Under the Greenwood Tree | Page 5

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
Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes,
casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with
their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, 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, all was dark as the grave. The
copse-wood forming the sides of the bower interlaced its branches so
densely, even at this season of the year, that the draught from the
north-east flew along the channel with scarcely an interruption from
lateral breezes.
After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white
surface of the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like a
ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by temporary
accumulations of leaves extending from the ditch on either side.
The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the
place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached had
its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in
the shape of "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock,
on the right of the singer who had just emerged from the trees.
"Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" he answered, stopping and looking round, though with no
idea of seeing anything more than imagination pictured.
"Is that thee, young Dick Dewy?" came from the darkness.
"Ay, sure, Michael Mail."

"Then why not stop for fellow-craters--going to thy own father's house
too, as we be, and knowen us so well?"
Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle,
implying that the business of his mouth could not be checked at a
moment's notice by the placid emotion of friendship.
Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against
the sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the portrait
of a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of a
low-crowned hat, an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an
ordinary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he consisted of further
down was invisible from lack of sky low enough to picture him on.
Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard
coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade
severally five men of different 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 the sky in flat outlines, which
suggested some processional design on Greek or Etruscan pottery.
They represented the chief portion of Mellstock parish choir.
The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his arm,
and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected with the
surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had hallooed to
Dick.
The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man,
who, though rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not
come to his own knowledge, moving on with his back 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 were invisible; yet when he occasionally looked
round, two faint moons of light gleamed for an instant from the
precincts of his eyes, denoting that he wore spectacles of a circular
form.
The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and

dramatically. The fourth outline was Joseph Bowman's, who had now
no distinctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally came a
weak lath-like form, trotting and stumbling along with one shoulder
forward and his head inclined to the left, his arms dangling nervelessly
in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. This was Thomas Leaf.
"Where be the boys?" said Dick to this somewhat indifferently-
matched assembly.
The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a great
depth.
"We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn't
be wanted