268 NOVEMBER 



with a parrot, nor would you deny the delight of the 

 smaller and less startling, because it missed the flash of 

 the bigger bird. On the eve of the first frost, unmistak 

 ably beaconed from the sky, though not yet felt, I 

 walked along a green path by the side of a hedgerow 

 joining two spinneys. The clouds in the west draped 

 the setting sun in hues that suggested the autumn 

 about us. 



Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose 



Withers once more the old blue flower of day, 



There where the ether like a diamond glows, 

 Its petals fade away. 



And its light was caught in the mesh of the hedgerow 

 leaves coloured like itself. Someone said : &quot; This is the 

 best moment of the year.&quot; In ten days the leaves will 

 have fallen and the cold will come, and the scroll of 

 winter will be written in the hieroglyphic of bare boughs. 

 Such a sunset on such an evening catching the prism of 

 the hedge at such an angle and such a moment was an 

 association we should not see again for a twelvemonth at 

 least, and perhaps had not seen throughout one of the 

 best springs and summers in the records. 



That hedge at that moment was the best autumn 

 Mecca ; and if we must compare splendours, the English 

 hedge has peculiar virtues not shared by the red maple 

 and the sumach or the scenes in which they flourish. 

 This particular hedge was richer than most in the bush that 

 we call dogwood, a word that has a completely different 

 meaning in Canada, where both dogwood and juniper 

 indicate a forest tree ; and the distinction is characteristic 

 of the nature of the two countries. The scale here is 

 smaller, more intimate, more nicely graded. Purple in 

 sheen and leaf the dogwood occupied the lower half of 



