326 A FARMER'S YEAR 



Looked at from my standpoint, there, on the top of Hollow 

 Hill, the scene was singularly beautiful and solemn. Below me 

 lay the village, backed by the windmill with its tall sails at rest, 

 while to the left the wide and shadowed sweep of the Waveney 

 valley stretched on and on until it lost itself in gloom. Little by 

 little the dusk gathered, dimming and blotting out the less salient 

 features of the landscape. Now I could no longer distinguish the 

 boughs of the poplars, showing like a net hung against the sky, 

 and now the poplars themselves had melted away. Then, as the 

 sky darkened, like stars appearing, one by one the lights of the 

 village began to glow, and the evening hush of Nature deepened 

 into perfect silence, for at this season the birds have ceased to sing. 



Very lovely were the colours while the twilight lingered. In 

 front stood the golden sheaves of corn, contrasting sharply with 

 the shining green of the mangold tops, beyond which stretched 

 the expanse of stubble land, dead pale beneath the pallid sky, and 

 on its borders a group of yellow stacks. 



Soon, as I watched, the air grew chill and autumnal, with 

 just a hint of frost in it, giving warning that it was time to go ; 

 which I was loth to do. for never can I remember, at any rate in 

 these latitudes, seeing the moon look more grand and perfect 

 than she did to-night. Doubtless, however, when beneath this 

 ridge of ground whereon I stood lay a swamp tenanted by 

 monstrous reptiles, she shone just as sweetly with no human eye 

 to note her. When the deep sea rolled here, her broad rays 

 broke upon its bosom; when from century to century the 

 thick-ribbed ice ground and gripped this land, its glaciers 

 gleamed blue in that soft light; and when man, having gathered 

 his last harvest, has returned to the Lord of harvests, still that light, 

 piercing the gulf of airless space, will flow upon this hillside, and 

 creep down yonder valley, grown black and dead, and desolate. 



The reflection is old and trite, but perhaps it is as well to 

 remember from time to time what gnats we are gnats humming 

 in an autumn twilight, forgetful of the day behind us and 

 without knowledge of the dawn to be. 



