In sunshine or in shade, in wet or fair,
9. The 'bounty' that her husband had been paid about .1 in 1757 to more than .16 in 1796 (J- R- for enlisting in the militia. The shortage of volun-Western, English Militia in the Eighteenth Cen
teers and England's sharply rising military needs tury, 1965).
had in some counties forced the bounty up from
.
THE RUINED COTTAGE / 287
Now blithe, now drooping, as it might befal,
My best companions now the driving winds
295 And now the 'trotting brooks'1 and whispering trees
And now the music of my own sad steps,
With many a short-lived thought that pass'd between
And disappeared. I came this way again
Towards the wane of summer, when the wheat
BOO Was yellow, and the soft and bladed grass Sprang up afresh and o'er the hay-field spread
Its tender green. When I had reached the door
I found that she was absent. In the shade
Where now we sit I waited her return.
305 Her cottage in its outward look appeared
As chearful as before; in any shew
Of neatness little changed, but that I thought
The honeysuckle crowded round the door
And from the wall hung down in heavier wreathes,
310 And knots of worthless stone-crop2 started out
Along the window's edge, and grew like weeds
Against the lower panes. I turned aside
And stroll'd into her garden.?It was chang'd:
The unprofitable bindweed spread his bells
315 From side to side and with unwieldy wreaths
Had dragg'd the rose from its sustaining wall
And bent it down to earth; the border-tufts?
Daisy and thrift and lowly camomile
And thyme?had straggled out into the paths
320 Which they were used? to deck. Ere this an hour accustomed Was wasted. Back I turned my restless steps,
And as I walked before the door it chanced
A stranger passed, and guessing whom I sought
He said that she was used to ramble far.
325 The sun was sinking in the west, and now
I sate with sad impatience. From within
Her solitary infant cried aloud.
The spot though fair seemed very desolate,
The longer I remained more desolate.
330 And, looking round, I saw the corner-stones,
Till then unmark'd, on either side the door
With dull red stains discoloured and stuck o'er
With tufts and hairs of wool, as if the sheep
That feed upon the commons3 thither came
335 Familiarly and found a couching-place Even at her threshold.?The house-clock struck eight;
I turned and saw her distant a few steps.
Her face was pale and thin, her figure too
