The
narrow lane of stubble encompassing the field grew wider with each circuit,
and the standing corn was reduced to a smaller area as the morning wore
on. Rabbits, hares, snakes, rats, mice, retreated inwards as into a fastness,
unaware of the emphemeral nature of their refuge and of the doom that
awaited them later in the day, when, their covert shrinking to a more
and more horrible narrowness, they were huddled together, friends and
foes, till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth
of the unerring reaper, and they were every one put to deathby the sticks
and stones of the harvesters.
