THROUGH THE CHANGING YEAR 125 



the condition of the trees in winter ; quite the 

 reverse ; they are already a symbol of hope. 

 Long before the spring, before the turn of the 

 year, indeed, one can go round the orchard, 

 and see what promise of a crop next autumn 

 there is on some of the fruit-trees. December 

 is not yet out, and, already, I know that, next 

 year, if the bloom escapes frost and hail, and 

 no insect-pest works mischief, I shall have 

 plenty of Ribston pippins. The melancholy 

 only comes when a tree begins to lose its leaves 

 in autumn earlier than its fellows, when more 

 and more branches bear few or no leaves ; when, 

 in winter, there are branches from which the 

 small twigs have been torn away and no fresh 

 ones come ; and when the winter-buds become 

 fewer and fewer. It is then, not because 

 autumn has passed to winter, but because 

 many winters have come and gone since the 

 seed became a seedling, and because the tree 

 is passing through old age to death, that we 

 who must die may be touched by the coming 

 of death even upon the unknowing tree. 



Nor does winter wholly rob garden, hedge- 

 row and woodland of beauty. Life is there, 

 though almost passive for the time, and beauty 



