THE LONE SWALLOWS 3 



blossoming there would be no more snow 

 or ice after the white flowers, fragile as 

 vapour thralled by frost, had come upon 

 their ebon wilderness of spines. The heart 

 could now look forward, not backwards 

 to other fled springtimes. The first swallows 

 had come from distant lands, and three 

 weeks before the winged hosts were due! 

 One of the greatest of nature-writers wrote, 

 " The beautiful swallows, be tender to 

 them." In fancy Richard Jefferies, too, 

 was wandering on the headland, and watch- 

 ing the early vagrants, breathing the 

 fragrance of the wild thyme that came like 

 an old memory with the wind. Always 

 dearly loved are the singing birds of passage, 

 returning with such feeble wings to the 

 land that means love and life to them, and 

 love and life and beauty to us. Each one 

 is dear ; all the swallows returned are a 

 sign and a token of loveliness being made 

 manifest before our eyes. 



The early April days passed, like the 



