EUEAL LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 407 



lated the action of the haymakers by its distant and sullen 

 roar has passed away ; but it was the leader of a gloomy 

 cohort of angry masses, slowly moving upward from the 

 gathering-place of the storm. A dense mass of sombre 

 cloud is rising from the west, and above it are many 

 domes and pyramids, tipped with fire of a dazzling white- 

 ness. Below is darkness almost impenetrable, through 

 which we perceive the fantastic course of the lightning, as 

 if a sudden rent in the cloud had revealed through its 

 crevices some dazzling fires beyond. The weary swains, 

 assembled under the roof of the cottage, sit at open doors 

 and windows, and watch the movements of the storm, 

 yielding themselves voluptuously to the cooler breezes 

 that precede it. The loudening notes from the cloudy 

 band denote its nearness. The sun is obscured, the air 

 is darkened, the leaves whirl fitfully, and the trees bow 

 their heads to the invisible force of the wind. Smoking 

 rain, and flashing darkness, and crashing bolts of fire, give 

 them an awful announcement of the beauty and sublimity 

 of the tempest that has long threatened the land. 



Hay-time passes with summer, and autumn invites 

 the swain to a new round of toil and pastime. He re- 

 joices in an abundance hardly to be purchased with 

 gold by those who congregate in towns ; not displayed 

 like a shopman's wares in precise arrangements to lure 

 the eyes of passengers, but scattered far and wide, as if 

 they were flung gratuitously from the skies. Grapes in 

 purple clusters, basking in the sunshine, garland the stone- 

 wall, which seems like a natural trellis. Apples are red- 

 dening in the orchard trees, under the ripening influence 

 of the sun, or lie in heaps of variegated colors upon the 

 ground. Peaches with downy cheeks, wearing the blush 

 of mellow ripeness, are drooping voluptuously from their 

 slender boughs. Quince-trees in gleaming rows along the 

 fences tempt the visitor with the golden apples of the 



