64 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



instead of shrivelling and dropping one by one 

 in a sobbing November wind, burst into a crimson 

 glory, more beautiful in death than they were in 

 spring-time. There are no colours on the artist's 

 palette in which to paint the autumn foliage on 

 the Hope Mountains ; no words in the Anglo- 

 Saxon language in which to describe them. The 

 crimson of port wine against the light ; the glow 

 of sunlit windows by Albert Dlirer ; the red glow 

 of embers in a frosty night all these pale beside 

 the burning October bushes on the mountain-side, 

 lit by a late September sun, and vividly contrasted 

 with the sombre pines and gray ruins with which 

 they are surrounded. Of all these bushes the 

 brightest is the crimson sumach, but maple and 

 dog-wood and a score of others display the purest, 

 most transparent tints of every hue, from golden 

 green to royal purple. Summer dies here with a 

 smile, under clear skies which seem to bring 

 heaven very near, and then a wild wind sweeps 

 off the leaves at a coup, the snow falls thick and 

 heavy, covering all with its beautiful white 

 wreaths, and the year is dead, by a beautiful 

 ' sudden death,' dead before it has got old and 

 feeble, sere and yellow, and the onlookers are 

 spared the dull yellow fogs, and the agony of 

 tears through which an English summer lingers to 

 its grave. Dreaming of these things, and pray- 



