THE GUN 101 



sun is sinking among the trees in a sky of those 

 cold, chaste washes peculiar to freezing winter weather 

 is full of the wood charm. Nature has a way in 

 these hours of laying such an impressive accent on 

 her language. Each little sound is announced as a 

 notable sound. We need not go to " faery lands 

 forlorn " for faery sound and spectacle. The English 

 wood has them in the winter dusk. A sigh in the 

 spruce the best evergreen a wood can have among 

 its bare oaks a clap of a pigeon's wing, a crow of a 

 roosting pheasant, above all that fine hallo of tawny 

 owl : here are words on the tongue of evening we 

 often stop to listen to. If a man lived a thousand 

 years, they could not grow so familiar as to be 

 slighted. 



As Nature at these times speaks with emphasis, 

 setting a value on each word, so too she shows 

 clear-cut, strong pictures ; her touch is so incisive ; 

 to eye she appeals much as she appeals to ear. All 

 day the bare underwoods may have been indeter- 

 minate in colour. They have not worn that blue 

 which sometimes steeps them on mild winter days, 

 nor the wine colour which the edge of some of our 

 coppices shows in favouring lights where the birch 

 stems prevail. North wind and an overcast sky, 

 with a thought of snow or sleet in it, have blotted 

 out any colour that can be described. But near 

 sundown the clouds open a little in the west, and 

 whole solid acres of young hazel coppice are painted 



