210 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



nature, though silent, can be never still. The frost flits about the 

 frozen mere, and sprinkles his glistening pearls, and pointed spears, 

 and snowy crusts, on leaf and twig, and withered reed. Sometimes he 

 encases the rushes, as they stand up brown and scathed, with a glassy 

 covering, as though he would embalm them as choice things for future 

 years to contemplate. Then he goes powdering the windows and the 

 old walls with his feathery bloom, and piles up in the night huge steeps 

 and mountain piles ; pine forests, and rifted crags, great granite 

 rocks, and intervening flowers, mingling all together with a misty, hazy 

 frieze, with his cunning and invisible fingers. Though many flowers 

 perished in the autumn storms, some few were spared to sing the 

 dirges of the year. In the deep forest, where the waters leap along 

 and chase each other through the knotted roots of aged trees, the reeds 

 rock from side to side, and wave their plumy heads in every breeze ; 

 displaying a simple grandeur in their pensile outlines, which was 

 never seen amid the leafy shadows of the summer. In the cold marsh, 

 the tall bulrush stands up cutting through the white fog, and shiver- 

 ing his sable club at the glancing stalactites upon the matted grass ; 

 and proudly looking down at the green pennywort at his feet. In 

 chosen spots there are still rich clouds of yellow and scarlet berries 

 hanging on the trees, though here and there they are torn and ragged, 

 and look like homeless vagrants skulking under withered leaves. 



As winter steals apace, the fungi spring up in strange fantastic 

 shapes, aud cluster with the velvet mosses and the golden lichens on 

 the boles of old trees, and in the damp hidden nooks of the common. 

 On bits of rotten wood, the Scottish siller cups put forth their leathery 

 caps, each filled with glistening beads, which the wives of old trans- 

 lated into fairy money. In December, the rosemary comes into 

 flower, and brings with it refreshing memories of the olden time ; 

 when it was used to stir up the foaming Christmas tankard, and 

 dipped into the drinking bowls at weddings, and borne before the 

 bride as she walked to the altar, and as an emblem of remembrance, 

 strewn upon the grave. Here and there we meet a rustic porch, 

 wreathed all over with the sweet pale blossoms of the China rose ; and 

 all intermingled with light fairy foliage, which makes it seem as 

 though we had lighted on a summer-land of beauty, till we look 

 around and feel more keenly than ever the desolation of surrounding 

 fields. Then come the gorgeous blossoms of the hellebore or Christ- 

 mas rose ; and in the g-ardeos, the lauristinas blossom ; and in the 



