Harvesting the Hedges 
Oak-trees pegged down. I think it will be very pretty. It 
is very amusing to grow Acorns in a pot ; the miniature 
Oak-trees are so lovesome ! The weather is still wonderfully 
open for the time of year. In the Orkneys people call the 
fair weather that comes at St. Martin’s Day “Peerie summer,” 
or the “little summer,” a rather nice name. I saw a ploughing 
competition going on the other day in a big field by the 
highway; at least thirty teams of handsome brown horses 
with beribboned trappings were at work in successive 
furrows, while their respective carts stood in a sort of laager 
by the gate. There are such handsome gateways here, of 
large grey slabs of stone, generally green and orange with 
age, and tiny lichens, the top sometimes one entire rounded 
stone. I saw a rather curious sight to-day when out walking, 
which neither I nor my companion had ever seen before : 
two large turkeys were standing on the very top of a hay- 
stack in a farmyard, while the rest of the Christmas flock 
were picking about below. The big black birds looked so 
top-heavy and out of place. At every turn now one is 
reminded that Summer’s short hour is over, and Winter, 
dour cold Winter, is at hand. Now that the hedges are so 
bare, the empty deserted birds’-nests are very visible, and 
look so deplorable. When they happen to be in or near 
the Wild Rose bushes, it is said they are often found full of 
the seeds of the Rosehips. Reason why : the Fieldmice 
climb after the hips, and then camp in the empty nests to 
enjoy their spoil ! How I should like to see them doing 
this ! Fieldmice are such dear little creatures; I startled 
one in the Cornfield the other day, almost under my feet ; 
it had such a cunning little beady eye, and looked so sweet as 
it fled away among the stalks ! One needs consolation now, 
I think, for the disappearance of the flowers to keep house, 
as George Herbert so charmingly puts it, in the earth : 
Flowers depart 
To see their mother root, when they have blown, 
Where they together, 
All the hard weather, 
Dead to the world, keep house unknown, 
247 
