midnight
And under the ice that bound the flooded meadows doubtless the earth dreamed of the freeing of her waters and the blooming of the land . The snows and the frosts lasted late that year as though the winter would never be done , and to the two Gerards the days crawled like snails ; but in time March blew himself off the face of the earth , and April dawned , and the swollen river went rushing to the sea above the banks it had drowned with its wild overflow . And as Old Gerard began to mark the days off on a tally , Young Gerard began to listen on the hills . When the day came whose midnight was to make the old man a freedman , Thea had not appeared . On the morning of this day , as the two shepherds stood outside their shed before they separated with their flocks , their ears were accosted with shoutings and halloos on the other side of the copse , and soon they saw coming through the trees a man in gay attire . He had a scalloped jerkin of orange leather , and his shoes and cap were of the same , but his sleeves and hose and feather were of a vivid green , like nothing in nature . He looked garish in the sun .