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HE air was alive and young; the earth steamed. Behind the plough a thousand little vapours rose, individual, separate, feathery; they seemed to be trying to rise high above the earth, as if glad to escape from the weight of the clods. Then they floated down again and settled at last, like drowsy plumes. The slanting breath of the oxen kept ahead of the team and, rising, covered the six animals with a whiter vapour, through which danced whirls of flies.

Wag-tails were fluttering from furrow to furrow; those nearest looking like fussy, coquettish little ladies, the others being nothing more than drifting flakes of mist. You could hardly make them out singly, but you were aware of great crowds of them, all busily hunting for the slow-moving, awkward grubs, bewildered at being turned up to the light of day. At the upper end of the field a magpie stood