FEBKUAKY 57 



keeping ward over the slumbering world were giving 

 place to the day reliefs before the sounding of the 

 grand reveille. 



Be it this, or be it some other, nobody who is in tune 

 with nature will be insensible thereof, nor fail to recog- 

 nise in the calendar a counterpart to this daily revival. 

 It comes in the thrill running through the land ere it 

 wakes from the sleep of winter. Our seasons are so 

 variable that there is sometimes plant growth in every 

 month. The earth carried into the winter that is just 

 passing away (1899-1900) so much of the heat imparted 

 by a gracious summer, that the heliotrope of all 

 common bedding plants most sensitive to cold was 

 flowering in open borders on the west coast of Scotland 

 as late as the 8th of December. Then the frost got in 

 its tooth for a short spell, yet the first snowdrop flowered 

 on the 28th of that month. Still, even the singing of 

 credulous thrushes did not delude one into the belief 

 that winter was past. It was a full month later when 

 an indescribable something in the morning air made 

 one aware that a change had taken effect ; that winter 

 was no longer master ; that steam was getting up, and 

 the business of the year was afoot. Since that day there 

 has been a set-back ; furious snow-storms and nights of 

 cruel frost have interrupted the business; but it has 

 been proceeding all the same, and the dead months are 

 behind us. 



Even here, seven hundred miles north of London, 

 about as far north as you can get without falling over 

 the edge of our little island, with the glen wrapped in 



