198 IDLEHURST : 



told Miss Gascoyne at the lunch, that I thought 

 the present state of the Science and Faith question 

 something like what a debate would be on the sig- 

 nificance of Salisbury spire between an average brick- 

 layer and an average Minor Canon. Miss Gascoyne 

 thinks I ought to be presented for heresy." 



This is unwonted discursiveness of the Rector's ; 

 and the night stillness soon returns. It grows late ; 

 all the village windows but one are dark. I see the 

 Rector down to the meadow gate, past the glimmer- 

 ing flowers of the garden fast asleep ; and coming 

 back to the silent house, I see it as it may look when 

 my tenancy is over ; and once more I make an old 

 comparison between the results of his economy and 

 mine. 



August ist. Often, as to-day, the Autumn seems, 

 to a watchful mind, to come in high summer a sort 

 of memento mori to the full year. Recent showers 

 have cooled and moistened the land, and the early 

 mornings are drenched in dew ; spiders' webs are 

 thick about hedge-sides ; there is a grey haze across 

 the landscape which takes the colour out of the 

 sheaves ranked along the hill-side. There is no chorus 

 of the birds ; only the whispering calls of a family 

 of nuthatches, with the tap-tap of one of them at 



