The pigsty was on his right as he stood facing the ditch; but on his left there grew in the meadow just beyond the hedge a large ash-tree⁠—a tree from among whose grey upcurving branches a thrush was wont to sing, always increasing the vehemence of its ecstasy till the moment when the road grew quite dark. The bird began singing now, and its thrush-notes made Wolf think of those wild blackbird-notes of Gerda, as they flooded the meadows on the day when she lost her virginity.

Thinking of Gerda as he stared up into the ash-tree, he began to meditate on the extraordinary good luck he had had ever since he had come to the West Country. “I must be born under a lucky star,” he thought; and his mind set itself to review the most recent examples of this good fortune.