290 THE RING OF NATURE 



knowledge of summer after winter as absolute as 

 that which sets our waits playing and everybody 

 feasting not long after the shortest day is passed. 

 But the wild things begin earlier than that. As 

 soon as the autumn check has fallen the early 

 flowers of next spring begin to stir. This scene of 

 death is but a hypocritical surrender to the powers 

 of cold. In all kinds of odd corners we find the 

 audacity of new growth. They have pulled up 

 from the depth of the fish-pond an old water-lily 

 stowl, and it has tiny heart-shaped leaves at the 

 ends of new shoots. The rhubarb has little red 

 leaves almost open beneath the surface of the 

 frozen earth. There is a waiting regiment of 

 colt's-foot in what you might think was only a 

 cemetery of all the years that are gone. Two 

 of the blossoms, as though taking the signs of 

 preparation for the actual order to advance, have 

 sprung out and opened themselves, crumpled and 

 pinched but undoubted gold. It is just like the 

 eagerness of a child who has had a butterfly-net 

 given him at Christmas, and goes out the next 

 day to see if June has not come. 



We find more contradictions of the note of 

 death in the wood. This is to be accounted for 

 partly because the wood is more sheltered, partly 

 because the floor of dead leaves is warmer, partly 

 because the wood grows on the limestone, whereas 

 the fields are on the lias. If you kick a hole in 

 the felt of leaves you will find that it is pierced 

 everywhere by the white spikes of wild hyacinth, 



