Blackthorn Winter The blackthorn winter of country superstition, the sudden
bitter April spell of weather that comes every year as surely as the primrose and the cuckoo, occurred this year on April 2nd. . The wind was strong. and like ice, and the sky changing from black to white and icy blue and the bitter sleet to hot sunshine in a moment or two. And the blackthorn was in blossom, like stars of ice itself on the still wintry black branches. And old countrymen, muffled up, with shining dew-drops„ took on the air of prophets. The.blackthorn was out : there- fore the bitter spell. For them the little cold snowy stars of blossom were more than symbolic ; they were the cause of that sudden wintriness. And in May the air of prophecy will be resumed. For every _fog in March, a frost in May. And all through the summer the little bouts of prophecy and super- stition will go on. The wind will dry the newly turned earth very quickly, quite white, and there will be rain about. The swallows arc flying low : rain. again. And the cuckoo is already here to perform that mysterious rite of his, the
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