276 Darkening Skies 



bracken provides the brightest gleam of colour in 

 many winter woods. Lustrous as gleam the hollies 

 in the winter frosts, there is little of the brighter 

 green of the deciduous trees in their hardy and 

 burnished foliage. They seem to suck their sap from 

 flint or adamant in the soil, and to bear leaves 

 transmuted from metal. Their berries have a 

 firm brilliance fit to cope with winter ; and it is 

 not until the softer autumn berries have fallen 

 that their deep scarlet most easily catches the eye 

 as it seeks unconsciously for some point of colour 

 in the woodland. Far into November the green 

 and orange and scarlet berries of the black bryony 

 are strung among the dry nettle-rods and bracken 

 stems, where the springing plant in its swift June 

 growth caught for support at anything more sub- 

 stantial. Gradually the bines moulder, and the 

 supports are beaten down ; the last effort of the 

 summer growths to assert themselves in the winter 

 landscape comes to an end, and the holly berries 

 win the prize oiTendurance. 



After the orgy of colour under the shadow of 

 impending death, the firm lines of the trees in 

 midwinter strike a sense of relief and peace. Troy 

 has gone down in flame at last, and there is still- 

 ness in the dawn on Ida. Newly stripped to the eye, 

 the trees in their winter tracery seem stronger and 

 more individual than in their wealth of summer 

 foliage or in the fugitive splendours of autumn. 

 Fine trees are finest of all in winter, when they 

 owe least to ornament and most to proportion of 

 structure. The columnar growth of a great elm 



