38 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



with delicate shadows. Many plants, too, especially 

 the perennial ferns, have come through the Winter 

 green and fresh, so that it almost appears as if some 

 gardener had been here already, getting his first spring 

 planting done. But the greatest charm of the woods on 

 this bright morning is the water. Just on this day, 

 perhaps, can you see it. Yesterday the melting process 

 was too slow. To-morrow the run will be over. But, 

 for this once, those lingering white drifts you see up the 

 slope, under a protecting bowlder or in the shadow of the 

 evergreens, are pouring down little brooks of dancing 

 quicksilver over the forest floor. They follow no worn 

 channels; they flow not to rule or boundary. Over the 

 brown leaves they come, by any little hollow, irre- 

 sponsible, twinkling, with the softest of plashing sounds 

 as one of them jumps over a fern-covered rock or the 

 root of an aged chestnut, and sinks into the moss or the 

 mould. 



And the smell of the forest that day ! It is the smell of 

 sweet, black humus, just exposed. It is the smell of 

 dead Winter. It is the indescribable smell of pure ice 

 water running over leaves. If you know it, you know it. 

 If not, no description can bring the odour to your 

 nostrils. It is the first and sweetest smell of Spring. 



On such a day, too, the upland pastures, clear of the 

 woods, have their own little ice-water brooks that run 

 and spread and reunite over the dead grass, or plough 

 tiny channels through the soil, the spongy, soft soil, free 



