Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/309

 that made the leaves look like foliage cast in copper and the skies like a vault of brass, the ominous hiss and shriek of the wind that made the slow buffaloes gallop fast with fear, and filled the air with the hurrying wings of frightened birds, all these were to her only as the sound of trumpet and the smell of powder to the war-horse. The storms were fierce and swift, and rent like a veil the drowsy languor and heat of the usual atmosphere. She would see them coming over the sea from the west at sunset, or gathering above the southern horizon, where the Roman Campagna and the Pontine marshes were steaming with vapour.

When the autumn arrived, she was undismayed by the prospect of winter there, although she felt afraid that it would be more difficult to keep out of sight of men in the season when the waterfowl and the roebuck and the boar were hunted from dawn to twilight in their native haunts.

At this time of the year, too, the flocks came down from the mountains, footsore, travel-tired, with the shepherd and his woman and children behind them footsore also, and the white dogs that were kin to Leone running among the bleating sheep. She saw these