Page:Francesca Carrara 1.pdf/29

Rh The hedges were full of gaps, made in the most reckless manner; and the meadows, which had evidently not been mown, were either quite bare, or covered with irregular patches of rank, coarse grass, whose vegetation was exhausting itself. Many of the cottages were deserted, and the thatch blackening with neglect and damp; the lattices gone from their frames, the pear-trees loosened from the walls, and their branches, grey with moss, and heavy with leaves, not fruit, trailing upon the grass-grown walks, told that the desolation was no work of yesterday. A few dwellings of the very lowest order were yet inhabited, but at the riders' approach the doors were hastily closed, and not a creature could be seen, even at the windows. "And yet this is market-day!" and the traveller remembered what a cheerful scene the road used to present—from the substantial yeoman on his good brown cob, to the peasant girls, with baskets and red cloaks, whose voices and laughter were heard long before themselves were seen. Now the chief occupiers of the path were a few meagre cows, picking up a scanty subsistence.

A sudden turn in the road brought them opposite a spot where Robert had passed many a happy day. Involuntarily he drew his horse to a stand, and remained gazing with speechless dismay on