After the dim purple bloom of a suspended spring a green rhythm ran from larch to thorn, from lime to sycamore; spread from meadow to meadow, from copse to copse, from hedgerow to hedgerow. The blackthorn had already snowed upon the nettle-garths. In the obvious nests among the bare boughs of ash and beech the eggs of the blackbird were blue green as the sky that March had bequeathed to April. for days past, when the breath of the equinox had surged out of the west, the missel-thrushes had bugled from the wind swayed topmost branches of the tallest elms. Everywhere the green rhythm ran.