COUNTRY LIFE
As yet the sun is nothing but a wintry glow of yellow, red or orange, and half its time, when it is on view, it is veiled in mist so that it is hard to believe that it gives any warmth to the earth at all; and yet to some extent, even as early in the year as this, it helps to bring a field to life. A northern slope lies frozen all day. A hollow that is screened from the short ride of the sun by a hill or a wood sleeps on, its mud congealed, its puddles frozen; but, where this brief winter sun reaches,othe ground breathes, the top soil softens and the hungry birds feed. Without walking over fields, one can stand on a high place and see the land that awakens first, for there, just before nightfall, a ground-mist gathers, a mist that rises from the breathing earth. The bleak slopes are dormant and give off no vapour, but, just as the movement of a pair of carrion crows is a sign of a new season, so is the daily effect of the climbing sun, a thing hard to detect, but there as secretly and quietly as a woodcock feeding.
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