xoS Wild Life in a Southern County 



for a moment of a finish as it is in reality, and not in these 

 gaudy, brilliant colour-studies. 



A thick mist clings in the hollow there by the osier- 

 bed where the pack have overtaken the fox, so that you 

 cannot see the dogs. Beyond, the contour of the hill is 

 lost in the cloud trailing over it ; the foreground towards 

 us shows a sloping ploughed field, a damp brown, with a 

 thin mist creeping along the cold furrows. Yonder, three 

 vague and shadowy figures are pushing laboriously forward 

 beside the leafless hedge; while the dirt-spattered bays 

 hardly show against its black background and through the 

 mist. Some way behind, a weary grey the only spot of 

 colour, and that dimmed is gamely struggling it is not 

 leaping through a gap beside a gaunt oak tree, whose 

 dark buff leaves yet linger. But out of these surely an 

 artist who dared to face Nature as she is might work a 

 picture. 



The year really commences at Wick farmhouse im- 

 mediately before the autumn nominally begins nominally, 

 because there is generally a sense of autumn in the atmo- 

 sphere before the end of September. Just about that time 

 there comes a slackening of the work requiring earnest 

 personal supervision. When the yellow corn has been 

 cut and carted, and the thrashing machine has prepared a 

 sample for the markets when the ricks are thatched, and 

 the steam plough is tearing up the stubble then the 

 farmer can spare a day or so free from the anxieties of 

 harvest. There is plenty of work to be done ; in fact, the 

 yearly rotation of labour may be said to begin in the 

 autumn too, but it does not demand such hourly attention. 

 It is the season for picnics while the sun is yet warm and 

 the sward dry on the downs among the great hazel copses, 

 or the old entrenchment, with its view over a vast land- 



