NUTTY AUTUMN 



of the mist and the darkening of the shadows. 

 The nuts are ripe, and with them is associated 

 wine and fruit. They are hard but tasteful ; if 

 you eat one you want ten, and after ten twenty. 

 In the wine there is a glow, a spot like tawny 

 sunlight ; it falls on your hand as you lift the 

 glass. 



They are never really nuts unless you gather 

 them yourself. Put down the gun a minute or 

 two, and pull the boughs this way. One or two 

 may drop of themselves as the branch is shaken, 

 one among the brambles, another outwards into 

 the stubble. The leaves rustle against hat and 

 shoulders ; a thistle is crushed under foot, and the 

 down at last released. Bines of bryony hold the 

 ankles, and hazel boughs are stiff and not ready 

 to bend to the will. This large brown nut must 

 be cracked at once ; the film slips off the kernel, 

 which is white underneath. It is sweet. 



The tinted sunshine comes through between the 

 tall hazel rods ; there is a grasshopper calling in the 

 sward on the other side of the mound. The bird's 

 nest in the thorn-bush looks as perfect as -if just 

 made, instead of having been left long long since 

 the young birds have flocked into the stubbles. 

 On the briar which holds the jacket the canker 

 rose, which was green in summer, is now rosy. 

 No such nuts as those captured with cunning 

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