Ah, there was the house.  She leant forward and saw it lying under the hill, the woods on the slope coming down to the back of it.  Yes, it was certainly a lonely situation.  That was why the house, the farm lands, too, had been so long unlet, till old Wellin, the farm’s nearest neighbour, having made a good deal of money, had rented the land from Colonel Shepherd, to add to his own.  The farm buildings, too, he had made some use of, keeping carts and machines, and certain stores there.  But the house he had refused to have any concern with.  It had remained empty and locked up for a good many years.

The wagonette turned into the rough road leading through the middle of a fine field of oats to the house.  The field was gaily splashed with poppies, which ran, too, along the edges of the crop, swayed by the evening breeze, and flaming in the level sun.  Though lonesome and neglected, the farm in July was a pleasant and picturesque object.  It stood high and the air about it blew keen and fresh.  The chalk hill curved picturesquely round it, and the friendly woods ran down behind to keep it company.  Rachel Henderson, in pursuit of that campaign she was always now waging against a natural optimism, tried to make herself imagine it in winter—­the leafless trees, the solitary road, the treeless pasture or arable fields, that stretched westward in front of the farm, covered perhaps with snow; and the distant stretches of the plain.  There was not another house, not even a cottage, anywhere in sight.  The village had disappeared.  She herself, in the old wagonette, seemed the only living thing.

No, there was a man emerging from the farm-gate, and coming to meet her—­the bailiff, George Hastings.  She had only seen him once before, on her first hurried visit, when, after getting a rough estimate from him of the repairs necessary to the house and buildings, she had made up her mind to take the farm, if the landlord would agree to do them.

“Yon’s Muster Hastings,” said Jonathan Webb, turning on her a benevolent and wrinkled countenance, with two bright red spots in the midst of each weather-beaten cheek.  Miss Henderson again noticed the observant curiosity in the old man’s eyes.  Everybody, indeed, seemed to look at her with the same expression.  As a woman farmer she was no doubt just a freak, a sport, in the eyes of the village.  Well, she prophesied they would take her seriously before long.

“I’m afraid I haven’t as much to show you, miss, as I’d like,” said Hastings, as he helped her to alight.  “It’s cruel work nowadays trying to do anything of this kind.  Two of the men that began work last week have been called up, and there’s another been just ’ticed away from me this week.  The wages that some people about will give are just mad!” He threw up his hands.  “Colonel Shepherd says he can’t compete.”

Miss Henderson replied civilly but decidedly that somehow or other the work would have to be done.  If Colonel Shepherd couldn’t find the wages, she must pay the difference.  Get in some time, during August, she must.