202 
NATURE NOTES 
stamped the expression which I can only describe as a strange 
and aloof “ loneliness.” And somehow, strange as it sounds, 
there is something analogous between the attempted intrusion 
of a coarse mind into the proud privacy of such a soul, and the 
sight of foxgloves roughly picked by clumsy hands — for to pick 
a foxglove roughly means to drag it up root and all — -a sense of 
desecration in both. No, we will look and wonder at them afar 
off ; but will leave them standing. All too soon they will be 
among the things that were, for Autumn’s slow footfall is even 
now to be heard in the woods at sunset. 
Still we climb. The air is very still ; the wind scarce 
whispering above its breath. Overhead, each arching tree 
jealously vying with the other to shut out the sky which peers 
in dim, thick blue, breathless. Here and there a great pine 
rises between elm and beech to tell us we are nearing the 
wonderful pine world. Hush ! a stir and scuffle in the under- 
growth. We stop and draw into the shadow, as quiet as may 
be. There is a stirring in the leaves, a little broken rustling, 
some little furry fellow-creature on his travels, maybe. 
Another moment, while we stand motionless, scarce drawing 
breath, and out of the bracken, down the bank, and on to the 
road, scuttles a rabbit. He stands for a minute, with long, soft 
ears erect and twitching nose, scenting the air for the possibility 
of an enemy. Danger ? He thinks not ; the quick, bright eyes 
that seem to see so much have passed us over somehow, and 
there is time for the pretence of a toilet. Up go the soft little 
paws over nose and face and long ears ; a scratch or two, and 
he is off like a flash into the shadow and bracken on the other 
side, a little wonder of fur and life. Safe enough here one 
reflects happily, as one takes the road again, or, at any rate, 
with the fair play of his own instinct against the cunning of 
stoat and weasel, which is more than the poor little creature 
can boast of when pitted against the strength and much-vaunted 
intellect of man in the merciless laboratory. 
Strange that man should presume to arrogate to himself, as 
if his just due, not only God’s good world, but all the helpless 
creatures in it, and should imagine, after the thousands upon 
thousands of ages that saw the earth’s slow creation, when man 
was not and the other creatures were, that he, the late-comer, 
is yet justified in rifling the great treasury as if garnered in for 
him alone. Ay, and as if rifling were not sufficient wrong, 
trample the precious treasures under foot in the blind and brutal 
;shortsightedness of the prodigal, forgetful of the day when he 
shall be called to give an account of his stewardship. And that 
that day will surely come — as surely as the seasons follow each 
other in due succession, or the tides the changing moon — who 
shall doubt, for if 
“The mills of God grind slowly. 
Yet they grind exceeding small. 
