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Under the Greenwood Tree, or, the Mellstock quire; a rural painting of the Dutch school by Thomas Hardy
page 4 of 234 (01%)
April 1912.




PART THE FIRST--WINTER


CHAPTER I: MELLSTOCK-LANE


To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well
as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan
no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with
itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its
flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such
trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality.

On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was passing
up a lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a plantation that
whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. All the evidences of
his nature were those afforded by the spirit of his footsteps, which
succeeded each other lightly and quickly, and by the liveliness of his
voice as he sang in a rural cadence:

"With the rose and the lily
And the daffodowndilly,
The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go."

The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of
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