Darkening Skies 279 



the glitter of snow and frost to give a harder 

 brilliance to the light, the mild sunshine will some- 

 times break through the clouds in the heart of the 

 day ; and then its low light strikes from the winter 

 world a sparing brilliance of colour which is sur- 

 prising in its fugitive richness. In the hillside 

 wood, the huge trunks and smooth boughs of the 

 beeches shine in silver over the heaps of russet 

 bracken ; the packed larch-crowns in the covert 

 glow to a light and ochreous red, and the ripe berries 

 of the scattered hollies sparkle brightly over their 

 spiny foils. Already, in the hair-like crest of the 

 willows, whether pollard or free-growing, the height- 

 ening of the light reveals in the glossy bark a tint 

 of kindling green ; and where the level wands of 

 the osier-bed stand ranked in a close thicket, they 

 burn forth with the banded crimson and orange 

 that is the most brilliant of all midwinter displays. 

 Such landscapes under the mild, winter sunshine 

 have all the delicacy of a moonlight picture in the 

 flowery woods of spring, with the added reality of 

 the day ; and when the colours kindle to such pure 

 and equable splendour in the fugitive noons, the 

 mind, attuned to their winter simplicity, almost 

 marvels at the memory of the same woods in the 

 press of their midsummer life, as at something 

 tropical and overpowering. 



In the long December nights the bareness of the 

 woods is betrayed by the echoing ring of the fox's 

 bark, the brown owl's hoot, the clamour of a black- 

 bird alarmed at roost, or the cries of the cock pheas- 

 ants as they go aloft at dusk. The colder and 



