194 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



calm and storm ; and the bright periods often fall true to 

 the calendar. St. Luke's Day is on October 18, and 

 Martinmas falls on November n. Between the two there 

 is generally a week or more of stormy weather, which strips 

 most of the trees which have turned colour by that time. 

 St. Luke's sunshine wakes the full splendour from the 

 beeches, which have a greater wealth and diversity of colour 

 than any other British tree. It falls on the autumn bracken 

 at its richest, and on the gold and purple of the lingering 

 furze and heather. By Martinmas the beeches are bare, the 

 bracken is down-beaten, the furze and heather have grown 

 dim. But the elms which were still almost green in mid- 

 October have changed to their frail but splendid gold ; and 

 a deeper russet begins to smoulder in the tops of the oaks. 

 The landscapes of the two little summers show a contrast 

 that is only possible at the swiftest turning-points of the 

 year. Nature sinks far towards winter between the days 

 when the last swallow greets St. Luke and the Martinmas 

 morning when the fieldfare clacks overhead as the white fog 

 clears. But both of these little summers are filled with calm 

 sunshine, and a sense of a summer day-dream still lingering 

 to enchant the land. 



On an average of a series of years the features of these 

 two summerlike seasons are very constant ; but part of their 

 attraction is the way in which they vary from year to year. 

 In 1911 the glorious October weather added the flowers of 

 summer and almost the growth of spring to the unchanged 

 verdure of the beech-woods; and many house-martins delayed 

 their departure until November. The first snow seldom lies 

 in a green landscape ; but St. Martin's summer may open 

 with the oaks' crowns still green, and rising above the white 

 sheet spread on the fields. Then the sun shines day after 

 day, and the earth forgets its vision of winter. By St. 



