CHAPTER X 



THE GREEN WORLD 



IN February, wandering in these southern lanes and 

 woods, we grow conscious with a great pleasure and 

 refreshment of the rebirth of a green world. The 

 Hampshire woods and downs and open fields look as 

 wintry in February as they looked in December, if we 

 take whole landscapes. There are patches of snow 

 perhaps in the shade ; but it is another thing when 

 we look close into the banked hedgerows facing south 

 and south-west. Here the quickening of the earth is 

 clear enough, through various small green things ; it 

 is delightful to take the inventory of the thorn-hedge 

 late in February. The faint green moschatel in the 

 innermost recesses of the clipped thorn hedge has 

 thrust up an inch. It grows through the sandy 

 scrapings which each winter are shovelled off the 

 road on to the bank. Once we know this charming 

 plantlet, so modest, hardy, early, obscure, we look for 

 it year after year. It is a precise little thing; has a 

 well-defined season ; it always comes by March ; is 

 always done in May. Here is not one of those spring 

 plants which will flower in autumn and winter, such 

 as primrose and violet. When moschatel breaks 



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