Poyser's handsome eight-day clock. But there is always a stronger sense
of life when the sun is brilliant after rain; and now he is pouring
down his beams, and making sparkles among the wet straw, and lighting
up every patch of vivid green moss on the red tiles of the cow-shed, and
turning even the muddy water that is hurrying along the channel to the
drain into a mirror for the yellow-billed ducks, who are seizing the
opportunity of getting a drink with as much body in it as possible.
There is quite a concert of noises; the great bull-dog, chained against
the stables, is thrown into furious exasperation by the unwary approach
of a cock too near the mouth of his kennel, and sends forth a thundering
bark, which is answered by two fox-hounds shut up in the opposite
cow-house; the old top-knotted hens, scratching with their chicks among
the straw, set up a sympathetic croaking as the discomfited cock joins
them; a sow with her brood, all very muddy as to the legs, and curled as
to the tail, throws in some deep staccato notes; our friends the calves
are bleating from the home croft; and, under all, a fine ear discerns
the continuous hum of human voices.
For the great barn-doors are thrown wide open, and men are busy
there mending the harness, under the superintendence of Mr.
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