Into it, too, had the
message that thrilled through his bones penetrated, and this little
oasis of doubtful grass and blackened shrubs had a totally different
aspect to-day from that which it had worn all those weeks. The sparrows
that had sat with fluffed-up feathers in corners sheltered from the
gales, were suddenly busy and shrilly vocal, chirruping and dragging
about straws, and flying from limb to limb of the trees with twigs in
their beaks. For the first time he noticed that little verdant cabochons
of folded leaf had globed themselves on the lilac bushes below the
window, crocuses had budded, and in the garden beds had shot up the
pushing spikes of bulbs, while in the sooty grass he could see specks
and patches of vivid green, the first growth of the year.
He opened the window and strolled out. The whole taste and savour of the
air was changed, and borne on the primrose-coloured sunshine came the
smell of damp earth, no longer dead and reeking of the decay of autumn,
but redolent with some new element, something fertile and fecund,
something daintily, indefinably laden with the secret of life and
restoration. The grey, lumpy clouds were gone, and instead chariots of
dazzling white bowled along the infinite blue expanse, harnessed to the
southwest wind.
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