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The experiences of those jaunts, the dear old-fashion'd farmers and their wives, the stops by the hay-fields, the hospitality, nice dinners, occasional evenings, the girls, the rides through the brush, come up in my memory to this day. I next went to the "Aurora" daily in New York city a sort of free lance. Also wrote regularly for the "Tattler," an evening paper.
From the shelter of those Highland trees, rather strange in such a countryside, they two could peer forth at the last sunlight gold-powdering the fringed branches, at the sunset flush dyeing the sky above the Beacon; watch light slowly folding gray wings above the hay-fields and the elms; mark the squirrels scurry along, and the pigeons' evening flight.
Milly peered into all the banks along the road where she generally found her favourite little red berries, but most of them were washed away, and the few miserable things that were left tasted of nothing but rain water. And as for the hay-fields, they looked so wet and drenched that it was hard to believe any sunshine could ever dry them.
Mining-towns, most of them dead, and a few living ones with bright bits of cultivation about them, occur at long intervals along the belt, and cottages covered with climbing roses, in the midst of orange and peach orchards, and sweet-scented hay-fields in fertile flats where water for irrigation may be had. But they are mostly far apart, and make scarce any mark in general views.
Beyond the hay-fields lay the silver band of the river, and beyond again the spire of Slumberleigh Church, and a glimpse among the trees of Slumberleigh Hall. "Ralph has started in the dog-cart to meet Charles. They ought to be here in half an hour, if the train is punctual," said Mrs. Ralph. She was a graceful woman, with a placid, gentle face. She might be thirty, but she looked younger.
That was a most enjoyable drive, the weather too hot and sunny, perhaps, for Albinia's preferences, but thoroughly penetrating, and giving energy to, her East-Indian husband, and making the whole country radiant with sunny beauty the waving hay-fields falling before the mower's scythe, the ranks of hay-makers tossing the fragrant grass, the growing corn softly waving in the summer breeze, the river blue with reflected sky, the hedges glowing with stately fox-gloves, or with blushing wreaths of eglantine.
It was when the human savageness of the rifle-fire was broken by a low mechanical rattle, like the whirr of a mowing-machine as one hears it across the hay-fields. It spanked the air with sharp hot reports. "Heinze has turned the Gatlings on them," he said. "They will be coming back soon." He closed the lid of his watch with a click and nodded gravely at me.
Norton were busy indoors till about twelve o'clock; and the children wandered about the garden with nurse, finding out many new nooks and corners, especially a delightful steep path which led up and up into the woods, till at last it took the children to a little brown summer-house at the top, where they could sit and look over the trees below, away to the river and the hay-fields and the mountains.
It is a beautiful sail among the islands from Rockland to Mount Desert, and the pleasantest part of it, to me at least, is the sight of the well kept farms with their handsome cattle and clean-shaven hay-fields, which line the coast. Our best ship-builders have originated among these people.
Heron's house they knew what she was going for. "Poor Dorsy!" they said. "Poor Dorsy!" They had something to talk to each other about now. Winter and spring passed. The thorn-trees flowered on Greffington Edge: dim white groves, magically still under the grey, glassy air. May passed and June. The sleek waves of the hay-fields shone with the brushing of the wind, ready for mowing.
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