four o'clock in the afternoon
Even the green of the fir trees , as they stood in full light on the hill summits , was faded in comparison with the blue beyond . This was while he was in the open plain ; but when he walked into the forest , passing into the gap in the hills , all was changed . The snow , lightly shadowed by the branches overhead , was more quiet to the sight , and where his path lay near fir trees , the snow , where fell their heavy shade , looked so dead and cold and grey that it recalled thoughts of night-time , or of storm , or of other gloomy things ; and this thought of gloom , which the dense shadow brought , had fascination , because it was such a wondrous contrast to the rest of the happy valley , in which the sunbeams , now aslant , were giving a golden tinge to the icy facets of crags , to high-perched circling drifts , to the basin of unbroken snow , to the brown of maple trunks , and to the rich verdure of the very firs which cast the shadow . It was after four o'clock in the afternoon when he stopped his steady tramp , arrested by the sight of the first living things he had seen -- a flock of birds upon a wild vine that , half snow-covered , hung out the remnant of its frozen berries in a cleft of the hill . The birds did not fly at his approach , and , going nearer and nearer on the silent snow , he at last stopped , taking in greedily the sight of their pretty , fluttering , life . They were rather large birds , large as the missel thrush ; they had thick curved beaks and were somewhat heavy in form ; but the plumage of the males was like the rose-tint of dawn or evening when it falls lightly upon some grey cloud . They uttered no note , but , busy with their feast , fluttered and hopped with soft sound of wings .