DAMAGE FARM. 305 



At lengtli patches of blue sky, as brightly and 

 purely blue as if it had never been sullied by a cloud, 

 began to open, and grow, and coalesce, until the storm 

 was fairly put to the rout, and fled from the aerial 

 field. 



I ventured to proceed. On the steep road up from 

 the cove the traces of the showier were still strong. 

 The rain ran in gutters and ruts, and hung in drops, 

 like thousands of diamonds, from the brambles and 

 cornels of the hedges. The lovely white bindweed 

 presented its beautiful trumpet-blossoms to the sun, 

 as smilingly as though not a drop had fallen on them. 

 The fields, however, gave sadder proofs of the vio- 

 lence of the storm ; for large breadths of the brown 

 wheat, more than ready for the sickle, were beaten 

 down, and laid by the rain ; and the precious grains, 

 shed out, w^ere lying on the sodden earth by handfuls. 



Thus I came to a farm bearing the inauspicious 

 name of Damage. Streams of muddy water covered 

 with brown froth poured across the road; the sky 

 looks black again ; the clouds have rallied, and are 

 mustering to renew the assault; they gain ground 

 upon the azure, and now they have fairly overpowered 

 it. An archway of the farm-buildings offers a kindly 

 shelter, and I dismount, despite the growlings of a 

 suspicious mastiff, the Cerberus of the place. The 

 view to sea-ward, over Bull Point and the neigh- 

 bouring head-lands, is magnificiently grand, almost 

 worth the disappointment and the wetting to behold. 

 A dark dim veil of mist passes over the sea, gradually 

 enveloping and concealing every thing, and spreads 

 away to leeward. The rain descends, first in great 



