg got so bad after he fell from the cart; andperhaps then no one for a year, or the better partof one; and then Davie Macdonald, and seedsmight be sent, but who should say if they wereever planted? They'd find it changed.

She watched her son scything. He was a greatone for work—one of those quiet ones. Wellthey must be getting along with the cupboards,she supposed. They hauled themselves up.

At last, after days of labour within, of cuttingand digging without, dusters were flicked fromthe windows, the windows were shut to, keys wereturned all over the house; the front door wasbanged; it was finished.

And now as if the cleaning and the scrubbingand the scything and the mowing had drownedit there rose that half-heard melody, that inter-mittent music which the ear half catches butlets fall; a bark, a bleat; irregular, intermittent,yet somehow related; the hum of an insect, thetremor of cut grass, dissevered yet somehowbelonging; the jar of a dor beetle, the squeak of awheel, loud, low, but mysteriously related; whichthe ear strains to bring together and is always onthe verge of harmonising but they are never quiteheard, never fully harmonised, and at last, in the218
Resize Images  

Select Pane

Berg Materials
 

View Pane