Women of the Country

The Roadmender series
Uniform with this Volume

The Roadmender.  By Michael Fairless. 
The Gathering of Brother Hilarius.  By Michael Fairless. 
The Grey Brethren.  By Michael Fairless. 
A Modern Mystic’s Way. (Dedicated to Michael Fairless.)
Magic Casements.  By Arthur S. Cripps. 
Thoughts of Leonardo da Vinci,
    as recorded in his Note-Books.  Edited by Edward MCCURDY. 
The Sea Charm of Venice.  By STOPFORD A. Brooke. 
Longings.  By W.D.  MCKAY. 
From the Forest.  By W. Scott Palmer. 
Pilgrim Man.  By W. Scott Palmer. 
Winter and Spring.  By W. Scott Palmer. 
Michael Fairless:  Life and Writings. 
    By W. Scott Palmer and A.M.  Haggard. 
Vagrom Men.  By A.T.  Story. 
Light and Twilight.  By Edward Thomas. 
Rest and Unrest.  By Edward Thomas. 
Rose Acre Papers:  including Horae Solitarae.  By Edward Thomas.

[Illustration]

Women of the Country

By

Gertrude Bone

With Frontispiece by Muirhead Bone

London

Duckworth & Co.

Henrietta Street, W.C.

Published 1913

WOMEN OF THE COUNTRY

CHAPTER I

When I was a child I lived in a small sea-coast town, with wide, flat sands.  The only beautiful thing in the place—­a town of no distinction—­were the sunsets over this vast, level expanse.  I remember them at intervals, as one recalls things seen passing in a train through a solitary landscape.  I seem to see myself, a child with a child’s imagination, standing on those wet sands, looking out over their purple immensity to the glittering line of the tide on the horizon, and to see again the sun in such a wide heaven that it seemed to have the world to itself, and to watch the changes in the sky as it sank, drawing with it the light.  These great sands were dangerous at times, shifting in whirling and irresistible rushes of water, and changing the course of the channel, which was unaltered by the tide and which always lay out a gleaming artery from the almost invisible sea.

It was Sunday morning—­a day observed with such precision in that little town that I was almost alone out of doors.  A string of cart-horses, their day of rest well-earned, were being led across the sands from the level tide.  The sand, uncovered by the sea for weeks, was bleached to an intolerable whiteness, but there was no wind to lift it, and the sea was tranquil, its little waves all hastening in one direction, like a shoal of fish making for a haven.