XXVIII. 



THE SQUIRREL'S HARVEST. 



Now is the squirrel's harvest. Beech-mast 

 and acorns are now in season. I was sitting 

 this morning close to the smooth grey 

 mottled trunk of an immemorial beech at 

 Waggoner's Wells when pat-a-pat, pat a 

 noise hard by, as of hurrying and scurrying 

 feet, attracted my attention. So loud it was, 

 one might have almost said a troop of 

 skirmishers from Aldershot at double-quick 

 through the woodland, save that it came 

 from overhead ; and overhead skirmishing, 

 from " the nations' airy navies, grappling in 

 the central blue," is happily as yet a thing 

 of the poet's prophetic imagination. I 

 looked up into the tree, and there, to my 

 2I 5 



