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 agreat one for work—one of those quiet ones.Well they must be getting along with thecupboards, she supposed. They hauled them-selves 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 drownedthem itthere rose that half-heard melody, thatintermittent 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 quite218