2OO 



AUTUMN AND WINTER 



centration of colour and song shows St. Martin's summer at 

 its richest. Starlings flute and chatter among the trees and 

 on the house-tops all through the sunny days ; and on calm 

 mornings, when there is a promise of a fine day to follow, we 

 can hear them beginning their broken monologues outside 

 our windows before dawn. Robins utter sudden bursts of 

 song in the dark hollows of the shrubbery where the rotting 

 leaves give out a smell of mould ; they will haunt those dark 

 bowers until they nest in them again in spring. It is these 

 songs of the birds which carry the mind forward beyond the 

 frail brightness of St. Martin's summer to the spring which 

 its falling leaves prepare. There is a sense of respite in the 

 sunshine and golden boughs that is all the keener because 

 we know there is no exemption. Winter may come suddenly 

 in a night, and all the elm boughs be bared by the gale, or 

 by the gentle morning wind after a frost and fog. But to 

 the thrushes it is almost spring already ; they have felt it 

 for a full month past, and will hardly cease proclaiming it 

 all through the shortest days. While the mists and golden 

 leaves of St. Martin's summer speak of imminent decay, its 

 birds foretell life's renewal. 



