noon
The Sou-Westerly spell -- a matter of three days -- had given way before radiant stillness ; and merely to be alive was to feel emotion . At a little stream running beside the moor under the wild stone man , the riders stopped their horses , just to listen , and , inhale the day . The far sweet chorus of life was tuned to a most delicate rhythm ; not one of those small mingled pipings of streams and the lazy air , of beasts , men ; birds , and bees , jarred out too harshly through the garment of sound enwrapping the earth . It was noon -- the still moment -- but this hymn to the sun , after his too long absence , never for a moment ceased to be murmured . And the earth wore an under-robe of scent , delicious , very finely woven of the young fern sap , heather buds ; larch-trees not yet odourless , gorse just going brown , drifted woodsmoke , and the breath of hawthorn . Above Earth 's twin vestments of sound and scent , the blue enwrapping scarf of air , that wistful wide champaign , was spanned only by the wings of Freedom . After that long drink of the day , the riders mounted almost in silence to the very top of the moor .