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Updated: May 2, 2025
"And the other young men, those lounging guardsmen and great lazy dandies sprawling over sofas and billiard-tables, and stealing off to smoke pipes in each other's bedrooms, caring for nothing, reverencing nothing, not even an old gentleman who has known their fathers and their betters, not even a pretty woman what a difference there is between these men, who poison the very turnips and stubble-fields with their tobacco, and the gentlemen of our time!" thinks the Major; "the breed is gone there's no use for 'em; they're replaced by a parcel of damned cotton spinners and utilitarians, and young sprigs of parsons with their hair combed down their barks.
Sir Charles Verity was from home, staying with Colonel Carteret for partridge shooting, over the Norfolk stubble-fields. The habit of this annual visit had, for the last two seasons, been in abeyance; but now, with his return to The Hard, was pleasantly revived, although this autumn, owing to business connected with the publication of his book, the visit took place a few weeks later than usual.
The men had guns in their hands, and were got up with all proper sporting appurtenances, but it so turned out that they did not reach the stubble-fields on the farther side of the road until after luncheon. And may it not be fairly doubted whether croquet is not as good as shooting when a man is in love?
The country was pleasant in the extreme; stubble-fields surrounded numerous groups of huts and wide-spreading trees, on whose branches was stored up the nutritious grass of those swampy grounds for a supply in the dry season. Broad, well-trodden paths, lined by thick fences, wound along through the fields in every direction.
We first crossed a broad swamp, on a road made of loose logs, then climbed a hill, and trudged for some distance across stubble-fields, until my patience was quite worn out, and Braisted made use of some powerful maritime expressions. Finally, we reached a house, which we entered without more ado.
Batushka was thus obliged to leave us, and his friend and I agreed to stroll leisurely in the direction of the village to which he was going, so as to meet him on his way home. The harvest was already finished, so that our road, after emerging from the village, lay through stubble-fields.
The June-like lustre of the glowing sky; the beauty of the fields now blooming in second verdure, like aged souls with new hopes and loves in the light of Christianity; the affluence of orchards, dropping the burden, diffusing the fragrance of their mellow fruit; the opulence of woodlands, exhibiting signs of the first frost, yet still withholding the wealth of their bright foliage; the pride of his gallant horses, liberated from the plough, and galloping here and there, on sports of majesty in the upland pasture; the appearance of fine cattle grazing on the distant mead; the sight of yellow stubble-fields, sleeping in remoter view; the neatness and abundance of his farm-yard, proclaimed by the lordly cock in a rousing and resonant crow; the odor of hay and grain from his barn near by; the quiet and cosy comfort of his home; the presence of Julia and Fanny, the one reading David from that noble old ode called the Sixty-fifth Psalm, and the other at his side, embracing his neck in a clasp of leaning affection: those pleasant sights that regaled his gaze, and those ardent emotions of gratitude that thrilled him through and through in the sweet contemplation, directed his thoughts to the God who gave them, and he thanked him for his bounty; attained still more lofty conceptions of his love; and, as Julia concluded the psalm, repeated the words, "Praise waiteth for Thee, O God!
Sometimes a feather is knocked out, and sometimes one gets a hard peck; but it does not do any harm. And after it is over, in the autumn, we are all very good friends, and go hunting together. You may see us, hundreds of us in your papa's stubble-fields, Bevis, all flying together very happy.
When he turned to the left and looked out through the entrance of the leafy arbor he had before him the spacious plain, covered with long rows of tents: a busy, populous city that had risen like an exhalation from the stubble-fields between Rheims city and the canal.
The 'pastures green' were represented by a certain suburban stubble-field, where I had once walked with my nurse, under an autumnal sunset, on the banks of the Water of Leith: the place is long ago built up; no pastures now, no stubble-fields; only a maze of little streets and smoking chimneys and shrill children.
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