Season for Picnics. 119 



show against its black background and through the 

 mist. Some wa}^ behind, a wea^ gray the only 

 spot of color, and that dimmed is gamely struggling 

 it is not leaping through a gap beside a gaunt 

 oak tree, whose dark buff leaves yet linger. But out 

 of these surely an artist who dared to face Nature as 

 she is might work a picture. 



The year really commences at Wick farmhouse 

 immediately before the autumn nominally begins 

 nominally, because there is generally a sense of 

 autumn in the atmosphere before the end of Septem- 

 ber. Just about that time there comes a slackening 

 of the work requiring earnest personal supervision. 

 When the yellow corn has been cut and carted, and 

 the threshing machine has prepared a sample for the 

 markets when the ricks are thatched, and the steam 

 plough is tearing up the stubble then the farmer 

 can spare a day or so free from the anxieties of har- 

 vest. There is plenty of work to be done ; in fact, 

 the yearly rotation of labor may be said to begin in 

 the autumn too, but it does not demand such hourly 

 attention. It is the season for picnics while the 

 sun is yet warm and the sward dry on the downs 

 among the great hazel copses, or the old intrench- 

 ment, with its view over a vast landscape, dimmed, 

 though, by yellow haze, or by the shallow lake in the 

 vale. 



With the exception of knocking over a young 

 rabbit now and then for household use, the farmer, 

 even if he is independent of a landlord, as in this case, 

 does not shoot till late in the year. Old-fashioned 

 folk, though not in the least constrained to do so, still 

 leave the first pick of the shooting to some neigh- 



