Doomsday by Warwick Deeping

A little flickering yellowness in the tree tops, and the daffodils blown flat in Furze's orchard, such seemed the beginnings of the spring that year. Skipping lambs and bleating ewes, and the sallow blossom flashing a pale gold and the celandines out in the moist places. A night's gale had stripped tiles off the roof, and unroofed two of the lambing pens. On the soil it is the expected that happens, and a man of the soil must expect trouble.

But, looked at largely, life was very good, even when you had the stress of the year before you, and the weeds were ready to grow. Soon, the wryneck would be calling, and the cuckoo ringing the valley with its double note. Moreover, Arnold had bought a carpet, two basket chairs, a sofa, a small painted wood table, a fender, and a length of cretonne to be cobbled into curtains before the fire at night, with the lamb, the cat and the dog making a queer group upon the two sacks that served as a hearth rug. Furze's lips were very compressed over the making of those curtains, and he was inclined to breathe heavily. Bobbo would sit on his stumpy tail and watch.