196 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



where the dull bronzed foliage hung heavily all through 

 July and August and September, now a branch of elder or 

 sycamore stands like a blown torch across the track, and 

 makes the whole place beautiful. Through the thinning woods 

 the gold and amber of the bracken bathe the hill ; red leaves 

 come floating down the freshened stream, where crimson 

 berries hang towards the red-spotted trout. The colour 

 seems intenser for the prevailing silence ; the last curlew's 

 cry is gone from the moors, and the birds are subdued in 

 the garden. There would be something almost sinister 

 in this squandering of all spring's verdure in splendid ruin, 

 if we did not feel through all the riot and waste the year's 

 quiet march to spring again. 



Silent as are these brilliant October days, when we 

 compare them, as they seem to invite us, with the other 

 season of bright colour in spring, they are not without their 

 song. Compared with the dead season of August, October 

 is a musical time. The robins are in fine singing courage, as 

 if every red leaf mocked them with the suggestion of a rival. 

 They have nearly finished the sharp contests for autumn and 

 winter quarters which begin after the summer moult ; but 

 still they chase one another about the walks, and the 

 conqueror mounts in triumph to utter his paean. There is 

 no instinct of melancholy in the robin's autumn song, as the 

 occasions on which it is uttered sufficiently testify. The 

 poets have looked into their own hearts and not into his 

 when they represent him as mourning for summer's decay. 

 At all times the clear sweetness of the robin's song has a 

 touch of plaintiveness to our ears ; even in spring this is 

 very noticeable when the robin is heard just after a gay 

 singer like the chaffinch. As far as it is possible to compare 

 them, the robin's autumn song has not quite the cheerful 

 vigour of its March or April notes, but this is simply due to 



