AUTUMN 37 



had told me, and from my own recollections 

 of previous years, and I was seized with a 

 foolish desire to capture it as a sort of tro- 

 phy. It lay just beyond my reach, and I 

 disturbed it, in hopes it would settle nearer 

 the ground. Twice it disappointed me. 

 Then I threw a stick toward it, aiming not 

 wisely but too well, and this time startled it 

 so badly that it rose straight into the air, 

 sailed across the stream, and came to rest far 

 up in a tall elm. " You were never cut out 

 for a collector of insects," I said to myself, 

 recalling my experience of the forenoon ; 

 but I was glad to have seen the creature, 

 the first one for several years, and went 

 on my way as happy as a child in thinking 

 of it. In the second half of a man's century 

 he may be thankful for almost anything 

 that, for the time being, lifts twoscore of 

 years off his back. The best part of most 

 of us, I think, is the boy that was born with 

 us. So far I am a Wordsworthian ; 



" And I could wish my days to be 

 Bound each to each by natural piety," 



A little way up the valley we come to an 

 ancient mill and a bridge ; a new bridge it 



