Tempest tossed Author:Margaret Roberts Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. " But now she came to me in sleep, Her eyes were on my soul: Kind eyes ! they said, ' And didst tltou weep And I did not console ?'... more »" -- dora Greenweli, jjORNER'S approach had been perceived, and caused an immediate and joyful excitement in and around the farm-house. He had, after all, only been absent three days, but at that period peril and adventure enough for a lifetime were sometimes compressed into a space equally short. Several labourers came out from barn and stable to greet him; another quickened the deliberate pace at which his sleek horses were returning from the fields after a long day's work; half a dozen flaxen-headed, sun-browned children of different ages, who had been picking up acorns, scampered up with a joyful shout at the recognition of their master, and the cries mingled with the hissing and cackling of a flock of geese, driven by a bare-footed girl, who shook her rod at them as they stretched out snaky necks and lifted their heads indignantly as they waddledalong, protesting at being brought home and shut up. A herd of swine came from another direction, grunting loudly on their return from the forest, where they had been fattening themselves on beech-mast under the care of a lad who was now driving them back, glad that the sight of home had made them less unruly than they were in the forest, where every single one would seem suddenly possessed by a separate spirit of mischief, and run hither and thither, defying all discipline, and exulting over the feast of acorns and beech-mast spread on the ground before them. There was a stir inside the house too. A couple of sturdy lasses came running to the door, and a little lad, evidently Dorner's son, rushed out and sprang upon his father with a shout of exultation. It was...« less