A NOVEMBER day at the end of the month—the country is left to those who
live in it. The scattered visitors who took lodgings in the summer in
the villages have all departed, and the recollection that they have been
here makes the solitude more complete. The woods in which they wandered
are impassable, for the rain has been heavy, and the dry, baked clay of
August has been turned into a slough a foot deep. The wind, what there
is of it, is from the south-west, soft, sweet and damp; the sky is almost
covered with bluish-grey clouds, which here and there give way and permit
a dim, watery gleam to float slowly over the distant pastures. The grass
for the most part is greyish-green, more grey than green where it has not
been mown, but on the rocky and broken ground there is a colour like that
of an emerald, and the low sun when it comes out throws from the
projections on the hillside long and beautifully shaped shadows.
Multitudes of gnats in these brief moments of sunshine are seen playing
in it. The leaves have not all fallen, down in the hollow hardly any
have gone, and the trees are still bossy, tinted with the delicate
yellowish-brown and brown of different stages of decay. The hedges have
been washed clean of the white dust; the roads have been washed; a deep
drain has just begun to trickle and on the meadows lie little pools of
the clearest rainwater, reflecting with added loveliness any blue patch
of the heavens disclosed above them. The birds are silent save the
jackdaws and the robin, who still sings his recollections of the summer,
or his anticipations of the spring, or perhaps his pleasure in the late
autumn. The finches are in flocks, and whirl round in the air with
graceful, shell-like convolutions as they descend, part separating, for
no reason apparently, and forming a second flock which goes away over the
copse. There is hardly any farm-work going on, excepting in the ditches,
which are being cleaned in readiness for the overflow when the thirsty
ground shall have sucked its fill. Under a bank by the roadside a couple
of men employed in carting stone for road-mending are sitting on a sack
eating their dinner. The roof of the barn beyond them is brilliant with
moss and lichens; it has not been so vivid since last February. It is a
delightful time. No demand is made for ecstatic admiration; everything
is at rest, nature has nothing to do but to sleep and wait.