Spangles of Existence

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921. Excerpt: ... PHILIP, the Shepherd, lithe and swarthy, with firm, sensitive mouth and lustrous dark eyes, might have been a lineal descendant of Comus or of Thyrsis. Beatrice, his companion, a volunteer farm girl, was as English as Hampstead Heath or Leicester Square, She was comely, too, strong as a young pony, fresh as a daffodil, wide-eyed, deep-chested, sweet-voiced, clean as the morning star. Young and healthy, coolly and comradely they went together to their work upon the Downs, these two, in the hour before the dawn; and as they tripped along the boy spoke to the girl. "You feel a chill, Trixy? At this hour the Downs be sharply raw. But they be main pretty. I been once to west country. 'Tis not so fair as here. They hills be all a green, not rosy like our Downs. But I prize they Downs most best as now, afore daybreak; an' in the nightfall, when the stars swims out. They stars be like eyes a-watchin' of 'ee. Some do hold as they be worlds; but they do wink an' stare like cunning eyes. Lookee at yonder white one, Trixy. Don't her have a knowing gaze?" "I dunno, Phil," the girl answered in her fluty voice, "a star's a star. That one I think's called Venus." The boy's dark eyebrows arched as he said: "Venus! Her's like a coast light seen afar off. Yonder one, now, low down i' the sky, her's tricky to change her colour. Lookee, day's a-comin'. See that roachback hill? That's Ringway Down. When her do heave up her gert hulk out o' the mist her's like a vast fish showin' her blue back again the pinky streaks o' the sky. 'Ow do it be, Trixy, as the white sun do make so many lusty colours? How do her paint the clouds an' the land like fire an' gold? Her do change the blue sky to green seas and fields of buttercups. Her do make the wet furrows glisten like stain glass. It...