noon
A chewink , brave in his black and white and tan uniform , scratched mightily with great two-footed swoops that threw the vegetable mould over Orde 's very feet . Blazoned butterflies -- the yellow and black turnus , the dark troilus , the shade-loving nymphalis -- flickered in and out of the patches of sunlight . Orde paid them no attention . The noon heat poured down through the forest isles like an incense . Overhead swung the sun , and down the slope until the long shafts of its light lifted wand-like across the tree trunks . At this hint of evening Orde shook himself and arose . He was little nearer the readjustment he sought than he had been the previous night .