down the pleached alley to the old sun-dial, threw himself on the
grass under the yews, and wept and longed for war.

But war was not to be just yet. Autumn withered and sank into
winter. The rain came down on the stubble, and the red cattle waded
through red mire to and from their pasture; the skies grew pale
above, and the earth grew bare beneath; the winds grew sharp and
seemed unfriendly; the brooks ran foaming to the rivers, and the
rivers ran roaring to the ocean. Then the earth dried a little, and
the frost came, and swelled and hardened it; the snow fell and lay,
vanished and came again. But even out of the depth of winter,
quivered airs and hints of spring, until at last the mighty weakling
was born. And all this time rumour beat the alarum of war, and men
were growing harder and more determined on both sides--some from
self-opinion, some from party spirit, some from prejudice,
antipathy, animosity, some from sense of duty, mingled more and less
with the alloys of impulse and advantage. But he who was most
earnest on the one side was least aware that he who was most earnest
on the other was honest as himself. To confess uprightness in one of
the opposite party, seemed to most men to involve treachery to their
own; or if they were driven to the confession, it was too often
followed with an attempt at discrediting the noblest of human
qualities.

The hearts of the two young people fared very much as the earth
under the altered skies of winter, and behaved much as the divided
nation. A sense of wrong endured kept both from feeling at first the
full sorrow of their separation; and by the time that the tide of
memory had flowed back and covered the rock of offence, they had got
a little used to the dulness of a day from which its brightest hour