Page:The Heart of England.djvu/163



and summer and autumn had come—flowing into one another with that secrecy which, as in the periods of our life, spares us the pain of the irretraceable step—and still a golden tree stood here and there in the hollowed lawns… Snow fell on singing thrushes and golden trees, and when it was over a half moon of untouched grass under a dense hawthorn was as a green shadow on the white land… Then the year paused; there was a swallow still here and there; but again there was snow…

The world had been black and white for many days. The cygnet-coloured sky had been low from dawn to sunset; rarely a cloud dimly appeared in it, seen and lost and seen again, like a slow fish in rippling water. By night the iron firmament had been immense and remote.

Out of doors, as we walked, it was a source of faint satisfaction that we were clothed and fed; and it was easy to think of a less happy condition. We were in a primitive world. In those short days the world seemed to have grown larger; distance was more terrible. A friend living thirty miles off seemed inaccessible in the snow. The earth had to be explored, discovered, and mapped again; it was as it had been centuries ago, and