be pleasant to her again if her Thursday night's vision was not to be
fulfilled; and in this moment of chill, bare, wintry disappointment and
doubt, she looked towards the possibility of being with Arthur again,
of meeting his loving glance, and hearing his soft words with that eager
yearning which one may call the "growing pain" of passion.

Chapter XIX

Adam on a Working Day

NOTWITHSTANDING Mr. Craig's prophecy, the dark-blue cloud dispersed
itself without having produced the threatened consequences. "The
weather"--as he observed the next morning--"the weather, you see, 's
a ticklish thing, an' a fool 'ull hit on't sometimes when a wise man
misses; that's why the almanecks get so much credit. It's one o' them
chancy things as fools thrive on."

This unreasonable behaviour of the weather, however, could displease no
one else in Hayslope besides Mr. Craig. All hands were to be out in
the meadows this morning as soon as the dew had risen; the wives and
daughters did double work in every farmhouse, that the maids might give
their help in tossing the hay; and when Adam was marching along the
lanes, with his basket of tools over his shoulder, he caught the sound
of jocose talk and ringing laughter from behind the hedges. The jocose
talk of hay-makers is best at a distance; like those clumsy bells round
the cows' necks, it has rather a coarse sound when it comes close,
and may even grate on your ears painfully; but heard from far off, it
mingles very prettily with the other joyous sounds of nature. Men's
muscles move better when their souls are making merry music, though
their merriment is of a poor blundering sort, not at all like the
merriment of birds.

And perhaps there is no time in a summer's day more cheering than when
the warmth of the sun is just beginning to triumph over the freshness
of the morning--when there is just a lingering hint of early coolness
to keep off languor under the delicious influence of warmth. The reason
Adam was walking along the lanes at this time was because his work for
the rest of the day lay at a country-house about three miles off, which
was being put in repair for the son of a neighbouring squire; and he
had been busy since early morning with the packing of panels, doors,
and chimney-pieces, in a waggon which was now gone on before him, while
Jonathan Burge himself had ridden to the spot on horseback, to await its
arrival and direct the workmen.

This little walk was a rest