WHARFEDALE. 123 



earlier tints of autumn are already stealing over the leaves, 

 for the sportsmen have for three weeks been amongst tlie 

 stubble and turnips, and we can hear the frequent crack of 

 their fowling-pieces away in the fields. The autumn tints 

 are at their prime, and you shall not be able to deny that 

 Wharfedale hereabouts is one of the most entrancing of 

 sights for those who love the garment of many colours with 

 which the declining year adorns itself: for this reason, and 

 also perhaps because the grayling is in good condition in 

 October, it is the resort of visitors when other places are 

 deserted. 



A fine herd of Herefords, most effective of all cattle as 

 component parts of a landscape, contentedly muse under 

 the trees or crop the succulent herbage. The smoke rises 

 above yonder orchard blue and straight, sure sign that the 

 harvest is passed and summer ended, and that the atmos- 

 phere is flavoured with frost. A healthy-faced Yorkshire boy 

 swings on the gate, which his sisters — as little sisters, bless 

 them ! always cheerfully do — laughingly set in motion. The 

 stream is here shallow and wide, but the bouldery bed has 

 been, and anon will be again, washed by a furious torrent, 

 the scouring of moor and fell for many a mile. It is a peculi- 

 arity of much of the Wharfe that while on one side the river's 

 bed shelves very gently to the centre, on the other it runs 

 deep under a steep and generally curving shore. Higher up 

 the stream the woods lift up their richly plumed heads far 

 towards the sky, and you know that close at hand, con- 

 cealed behind the superabundant foliage, is the remnant of 

 what was once Bolton Abbey. This is why I suggest you 

 should lay aside your rod and rest a space here, postponing 

 acquaintance with the grayUng in favour of traditionary lore. 



