ything was
pushing up, unfolding under the soft insistent fingers of an unseen hand,
so were his heart and senses being pushed, unfolded. He got up and broke
off a spray from a crab-apple tree. The buds were like
Megan--shell-like, rose-pink, wild, and fresh; and so, too, the opening
flowers, white, and wild; and touching. He put the spray into his coat.
And all the rush of the spring within him escaped in a triumphant sigh.
But the rabbits scurried away.

6

It was nearly eleven that night when Ashurst put down the pocket
"Odyssey" which for half an hour he had held in his hands without
reading, and slipped through the yard down to the orchard. The moon had
just risen, very golden, over the hill, and like a bright, powerful,
watching spirit peered through the bars of an ash tree's half-naked
boughs. In among the apple trees it was still dark, and he stood making
sure of his direction, feeling the rough grass with his feet. A black
mass close behind him stirred with a heavy grunting sound, and three
large pigs settled down again close to each other, under the wall. He
listened. There was no wind, but the stream's burbling whispering
chuckle had gained twice its daytime strength. One bird, he could not
tell what, cried "Pippip," "Pip-pip," with perfect monotony; he could
hear a night-Jar spinning very far off; an owl hooting. Ashurst moved a
step or two, and again halted, aware of a dim living whiteness all round
his head. On the dark unstirring trees innumerable flowers and buds all
soft and blurred were being bewitched to life by the creeping moonlight.
He had the oddest feeling of actual companionship, as if a million white
moths or spirits had floated in and settled between dark sky and darker
ground, and were opening and shutting their wings on a level with his
eyes. In the bewildering, still, scentless beauty of that moment he
almost lost memory of why he had come to the orchard. The flying glamour
which had clothed the earth all day had not gone now that night had
fallen, but only changed into this new form. He moved on through the
thicket of stems and boughs covered with that live powdering whiteness,
till he reached the big apple tree. No mistaking that, even in the dark,
nearly twice the height and size of any other, and leaning out towards
the open meadows and the stream. Under the thick branches he stood still
again, to listen. The same sounds exactly, and a faint grunting from the
sle