"TRESPASSERS" 105 



-TRESPASSERS WILL BE 

 PROSECUTED " 



As a natural reaction from a Christmas-day spent 

 for the most part within doors, the following day 

 drew me out early into the open country into 

 the wider family circle of those less than children, the 

 children of the wild. Frost and impenetrable fog 

 had held the land for a week, and then at once a 

 south wind crept in opening a way for the winter 

 sun. For an hour on each side of noon it had its 

 way, stripping from whitened field, tree and hedge- 

 row the thick rime, which yielded up the ghost as 

 a thin blue mist fain to be gathered into the hollows 

 and waterways, and glide away and be gone. Then 

 followed a night that glazed the drenched land, 

 and tipped anew as with some soft fur of frost each 

 tiniest projection, be it spine, leaf edge, or what not ; 

 and the late dawn looked again along the land, 

 freed from the rigours, but resigned to the tempered 

 chastening, of the north. 



By what name should one call this time of year ? 

 1 Winter ' is gross, for winter, as most men know it, 

 is largely of their own making. Unconscious nomads 

 in whom the dormant instinct stirs uneasily at times, 

 they scatter abroad with the opening year. One 

 will to the hill tops to feel the free sky above him, 

 another to the sea-board to face the open sea. 



