This, too, have we to do, to save a scolding from those rosy girls, our country cousins, who are down sometimes before us; seeing to rolls of butter and cans of milk, in that clean and spotless dairy, where you get nice colour from the pans and bowls—primrose and stone-tint, purply-red and cream. No roam about the buildings is there then for us, as we have to go with them to get the sweet scent of the roses, and to inhale the fresh smell of the mould, as we stay awhile talking to the chatty old gardener, who is at work where the thrushes are by him. Then up the stone steps to the walled kitchen-garden, where quaint yew arbours and broad turf-walks—under the boughs of a long nut-grove—suggest, but too often, fond tales of love. There we usually stroll about, and feast on ripe strawberries, wet with dew; then, on through the orchard by it, to where we look down far below on the fold. And, as we come to a stand there under the trees, to pick the cherries and disturb the jays, we hear the lowing of cows and the clucking of fowls, the neighing of colts and the stamps in the stable; the clink of the gears, the bark of the dog, and the laughs of the lads as they race round the rick-yard. Then, out by the white gate we go to where the geese in the pool are so busily splashing—to watch the starlings feeding their dusky broods in the walnut-trees above us; the cawing of the rooks and the cooing of the doves coming to us with the tinkle of the bell in the pasture; whilst if it happens that the mowers are then in the meadows, we also hear the brisk whetting of scythes, and the voices of women and girls; and perhaps the old farmer's loud call to his dogs, as they scamper about in the hay. These are thoroughly country sounds, and on that score doubly welcome.
Source: The Illustrated London News, July 1, 1882, p.19
See also:—
Summer: July
Summer: Roses
Summer: Mornings
Summer: Drawing
Summer: Walks
Summer: Models
Summer: Girls
Summer: Rest