But there is not the least breath--a great frost is always quiet, profoundly quiet--and the silence is undisturbed even by the fall of a leaf.

The frost that kills them holds the leaves till it melts, and then they drop.
The tall ash poles behind in the wood stand stark and straight, pointing upwards, and it is possible to see for some distance between them.

No lesser bats flit to and fro outside the fence under the branches; no larger ones pass above the tops _of_ the trees.

There seems, indeed, a total absence of life.

The pheasants are at roost in the warmer covers; and the woodpigeons are also perched--some in the detached oaks of the hedgerows, particularly those that are thickly grown with ivy about the upper branches.