362 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



We find that some of the bunnies that were sitting 

 in the open rain had chosen stones to sit on, and 

 these are dry and warm as toast immediately after 

 their occupants have scuttled reluctantly to cover. 



At three in the afternoon the rain ceases, and some 

 sort of sun-glow struggles for a few moments through 

 the mist. It is too late in the day for sunshine, how- 

 ever. We get a transient taste of what a full light 

 could do with the damp-heightened colour of bracken 

 and beech leaves, and then a whiter mist than we 

 have had yet, the mist of evening, rolls apparently 

 from its hiding-place in the bushes and takes imper- 

 ceptible possession of the fields and open glades. It 

 softens and glazes the tree-trunks into a sort of char- 

 coal grey, then slips behind them and shuts out all 

 the beyond with such a veil of pearl that they come 

 by contrast blacker than ever. It hangs the drooping 

 bracken fronds with a pearling that trembles on the 

 verge of hoar-frost, which, by morning, it will surely 

 be. It weaves in and out of the bare branches, till 

 it decorates them with a ghostly imitation of their 

 summer foliage, and it makes the red deer loom like 

 gigantic moose, and the jackdaws like eagles. 



A thousand wood-pigeons are going to roost in this 

 wood. As we pass, company after company leaves 

 its session with a roar like that of an express train. 

 Not as Virgil has it, subito commota columba . . . 

 plausumque . . . ingentem. Our doves can clatter 

 like this when the air is clear, but the buffers of the 

 fog reduce their sharpest clamour to a roar. We 

 overtake them again and again, for they flee from us 

 in the line of our advance, and do not care to go far, 

 as though fearful of losing the favourite part of the 



