WHERE is Maria, our child?" asked the father.
"She is playing on the green," replied the mother, "with our neighbour's son."
"Do not let them run away," said the father anxiously; "they are so thoughtless."
The mother attended to the wants of the little ones, and gave them their supper.
"The weather is hot, mother," said the boy; and the little maiden longed exceedingly to have some red cherries.
"Be careful, child," said the mother; "do not run too far from the house, or into the wood; your father and I are going into the field."
"Oh, do not be anxious on that account," was the prompt reply of young Andrew, "for we are all afraid of the wood; we will remain here sitting at home, where we are near to the men."
The mother went in, and soon returned with the father. They closed their cottage, and turned towards the fields to look after the peasants, and to see the hay-harvest in the meadows.
Their dwelling was situated on a little green eminence, fenced round by an ornamental hedge, which enclosed a fruit and flower garden; the town lay a little lower down; and still further there rose in the distance the towers of the baronial castle. Martin rented a large farm of the lord, the proprietor, and lived in a happy state of contentment with his wife and only child, as he was enabled, year by year, to lay by something in reserve for the future, with the prospect of becoming one day himself a man of property; for through his toil and industry the land was fruitful, and the Count did not oppress him with undue exactions.
As he was walking towards the fields with his wife, he gazed joyously around, and said, "How is it, Bridget, that the country about here is so different from that in which we formerly lived? Here it is so green and verdant; the whole town is beautified with thickly planted fruit-trees; the soil teems with rich vegetation and shrubs; all the houses are gay and cleanly—the inhabitants prosperous; indeed, it would appear to me that the woods here are more majestic, and the sky more blue; and as far as the eye can scan, we have pleasure in beholding the bountiful earth."