THE walk from the high moorland to the large pond or lake lies through a
narrow grassy lane. About half-way down it turns sharply to the left; in
front are the bluish-green pine woods. Across the corner of them,
confronting me, slants a birch with its white bark and delicate foliage,
light-green and yellow in relief against the sombre background. Fifty
yards before I reach the wood its music is perceptible, something like
the tones of an organ heard outside a cathedral. In another minute the
lane enters: it is dark, but the ruddy stems catch the sun, and in open
patches are small beeches responding to it with intense golden-brown.
Along the edge of the path, springing from the mossy bank they grow to a
greater height. A pine has pushed itself between the branches of one of
them as if on purpose to show off the splendour of its sister’s beauty.
It is stiller than it was outside; the murmur descends from aloft. There
was a frost last night and the leaves will soon fall. A beech leaf
detaches itself now and then and flutters peacefully and waywardly to the
ground, careless whether it finds its grave in the bracken or on the road
where it will be trodden underfoot. The bramble is beginning to turn to
blood. It is strange that leaves should show such character. Here is a
corner on which there are not two of the same tint, but they spring from
the same root, and the circumstances of light and shade under which they
have developed are almost exactly similar.
It is eleven o’clock, and with the mounting sun the silence has become
complete save when it is broken by the heavy, quick flap of the
wood-pigeon or the remonstrance of a surprised magpie. Service is just
beginning all over England in churches and the chapels belonging to a
hundred sects. In the village two miles away the Salvation Army drum is
beating, but it cannot penetrate these recesses. Stay! a faint vibration
from it comes over the hill, but now it has gone. A fox, unaware of any
human being, walks from one side of the lane to the other, stopping in
the middle. There is a breath of wind and the low solemn song begins
again above me.