To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; and beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality.
T. Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree, London, 1920, p. 3.
PLACE: West Country of England
TIME: ca. 1850
The noise of a beetle and wedges and the splintering of wood was periodically heard from this direction; and at some little distance further a steady regular munching and the occasional scurr of a rope further betokened a stable, and horses feeding within it.
T. Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree, London, 1920, p. 7.
PLACE: West Country of England
TIME: ca. 1850
Beyond their own slight noises nothing was to be heard save the occasional bark of foxes in the direction of Yalbury Wood, or the brush of a rabbit among the grass now and then as it scampered out of their way.
T. Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree, London, 1920, p. 24.
PLACE: West Country of England
TIME: ca. 1850
In the pauses of conversation there could be heard through the floor overhead a little world of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which never spread further than the tower they were born in, and raised in the more meditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct pathway of Time.
T. Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree, London, 1920, p. 32.
PLACE: West country of England
TIME: ca. 1850
' ... what ears!' said Mr. Penny in a whisper. 'Beats any horse or dog in the parish, and depend upon't, that's a sign he's a proper clever chap.'
T. Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree, London, 1920, p. 55.
PLACE: West Country of England
TIME: ca. 1850
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