The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid

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CHAPTER I.


IT was half-past four o’clock (by the testimony of the land-surveyor, my
authority for the particulars of this story, a gentleman with the
faintest curve of humour on his lips); it was half-past four o’clock on a
May morning in the eighteen forties. A dense white fog hung over the
Valley of the Exe, ending against the hills on either side.

But though nothing in the vale could be seen from higher ground, notes of
differing kinds gave pretty clear indications that bustling life was
going on there. This audible presence and visual absence of an active
scene had a peculiar effect above the fog level. Nature had laid a white
hand over the creatures ensconced within the vale, as a hand might be
laid over a nest of chirping birds.

The noises that ascended through the pallid coverlid were perturbed
lowings, mingled with human voices in sharps and flats, and the bark of a
dog. These, followed by the slamming of a gate, explained as well as
eyesight could have done, to any inhabitant of the district, that
Dairyman Tucker’s under-milker was driving the cows from the meads into
the stalls. When a rougher accent joined in the vociferations of man and
beast, it would have been realized that the dairy-farmer himself had come
out to meet the cows, pail in hand, and white pinafore on; and when,
moreover, some women’s voices joined in the chorus, that the cows were
stalled and proceedings about to commence.