And if it did he might strike his breast, and try to think he was warmer.
But when a man came home at night, after long day's labour, knowing that the days increased, and so his care should multiply; still he found enough of light to show him what the day had done against him in his garden.

Every ridge of new-turned earth looked like an old man's muscles, honeycombed, and standing out void of spring, and powdery.
Every plant that had rejoiced in passing such a winter now was cowering, turned away, unfit to meet the consequence.

Flowing sap had stopped its course; fluted lines showed want of food, and if you pinched the topmost spray, there was no rebound or firmness.
We think a good deal, in a quiet way, when people ask us about them--of some fine, upstanding pear-trees, grafted by my grandfather, who had been very greatly respected.

And he got those grafts by sheltering a poor Italian soldier, in the time of James the First, a man who never could do enough to show his grateful memories.

How he came to our place is a very difficult story, which I never understood rightly, having heard it from my mother.