168 DAYS OF AUTUMN 



never fit himself for the conflict of a mature 

 life in London by idleness and dreaming. 

 So the little boy was often punished, and 

 frequently occupied the lowest seat of his 

 form- 

 As the days went on the swallows were 

 more anxious. The cuckoos and the swifts 

 had long since departed. Here and there 

 in the fountain-shaped elms a yellow patch 

 of leaves showed like a spilled plash of 

 water imprisoning a sunbeam. The peggles 

 on the hawthorns were reddening; and 

 waving their pennants in the wind the dry 

 rustling of the sedges came across the 

 water with excited notes of the swallows. 

 As one swept by, low in flight, the deep 

 blue of his wings, their exquisite and soft 

 uplift, the delicacy of the forked tail, were 

 reflected on the surface; with a sighing 

 sound he would pass and his liquid image 

 glide on the mirrored surface below him. 

 The mornings were chilly, but the 

 vagrants continued to hold their parliament 



