midday
Then followed silence , dead as ever , till the song of a blackbird , not properly awake , adventured into the hush . And , from staring at the framed brightening light , Ashurst fell asleep . Next day his knee was badly swollen ; the walking tour was obviously over . Garton , due back in London on the morrow , departed at midday with an ironical smile which left a scar of irritation -- healed the moment his loping figure vanished round the corner of the steep lane . All day Ashurst rested his knee , in a green-painted wooden chair on the patch of grass by the yew-tree porch , where the sunlight distilled the scent of stocks and gillyflowers , and a ghost of scent from the flowering-currant bushes . Beatifically he smoked , dreamed , watched . A farm in spring is all birth-young things coming out of bud and shell , and human beings watching over the process with faint excitement feeding and tending what has been born .