Pastorals of Dorset

The Village
BY M. E. FRANCIS (Mrs. FRANCIS BLUNDELL)
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CLAUD C. DU PRÉ COOPER
NEW IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1915
Some of these stories have already appeared in The Cornhill Magazine , Longman’s Magazine , Temple Bar , Punch , The Times Weekly and The Illustrated London News ; and are reprinted by kind permission of the Editors of these periodicals.
Farmer Joyce walked meditatively up the steep, deeply-rutted lane which led to the field wherein his sheep were penned. He was a tall, bluff, burly old man, carrying himself erect in spite of his seventy years, and capable still of performing a hard day’s work with the best of his juniors.
On one of his broad shoulders rested a pitchfork supporting a goodly truss of hay; in the other hand he carried a shepherd’s crook. A quaint, picturesque, pastoral figure was this, clad in the antiquated smock frock, now so seldom to be seen, but which Farmer Joyce wore summer and winter alike; his nether limbs were encased in corduroys and stout leather leggings, and his great nailed boots left impressions, gigantic and far apart, on the muddy soil. The cutting wind frolicked with his iron-grey beard and hair, and intensified the ruddy hue of his broad honest face. The years which had passed over that kindly face had left wonderfully few traces, except for the dust with which they had powdered the once coal-black hair and beard. There were no furrows in the brow, no pinched lines about the mouth; the eyes looked forth from under their whitened lashes with the large contemplative gaze of the man accustomed to pass his life between earth and sky, to sweep wide horizons, to take note, with one comprehensive glance, of the changes of the weather, of the coming of the seasons as indicated by sun and clouds, by bloom or decay advancing over vast tracts of country.
Farmer Joyce had a mind above petty cares; the small home worries and anxieties he left, as he frequently announced, his missus to see to; for himself he kept his soul untroubled, taking good and evil fortune alike philosophically. Yet to-day his face wore a puzzled, not to say perturbed, expression, and, as he neared the top of the hill, he imperceptibly slackened his long, swinging strides.