14 NOVEMBER 1941, Page 10

COUNTRY LIFE

MoOn and Muck

A land-girl's letter, after giving some account of the long and laborious hours spent in saving the harvest, records that the harvesters came in at night on top of the last load under a bright crescent moon and so enjoyed " peeps into glory that compensated for weeks of muck-carting." What a shrewd glimpse does this give us of the time and perhaps of the English mood! Bunyan was not so moral as he thought he was in painting his picture of the man with the muck-rake. Even that instrument has poetry as its background.