202 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



The sadness of summer is that we cannot make 

 enough of its abundance. We feel it most when we 

 have come from the town to witness only for a day 

 or two a mere section of the pageant. But those 

 who live in the country for ever see no more than 

 the visiting townsman does of any one week's series 

 of events. The pageant hurries even if the audience 

 does not. " That dish was sweet ; let us have it 

 back!" Impossible! Crocuses are "off"; sweet 

 violets have gone by ; no more cowslips till next 

 year. So, the trout stream slips by. No man ever 

 bathes in the same river twice, even if, like the boys, 

 he jumps in again as soon as he gets out. The boys 

 even, who think a week is eternity, cannot make 

 enough of the summer. Having dipped in the river 

 they roll in the buttercups, rising yellow as bees, get 

 wet again because they are dry, and then dry again 

 because they are wet. 



Such joys are not for us. We seek the cool cloisters 

 of the orchard. Here the fool's-parsley has spread 

 its white scum nearly breast-high, with a wealth of 

 green feather under which rabbits sit and nibble. 

 Young rabbits everywhere, and somewhere, no doubt, 

 young stoats to eat them. Young crows in the ivied 

 alder, clamouring for the young mistle-thrushes, whose 

 parents have so far proved too valiant for the old 

 crows. There .are, however, young blackbirds and 

 song-thrushes, and the young crows will not go 

 hungry. The redstart sits and waits on a favourite 

 bough, and dashes like a flame after the hover-flies 

 and other insects. The orange-tip takes its winged 

 saunter in and out the chequer of shade and sunshine. 

 The tree-pipit plunges up into the blue, to come 



