SUNDOWN 
*35 
below is bestrewn with the scattered shards and husks 
of the green and ebon envelopes, but the nuts are stored 
in safety, and I have buried some in a shallow pit 
against Christmas, the Yule fire, and the old Madeira. 
For some years I have tried this experiment, and have 
usually found that a fair proportion of the nuts are 
kept fresh and moist and sweet; their ivory, wing-like 
kernels parting easily from the amber-coloured leathern 
glove. Certain it is that the nut dried and stored is 
apt to shrivel or decay far sooner than that which is 
left in the keeping of the earth—to the treatment, so 
to speak, of Nature. I cannot find it in my heart to 
“ cut down ” too ruthlessly or too early. The bracken 
still sprawls in my wilderness, turning to russet and dim 
gold; while even the scarlet-runners in the kitchen 
garden are still running, though not so freely as of old, 
and the red flowers top the tall sticks on which they 
have been supported throughout the summer. Faithful 
indeed is the scarlet-runner for use and beauty, faithful 
unto death. 
Yet my vision roams not only backward at this hour 
of parting ways—the prudent gardener must begin in 
October to renew his hopes and plans, to prepare and 
order for another year. This is a work which stirs in 
me both fears and hopes. There are so many ideas one 
would like to adventure, and yet one dare not be too 
rash, for a summer lost is a summer lost for ever. It 
is, of a truth, a long course betwixt now and the open- 
blushing, shy and tremulous spring. To us in these 
islands it must seem sometimes as though the dread 
winter would never end. Grey and white are his 
