MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[1089] earth was dwindling.^, [1090] T ^the earth shone strangely in the raking
evening light, glowing in patches as though with its own fires,
in the fading light. [1091] Edmund stopped often to rest, leaning on
the spade and looking about him. [1092] The slaughter-house, said
Lambert, that's where I buy my beasts, [1093] will you look at that
o^loafer. [1094] He went out and set to work, beside his son.

[1095] They
worked together for a time, heedless of each other. Then the
son dropped his shovel, turned aside and moved slowly away, pass-
ing from toil to rest in a single unbroken movement that did not
seem of his doing. [1096] The mule was no longer visible. [1097] The face of
the earth, on which it had plodded its life away, would see it
no more, toiling before the plough, or the ^[tumbrel.^]

[1098] And Big
Lambert would soon be able to plough and harrow the place where
it lay, with another mule, or an old horse, or an old ox, bought
at the knacker's yard, knowing that the share would not turn up
the putrid flesh or be blunted by the big bones. [1099] For he knew how
the dead and buried tend, contrary to what one might expect, to
rise to the surface, [1100] in which they resemble the drowned.

[1101] And he had
made allowance for this when digging the hole. [1102] Edmund and his moth-
er passed each other by in silence. [1103] She had been to see a neigh-
bour, to borrow a pound of lentils for their supper. [1104] She was
thinking of the handsome steelyard that had served to weigh them
and wondering if it was true.

[1105] Before her husband too she rapidly
passed, without a glance, and in his attitude there was nothing
to suggest that he had seen her either. [1106] She lit the lamp where it
stood at its usual place on the chimney-piece, beside[⁁] ^{between beside} the alarm-
clock