THE VILLAGE BY THE RIVER. 



SEPTEMBER IN BROADLAND. 



' When Autumn scatters his departing gleams, 

 Warned of approaching winter, gathered, play 



The swallow people ' 



Thompson. 



HE glories of the Broadland summer are on the wane ; yet September 

 is one of our most delightful months, and though the beauties of Flora 

 are not so widely broadcast, Pomona is smiling upon her ruddy orchards. 

 There is a decided change creeping over the face of nature, many of the 

 birds of summer are on the move, and the sounds which greeted the 

 ear in the longer days are replaced by a different order. The harvest 

 is ended, the fields ares horn of their beauty, and the thatcher has all but com- 

 pleted his roofing in of the corn-stacks. The weather is yet warm and balmy, the 

 sportsman is out with dog and gun in the stubbles, and Farmer Griles and Hodge 

 are putting their thrashing-machines in working order. Much of the poetry of 

 country-life is obsolete; the flail is no longer heard upon the thrashing floor, and 

 the gleaners are among the shadows of the past. There is little in the hum of 

 machinery to awaken the poet's muse. And behindhand Broadland has followed 

 in the wake of the more advanced agricultural districts. 



