2 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



that the gloriously long and sunny days of Summer are at 

 last over ; that the inevitable period of decay has come ; 

 that nothing now remains to us but to pass through a 

 certain season of dank discomfort until we emerge to find 

 ourselves in the icy grasp of Winter ! 



That there is another and a brighter side goes without 

 saying. Autumn is no less the season of glorious fruition, 

 when bud and blossom have at last fulfilled their mission 

 and changed to ripened fruit, when the long labours of 

 the farmer have culminated in the harvest-field, and all 

 alike — harvest-mouse and squirrel, blackbird, ploughboy, 

 and millionaire — share the common bounty, and find yet 

 again the great promise fulfilled that till the end of time 

 the days of harvest shall never fail. 



The busy townman, surrounded in his home by 

 multitudinous chimney-pots and encircled by gas-lamps 

 innumerable, thinks with kindly pity on his brother in 

 the country who has but the lights of heaven to guide his 

 steps, to whom pavements are a luxury unknown, and 

 who, in lieu of the gong of the electric-car, has to be 

 content with music so old-fashioned as that poured forth 

 by the lark as he circles upward, ever upward, into the 

 great azure vault. Living, as we ourselves did, for many 

 years in a district purely rural, we found that the fixed 

 impression amongst our urban friends was that we were to 

 be greatly envied for three months in the year, to be no 

 less greatly pitied for the remaining nine ; and they entirely 

 failed to credit or realise that for twelve months in each 

 year the country life is fuU of charm, the only stipulation 

 necessary to attain that result being that one should be in 

 sympathy with one's environment. 



