A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 15 



levels of content. The soughing of the fir-boughs, 

 the noise of the poultry-yard and the pigeon-loft, 

 the champ-champ of the chaff-cutter and the chance 

 ring of a dairy pail, a score of homely sounds bring 

 back the warmth of life. 



I reflect that Tomsett is by this filling his pipe, the 

 kettle singing under the blue checkered vallance of 

 the chimney-breast ; for the time he is as happy as 

 any other in the county. If he understood these 

 vague philanthropies and vicarious discomfortings 

 of ours, perhaps the balance of pity might not be 

 altogether easily struck between us. 



March ist. This morning we found the wind had 

 gone " up," as they say here, into the north, and 

 blown away all the cheer of the hint of Spring. The 

 light was dull and hueless ; a smoky haze hung 

 between the lawn and the nearest fir-trunks ; a raw, 

 damp air stirred the dead leaves in the hedges. The 

 incessant trill and whistle of the birds which has 

 filled the garden for a week past ceased at once. 

 There is something more than raw air and leaden 

 cloud in these days of early Spring when the wind 

 is " up." " London smoke," people used to call the 

 specific haze, as Gilbert White notes, long before the 

 sea-coal fires could do much in the way of fumigating 



