The Open Air 



quick rushes of mice playing in the fern. A move- 

 ment at one side attracts the glance, and there is a 

 squirrel darting about. There is another at the very 

 top of the beech yonder out on the boughs, nibbling 

 the nuts. A brown spot a long distance down the 

 glade suddenly moves, and thereby shows itself to 

 be a rabbit. The bellowing sound that comes now 

 and then is from the stags, which are preparing to 

 fight. The swine snort, and the mast and leaves 

 rustle as they thrust them aside. So little is changed : 

 these are the same sounds and the same movements, 

 just as in the olden time. 



The soft autumn sunshine, shorn of summer glare,, 

 lights up with colour the fern, the fronds of which 

 are yellow and brown, the leaves, the grey grass, and 

 hawthorn sprays already turned. It seems as if the 

 early morning's mists have the power of tinting leaf 

 and fern, for so soon as they commence the green hues 

 begin to disappear. There are swathes of fern yonder, 

 cut down like grass or corn, the harvest of the forest. 

 It will be used for litter and for thatching sheds. 

 The yellow stalks the stubble will turn brown 

 and wither through the winter, till the strong spring 

 shoot comes up and the anemones flower. Though 

 the sunbeams reach the ground here, half the green 

 glade is in shadow, and for one step that you walk in 

 sunlight ten are in shade. Thus, partly concealed 

 in full day, the forest always contains a mystery. 

 The idea that there may be something in the dim 

 arches held up by the round columns of the beeches 

 lures the footsteps onwards. Something must have 

 been lately in the circle under the oak where the fern 

 and bushes remain at a distance and wall in a lawn 

 of green. There is nothing on the grass but the 

 upheld leaves that have dropped, no mark of any 



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