I took the downward road which winds slowly round to Marsland, and tried to discover the heralds of spring. On such a day everybody should be an optimist. I think I generally am as regards myself, whatever the weather may be like, but I must admit that so far I have had little cause for being anything else. It is only when I begin to dwell on the miseries of other people, and the wrongs which it seems impossible to put right, that the black mood settles upon me. But on this particular day I felt on good terms with the world, and thought of the sunny days which lay ahead, and of the coming morning, when the heather bells would feel the warm breath of summer upon their face, and open their eyes in loving response to her kiss. And here and there in the shelter of the hedges, and by the banks of the ice-bound stream where the bridge crosses it I found the heralds I sought--tiny shoots of green pushing their way through the hard soil or the warm coverlet of faded leaves. By and by the icy fingers will have to relax their grasp, and the woods and hedgerows will be gay with the little fairy creatures, who dress so daintily in colours of a hundred hues for our enjoyment, and who smile, perhaps, to think what a limited monarchy King Frost maintains after all. I am well known by now, and every farmer's boy who passes me exchanges greetings, sometimes with a half-hearted movement of the hand in the direction of the cap, but oftener with the smile of recognition which betokens comradeship. For our relations are on the most cordial footing of strict equality; we are all workmen, each after his kind, servants of one Master; and if God gives us grace to use our opportunities as we ought we may all enter, even now, into the joy of the Lord. There is a vast difference, as I have learned, between servility and respectfulness, and I believe I am as much respected as the squire, though with less reason: and nobody is unduly deferential even to him. The good women in the cluster of cottages down the lane waved their hands as I passed, and a couple of maidens of tender years, one fair, the other with raven locks, ran out and seized each an arm, and escorted me a hundred yards along my way. I sat on the bridge for a while at the foot of the hill, and it may have been the network of trees in the little wood which hid from my eyes the approaching storm. For with the suddenness of a panther it sprang upon me. There had been a fairly stiff breeze at my back, which had helped me along famously, taking toll of my ears for its fee, but now, as if its playful humour had been changed to madness, it lashed me mercilessly with knotted whips of frozen rain.