THE CROIFN OF AUTUMN 269 



the hedge, as the glowing ashes fill the base of a fire. The 

 light flames were represented by maple which in Eng 

 land is usually yellow rather than red and spindle, the 

 most variously coloured of all both in leaf and berry 

 and thorn and hazel and hornbeam. Among these 

 struggled old man s beard in one reach, briar in another, 

 and an occasional holly divided the hedge into compart 

 ments with its stiff pillars of green, this year, wherever 

 female trees prevail, singularly rich in berries. Warm 

 and snug rabbit forms could be found in the tall dry 

 grasses that hid the hedgerow ditch. You might walk 

 through the magnificence of wooded scenes and be un 

 aware that any living thing existed there. Here the finches 

 flitted in front of you, the grass and hedge rustled with 

 hidden movement. The place was as friendly as it was 

 lonely. The even fell peacefully &quot; like tired eyelids upon 

 tired eyes/ but more merrily than in Tennyson s lotas land. 

 Not so far from this path are some old gravel pits that 

 are too much like a deserted mining camp to be attrac 

 tive ; but the edges are colonised by oaks, thorns, and 

 clematis ; and in autumn the place is worth a pilgrimage 

 in spite of the starveling soil and barren pits ; some of 

 the thorns are not less brilliant than a Canadian maple 

 in Canada ; and you come to see that the glory of a 

 tree in one place is no measure of its glory in another. 

 The may-trees in the parks may be rich in berries and 

 haws in great purple clusters are a notmal glory 

 but you must go to a hard gravelly soil to see 

 the capacity of the tree for assuming colour. I have 

 seen nothing anywhere to approach the range of colour 

 in one or two of these thorns. Isolated trees or clumps 

 often seem to extract admiration from their isolation. 

 What could be lovelier than the trees that follow the little 

 trout streams in the valleys by Salisbury ? How different 



