The Dewy Morn

The Dewy Morn

By Richard Jefferies.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Volume I
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
   4. IV
   5. V
   6. VI
   7. VII
   8. VIII
   9. IX
   10. X
   11. XI
   12. XII
   13. XIII
   14. XIV
   15. XV
   16. XVI
   17. XVII
   18. XVIII
   19. XIX
   20. XX
   21. XXI
   22. XXII
   23. XXIII
   24. XXIV
   25. XXV
4. Volume II
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
   4. IV
   5. V
   6. VI
   7. VII
   8. VIII
   9. IX
   10. X
   11. XI
   12. XII
   13. XIII
   14. XIV
   15. XV
   16. XVI
   17. XVII
   18. XVIII
   19. XIX
   20. XX
   21. XXI
   22. XXII
   23. XXIII
   24. XXIV
   25. XXV
   26. XXVI
   27. XXVII
   28. XXVIII
   29. XXIX
   30. XXX
5. Colophon
6. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Volume I

I

The sunbeams streamed over Ashpen Hill into a broad lane, a little after four in the morning. Felise was walking slowly towards the hill, which was yet at some distance, staying every moment to glance aside into the green and dew-laden hedges. On her right the hedge came to the sward; on the left a bank rose, and the hedge went along the summit.

The fragrance of the dew, invisibly evaporating, filled the air she breathed. From sweet-green hawthorn leaves, from heavy grasses drooping, the glittering drops dissolving brought with them the odour of leaf and flower. The larks, long since up, had sung the atmosphere clear of the faint white mist left by the night.

She found blue veronica in a bunch of grass under a dead thorn-branch, blown by the winds months ago out from the hedge. She lifted up the branch to fling it aside, and give the flowers more room and freedom; but she replaced it, reflecting that the thorns would perhaps prevent passing sheep from treading on them.

Upon the bank there was a cowslip; one stalk bore deep orange flowers, the others bunches yet unopened, and clothed in delicate green. Felise took the flower, which no bee had yet sipped, put it to her lips, and then placed it in her dress.

She stepped lightly round the smooth brown boulder-stones with which the lane was dotted in places⁠—rude disjointed efforts at paving⁠—beside which grew bunches of rushes, safe there from the cartwheels. Not even cartwheels could stand the jolt over these iron rocks. She walked sometimes on the elevated sides of the ruts⁠—the earth had been forced up by the crushing weight of wagon-loads; they were grass-grown, and the grass hung over the groove, along which weasels often hunted.

Sometimes she trod the sward by the bank, where it was short, and full of threeleaved clover whose white bloom was not yet out; then, crossing to the opposite side, she sauntered by the hedge there, letting the hawthorn brush her skirt, and the soft green hooks of the young bramble-shoots strive in vain to hold her.

An ash-branch stood out to bar her path. She stopped and touched it, and counted the leaves on the sprays; they were all uneven.

In the grass ahead the pinkish ears of a young rabbit stood up; he was nibbling peacefully, heedless of her approach. Not till she was close did he raise himself to look at her, first sitting on his haunches, then as if about to beg, then away into the burrow.

Her white hand wandered presently among more blue veronica flowering on the slope of the bank. She did not gather⁠—she touched only, and went on. She touched, too, the tips of some brake, freshly-green, and rising rapidly now day by day. A rush of wings⁠—a wood-pigeon came over; he was startled, and, swerving, went higher into the air.

There was honeysuckle on the hedge above the bank, too far to reach. She took a hawthorn leaf, felt it, and dropped it; then pulled a bennet, or grass-stalk, and dropped that; then pulled a rush, and left it. A lover might have tracked her easily by the footmarks on the dewy grass⁠—by the rush thrown down, and by the white handkerchief which she had carried in her hand and unconsciously dropped. A robin came to look at the handkerchief before she had gone many minutes; he thought perhaps there might be a crumb, and he is, too, very inquisitive.

Felise sat down on a great trunk of oak lying in the lane by a gateway, and sighed with very depth of enjoyment. There was a yellowhammer perched on the gate, and he had been singing. When Felise approached, he ceased; but seeing that she was quiet and intended him no harm, he began again. His four or five rising notes, and the long-drawn idle-sounding note with which they conclude, suited so well with the sunshine, they soothed her still further.