128 MY DEVON YEAR 



wits and dispositions lie beyond our seeing, yet that 

 every bird and mouse has its proper character, I 

 suspect. Certainly some fledglings are sharper than 

 others, show a keener eye for their parents' return, 

 and a more masterful knack of forcing their own 

 particular open beak upon the eye of the bread- 

 winner. Nature reverses our error in this matter, 

 and rewards the big, strong youngsters for their big- 

 ness and their strength. We keep our failures under 

 glass ; we suffer them in their turn to father and 

 mother new failures ; but Nature's weaklings fill their 

 proper place in her republic, and the feeble folk, 

 making a meal for some beast better equipped than 

 themselves, thus justify the Mother of all her children. 

 Conscious intelligence unhappily departs from Nature 

 in this rational and golden rule; but amongst the aisles 

 and avenues of the lanes there is no question as to the 

 wisdom that rules and brings the grreatest o-ood to the 



o o o 



greatest number. No pitiful sentimentality bred of 

 io^norance mars the work here. 



August sometimes weaves a subtle sense of weari- 

 ness about my lanes. The emotion naturally lies in 

 me, not the life around me ; but I feel now in pre- 

 sence of the beginning of that end to which all green 

 things are born. I feel it even as I feel that the 

 deep green of the foliage and the rich darkness of 

 the great elm is the darkness before dawn of Autumn. 

 To-morrow will come sudden grateful rain, and a 

 thousand opening flower -buds will rebuke these 

 anticipations ; and so, banishing thought of Autumn, 



