THE FAERY YEAR 



But next night is entirely different. Its setting 

 is more sinister than serene. At a quarter to nine 

 Arcturus, lately up and pointed at by the handle 

 of the great Plough, and Vega coming into view 

 again, hardly sparkle through the film. The moon 

 is ruler of the night. Like some elfin moon, she 

 rolls up over the black rim of the haunted hill a 

 large, full moon, burning quite yellow through 

 slowest moving mounds and lines of clouds ; some 

 of these her light turns inky blue, others rusty red. 

 The whole scene is unearthly, and of a forbidding 

 beauty. It is quite reassuring on such a night to 

 hear the good, familiar call of the brown owl 

 which is nesting in a hollow in a great elm or of 

 the restless lapwing, awake and a-wing almost any 

 night now, save, perhaps, the very darkest and 

 wettest. A third evening grows night without a 

 single star or gleam of moonlight. Owl and plover 

 are still, and it is only by poring into the dark that 

 one can at length divide the earth from the sky, and 

 make out the phantom forms of trees and hedges. 

 The Venus blues and the fantastic moonrise of a 

 day or two ago seem hardly credible ; and mornings 

 break which, with great fogs and dripping twigs, 

 turn the woods and gardens into autumn. 



Such is English spring weather it never suffers 

 us to tire of any one kind of day or night pageant. 

 Meanwhile every day of sun, shower, or mist alter- 

 nating tells surely on the progress of plant and 

 animal life. White violets, many having the edges 

 of their petals tinged with blue, like a garden viola, 

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