Under the Greenwood Tree

oan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles wh

lantation that whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. All the evidences of his nature were those afforded by the spirit

rose and

daffod

e lasses a-shee

ech, the dark-creviced elm, all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. Within the woody pass, at a level anything lower than the horizon

ealed itself between the dark hedgerows like a ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity

it would have reached had its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in the shape of “Ho-i-i

looking round, though with no idea of seei

ng Dick Dewy?” cam

e, Micha

s — going to thy own father’s house

tle, implying that the business of his mouth could not be che

ortrait of a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of a low-crowned hat, an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an o

ifferent ages and gaits, all of them working villagers of the parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their rotundity with the daylight, and advanced against

and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected with the sur

very hollow and his face fixed on the north-east quarter of the heavens before him, so that his lower waist-coat-buttons came first, and then the remainder of his figure. His features

nctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally came a weak lath-like form, trotting and stumbling along with one shoulder fo

Dick to this somewhat indi

Michael Mail, cleared his

e, thinken they wouldn’t be wanted yet awhil

little sooner. I have just been for a run round b

d expect us — to taste the little barrel

r. Penny, gleams of delight appearing upon his specta

he lasses a-she

ugh to drink a sight of drink

to get as drunk as lords!”

limmering indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet of Upper Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound of church-bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating

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