For a few days at the latter end of February there came a mockery of sunshine, sad, like the suns of autumn. Abner sang as he walked down the valley; the labourers sang at their work. In a moment, such is the indomitable hope of living things, the birds broke their silence, the purple hedges were flushed, the bare twigs of hazel trembled as though they would shake their pale catkins out; one could feel the sap of life secretly stirring. But on the third day March came in howling like a lion with a dry wind from the northwest, sweeping brown leaves along, and the branches of the trees that bowed before it rattled dryly like dead bones. Once more the floods arose and drowned the land, and there was no more thought of spring. Through all this season the excavations under Callow Hill went on, and this was fortunate for Mary and her children, since Abner’s wages came in steadily through many weeks when snow and flood made it impossible for men to work on the farms. Sometimes old Drew would be weatherbound at Wolfpits for two days at a time, and this was a misery to him, for he had no life but his work, and his employer knew better than to pay him for anything less than he performed. On these days he would shut himself up in his rooms leading the life of a hibernating animal, lighting no fire and cooking no food, simply lying wrapped up in the blankets on his bed with door and windows closed against the cold. At night he would drink himself warm with his turnip-wine, and keep Mrs Mamble awake by singing. Fair or foul, the work of the pipe-track never slackened, and Mary was kept busy scraping the caked mud from Abner’s clothes. The rain ceased and the floods fell. There followed a hushed season in which the note of the chiff-chaff was heard sounding faintly, timorously. The trees whispered together in the night. The valley was silent, and yet, beneath the silence, one felt a secret battle of blind forces. Moment by moment, cell by cell, the creatures of earth were breaking free from the heavy lethargy that had sealed them. Even in the dull members of men the slow flame quickened, the numb fibres stirred. As yet on the surface of the earth few changes might be seen. Over the fields flights of peewits wheeled and screamed, with flapping, tumbling wings. Only the bloom of purple on the hedgerows flushed to a warmer brown, only tassels of elm-blossom in bud softened the stark outline of their branches: only, on the fringe of the woodland, the green of dog-mercury appeared.