35 



tory. It owns full power of the air. Low 

 as the earth it comes, up to heaven it 

 reaches, a solid, moving wall, mighty as it 

 is invisible. 



So it blows and blows rushing, rending, 

 drinking up the waters from the face of 

 earth as chaff before fire. Sometimes it 

 veers to north. Then frost binds hard, and 

 bites. For the most part it keeps constant 

 in the west, and saith not the proverb, 



" Wind i' the west 

 Weather at the best." 



Certainly the farmers think so. Witness 

 the ploughman's proverb, "A peck of March 

 dust is worth a king's ransom." 



For when March dust flies seed time goes 

 so well, so merrily, as to promise full har- 

 vest. Under the waxing sun lambs skip 

 and play across the greening grass. There 

 may be gray days, sharp and bleak, yet all 

 the world thrills to feel that winter is be- 

 hind. By and by the clouds rift lighten 

 grow high and white and woolly at last 

 melt out of sight. Winds lull to the merest 

 breath you say, rejoicing, "It is April 

 weather." 



Have a care. Who knows what treachery 

 may lurk under that specious seeming. Who 



