The sun low down in the west, showing for a brief space through the trees his face of fiery gold barred with the dark branches, throws far across the grass the shadows of a group of tall elms out in the meadow, whose green heads tower a hundred feet into the clear, pale blue. Motionless they stand, or seem to stand. The light wafts of scented air may flutter the leaves upon their lofty crests, but have no power to sway their giant branches. From far up among their green crown of foliage floats a goldfinch's song—a pleasant sound, a note of summer and green fields and open country. Pleasant, too, is the slow clink of a whetted scythe, sounding faintly from a distant meadow, where some tired haymaker, perhaps for the last time in the long summer day, is putting a better edge upon his worn old blade.
Along the hedge yonder a man is finishing off the ragged edges the machine has left, and the swish, swish of the grass that falls before his sweeping strokes has almost as sweet a sound to-night as the vesper of the song-thrush over there, high up among the branches of a hedgerow elm.
The gentle nurse of the foundling flycatchers is moving slowly across the meadow, the light of sunset on her white dress, sweet face, and graceful figure. She is carrying a great handful of oxeye daisies, gleaned from the new-mown hay—adding now a tall spray of quaking grass, now a leaf of bright red sorrel, and looking now and then with wistful eyes at the flowers for whose brief life she thus provides a little longer span. The sun is down. The long day's work is ended. In the combe yonder, the little sleepy hollow that dies away among the quiet hills, the purple shadows deepen, and the last faint lingering glow fades slowly from the cliffs along its southern verge.
No clink of scythe-blade now, no sound of toil. The last note of labour and of daylight is the shouting from some distant farm, where the last load is being cheered into the stack-yard. A restless corncrake cries among the long grass of the next meadow that stands waiting for the scythe. Far off among the elms beyond the church an owl hoots. It is the hour of rest; the hour when, over the blue vault above,
". . . The brooding twilight
Unfolds her starry wings,
And warm hearts bless with tenderness
The peace that evetide brings:"
—the peace of God, for this broad hollow in the hills. Slowly on the quiet landscape falls the restful stillness of the summer night.