CHAPTER III. 



THE HEDGE-BANK. 



To me the meanest flower that blows can give 

 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 



WORDSWORTH. 



VERY early indeed in the spring, before the Cro- 

 cus has had time to push up its golden flowers 

 through the unfrozen earth of our garden-borders, 

 and before even the snowdrop has ventured to peep 

 out from the compact flower-sheath in which it 

 has for the last few weeks been wrapped, waiting 

 for its own turn to enliven the face of nature, 

 while patches of snow are yet to be seen here and 

 there, lurking under hedges and beside haystacks, 

 where the rays of the sun cannot reach them,* 

 while the redbreast and the wren are the only 

 songsters who have recovered their voices, while 

 the rivulets still continue to overflow their banks 

 from the effects of melting snow, and broken 

 sheets of ice are still to be seen a little below the 

 surface of ponds, before nature is quite aroused 

 from her long winter's sleep, even thus early in 

 the year you will be almost sure to find one cheer- 

 ing harbinger, to hold out the promise of sunny 

 days and genial showers. This is what has been 

 fancifully called the first rose of the year, or 



* Called, in some parts of the country, " snow-bones/' 



