ANNE BEALE

Author of Fay Arlington, Simplicity and Fascination, The Miller’s Daughter, etc. etc.

... standing like Ruth amid the alien corn

Griffith Farran Browne & Co.  Limited
35 Bow Street, Covent Garden
London

1881

[Illustration:  Frontispiece.]

CHAPTER I.

The farmer’s wife.

It is an evening in June, and the skies that have been weeping of late, owing to some calamity best known to themselves, have suddenly dried their eyes, and called up a smile to enliven their gloomy countenances.  The farmers, who have been shaking their heads at sight of the unmown grass, and predicting a bad hay-harvest, are beginning to brighten up with the weather, and to consult upon the propriety of mowing to-morrow.  The barometer is gently tapped by many a sturdy hand, and the result is favourable; so that there are good prospects of a few weeks’ sunshine to atone for the late clouds.

Sunshine:  how gracious it is just now!  Down yonder in the west, that ancient of days, the sun throws around him his evening glory, and right royally he does it.  The rain-covered meadows glow beneath it, like so many lakes—­the river looks up rejoicing, and the distant mountains are wrapped in garments dyed in the old king’s own regal colours.  The woods look as smooth and glossy as the braided locks of maidens prepared for conquests; and the roads and paths that wind here and there amongst the trees, are as gay as little streamlets in the sun’s reflected light.

Suddenly a rainbow leaps, as it were, out of the river, and spans, with its mighty arch, the country scene before us.

     ’A rainbow at night
      Is the shepherd’s delight;’

so the proverbially-grumbling farmers will have another prognostic to clear their countenances.

Perchance the worthy man who inhabits the farm we have just reached, may be congratulating himself upon it, as he jogs home from market this Saturday evening.  If he could look upon his homestead with our eyes, I feel sure he would cease to despond.  How cheerily the wide, slated roof gleams forth from amongst the trees, and returns the warm glance of the sun with one almost as warm, albeit proceeding from a very moist eyelid!  How gladly the white smoke arises once more, spirally, from the large chimneys, after having been so long depressed by the heavy atmosphere! and how the massive ivy that covers the gable end, responds to the songs of the birds that warble their evening gladness amongst its gleaming leaves!  The face of the dwelling is as cheerful as are the sun, river, mountains and meads, that it looks down upon from its slight elevation.  Every leaf of the vine and pyrus-japonica that covers its front, is bedecked with a diamond; and the roses, laburnums, nasturtiums, and other gay flowers in the garden, drop jewels more freely than the maiden in the fairy tale, as they glisten beneath the rainbow.