Season for Picnics. 119 



show against its blaclv background and through the 

 mist. Some wa}' beliind, a weaiy gra}' — the only 

 spot of color, and that dimmed — is gamely struggling 

 — it is not leaping — through a gap beside a gaunt 

 oak tree, whose dark bufT leaves yet linger. But out 

 of these surely an artist who dared to face Nature as 

 she is might work a picture. 



The year really commences at Wick farmhouse 

 immediately before the autumn nominally begins — 

 nominally, because there is generally a sense of 

 autumn in the atmosphere before the end of Septem- 

 ber. Just about that time there comes a slackening 

 of the work requiring earnest personal supervision. 

 When the yellow corn has been cut and carted, and 

 the threshing machine has prepared a sample for the 

 markets — when the ricks are thatched, and the steam 

 plough is tearing up the stubble — then the farmer 

 can spare a day or so free from the anxieties of har- 

 vest. There is plenty of work to be done ; in fact, 

 the 3'early rotation of labor may be said to begin in 

 the autumn too, but it does not demand such hourly 

 attention. It is the season for picnics — while the 

 sun is 3'et warm and the sward dry — on the downs 

 among the great hazel copses, or the old intrench- 

 ment, with its view over a vast landscape, dimmed, 

 though, by yellow haze, or by the shallow lake in the 

 vale. 



With the exception of knocking over a young 

 rabbit now and then for household use, the farmer, 

 even if he is independent of a landlord, as in this case, 

 does not shoot till late in the year. Old-fashioned 

 folk, though not in the least constrained to do so, still 

 leave the first pick of the shooting to some neigh- 



