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Nature is as kindly and gracious in Central Kentucky as in any part of the globe upon which her sun shines, and she seemed to be on her best behavior, that she might duly impress the Northern visitors. The orchards were loaded with fruit, and the forest trees showered nuts upon the ground.
The soft, vivid turf was oozy there, and the long-rooted stones were clothed with wet, rusted moss. The few cottages of the hamlet wore deep hoods of thatch, and stood amongst prosperous orchards; one of them, a little larger than the rest, being the habitation of Mr. Moxon, the vicar of Littlemire, whose church, dame-school, and income were all of the same modest proportions as his dwelling.
The beautiful beech-woods lay behind him, the expanse of heath began; but the heath was dear to him: it was this landscape which formed the basis of many dear recollections. The country became ever higher with brown heights, beyond which nothing was visible; houses and farms became more rare, the cherry orchards transformed themselves into cabbage-gardens.
The face was long and pale, and he wore a short reddish beard; the eyes were light blue, verging on grey, and they seemed to speak a quiet, steadfast soul. Hubert had always been his mother's favourite, and the scorn of his elder brothers, two rough boys, addicted in early youth to robbing orchards, and later on to gambling and drinking.
DICKIE lived at New Cross. At least the address was New Cross, but really the house where he lived was one of a row of horrid little houses built on the slope where once green fields ran down the hill to the river, and the old houses of the Deptford merchants stood stately in their pleasant gardens and fruitful orchards. All those good fields and happy gardens are built over now.
Alfalfa and potatoes are Nevada's greatest crop; wheat, rye, oats and other cereals are also grown. Some of the ranches have splendid orchards consisting of pears, apples, plums, cherries, etc., and the production will undoubtedly increase as greater irrigation developments are introduced.
Umbria was then, as it is now, a beautiful and fertile valley, rich in citron, almond, aloe, with forest trees of oak and pine and fir, to which long cultivation has added grapevines, engarlanding the elms, and orchards of the pale-leaved olive-tree, that give the landscape a somewhat transparent, aërial effect.
It was warm even in winter there, and no frosts destroyed its tropical fruits and flowers. The rich plain was made fertile by two springs that sent their waters through trenches all through these gardens and orchards. One is called the "Elisha Spring," because the prophet made its poisonous waters pure by casting salt into them. And so the Passover pilgrims entered Jericho.
The whole country was a network of deep lanes, sunk between impenetrable hedgerows, inclosing small fields, orchards, and thickets, and gently undulating in low hills and shallow valleys, interspersed with tall wasp-waisted windmills airily waving their arms on the top of lofty masts.
In contrast with this human squalor, the surrounding hills and woods, the gardens and the orchards, were clothed in the most splendid foliage; on every side flowers displayed their gorgeous colours, and fruits proclaimed their ripeness in tints of gold. Overhead a glowing sun, a sky without a cloud, completed the bitter irony of the spectacle.
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