ay, week after week,
and month after month, until the sorrowful consciousness had arrived
that any change for the better must now come too late, and that nothing
was certain but the terrible union of famine, disease, and death
which was to follow. The season, owing to the causes specified, was
necessarily late, and such of the crops as were, ripe had a sickly and
unthriving look, that told of comparative failure, while most of the
fields which, in our autumns, would have been ripe and yellow, were now
covered with a thin, backward crop, so unnaturally green that all hope
of maturity was out of the question. Low meadows were in a state of
inundation, and on alluvial soils the ravages of the floods Were
visible in layers of mud and gravel that were deposited over many of the
prostrate corn fields. The peat turf lay in oozy and neglected heaps,
for there had not been sun enough to dry it sufficiently for use, so
that the poor had want of fuel, and cold to feel, as well as want of
food itself. Indeed, the appearance of the country, in consequence of
this wetness in the firing, was singularly dreary and depressing. Owing
to the difficulty with which it burned, or rather wasted away, without
light or heat, the eye, in addition to the sombre hue which the absence
of the sun cast over all things, was forced to dwell upon the long black
masses of smoke which trailed slowly over the whole country, or hung,
during the thick sweltering calms, in broad columns that gave to
the face of nature an aspect strikingly dark and disastrous, when
associated, as it was, with the destitution and suffering of the great
body of the people. The general appearance of the crops was indeed
deplorable. In some parts the grain was beaten down by the rain; in
airier situations it lay cut but unsaved, and scattered over the fields,
awaiting an occasional glance of feeble sunshine; and in other and
richer soils, whole fields, deplorably lodged, were green with the
destructive exuberance of a second growth. The season, though wet, was
warm; and it is unnecessary to say that the luxuriance of all weeds
and unprofitable production was rank and strong, while an unhealthy
fermentation pervaded every thing that was destined for food. A brooding
stillness, too, lay over all nature; cheerfulness had disappeared, even
the groves and hedges were silent, for the very birds had ceased
to sing, and the earth seemed as if it mourned for the approaching
calamity, as wel