202 September Sunshine 



beyond a narrow space around the plant itself, and 

 the dominant scent is the faint tang of the field- 

 fires' smoke, mingled with the autumnal damp. 

 At the edge of the pasture the scrape of the horny 

 dor-beetle in his underground galleries can be heard, 

 in the intense cessation of sound, for several minutes 

 before he dimly emerges and blunders fieldward 

 upon the wing. The light of the thin new moon, 

 hung, " like a little feather," in the low western 

 sky, faintly illumines the tarnished foliage of the 

 garden elms, and strikes with fantastic clearness 

 on the one golden bough where autumn's finger is 

 already laid. The tall September blossoms stand 

 ranked all down the path, with the faint light dimly 

 revealing the yellow heads, and leaving the crimson 

 ones blind to the touch. This half -veiled hour after 

 nightfall in the September garden has a beauty 

 scarcely less than that of the sun-filled afternoon ; 

 and though the characteristic silence of the month 

 is hardly greater by night than by day, it seems 

 deeper and more absorbing from the added depri- 

 vation of the light. 



Yet amid all the silence of nightfall in the 

 garden, there is often one odd and impish figure 

 whose activities fill the calm spaces of the open 

 lawn with a curious contrast of unrest. Where 

 the grass gleams pale and grey, a small dark object 

 can be seen moving persistently to and fro in a 

 broken and rapid run. A match struck in the 

 still night air will disclose this impatient spirit 

 of the night as a hedgehog, quartering the lawn 

 for his prey of beetles and worms with cunning, 



