autumn noon
As the season waned she kept nearer home , going not much further than Tremathick Cross on the St. Just road or to that relic already mentioned as lying outside Sancreed churchyard . These , in time , she associated as much with her child as with herself . The baby had now taken its natural place in her mind , and she prayed every day that it might presently forgive her for bringing it into the world at all . Misty-eyed , not unhappy , with her beauty still a startling fact , Joan mused away long hours at the feet of her granite friends through the waning splendors of many an autumn noon . Then , within the brief space of two weeks , a period of weather almost unexampled in the memory of the oldest agriculturists drew to its close . That mighty rains must surely come all knew , but none foretold their tremendous volume or foresaw the havoc , ruin and destruction to follow upon their outpouring . Meantime , with late September , the leaves began to hustle early to earth under great winds .