Already some of the elms are becoming bare—­there are gaps in the foliage where the winds have carried away the leaves.  On the bramble bushes the blackberries cluster thickly, unseen and ungathered in this wild spot.  The happy hearts that go a-blackberrying think little of the past:  yet there is a deep, a mournful significance attached to that joyous time.  For how many centuries have the blackberries tempted men, women, and children out into the fields, laughing at scratched hands and nettles, and clinging burrs, all merrily endured for the sake of so simple a treasure-trove.  Under the relics of the ancient pile-dwellings of Switzerland, disinterred from the peat and other deposits, have been found quantities of blackberry seeds, together with traces of crabs and sloes; so that by the dwellers in those primeval villages in the midst of the lakes the wild fruits of autumn were sought for much as we seek them now; the old instincts are strong in us still.

The fieldfares will soon be here now, and the redwings, coming as they have done for generations about the time of the sowing of the corn.  Without an almanack they know the dates; so the old sportsmen used to declare that their pointers and setters were perfectly aware when September was approaching, and showed it by unusual restlessness.  By the brook the meadows are green and the grass long still; the flags, too, are green, though numbers of dead leaves float down on the current.  There is green again where the root crops are flourishing; but the brown tints are striving hard, and must soon gain the mastery of colour.  From the barn comes the clatter of the winnowing machine, and the floor is covered with heaps of grain.

After the sun has gone down and the shadows are deepening, it is lighter in the open stubbles than in the enclosed meadows—­the short white stubbs seem to reflect what little light there is.  The partridges call to each other, and after each call run a few yards swiftly, till they assemble at the well-known spot where they roost.  Then comes a hare stealing by without a sound.  Suddenly he perceives that he is watched, and goes off at a rapid pace, lost in the brooding shadow across the field.  Yonder a row of conical-roofed wheat-ricks stand out boldly against the sky, and above them a planet shines.

Still later, in November, the morning mist lingers over gorse and heath, and on the upper surfaces of the long dank grass blades, bowed by their own weight, are white beads of dew.  Wherever the eye seeks an object to dwell on, there the cloud-like mist seems to thicken as though to hide it.  The bushes and thickets are swathed in the vapour; yonder, in the hollow, it clusters about the oaks and hangs upon the hedge looming in the distance.  There it no sky—­a motionless, colourless something spreads above; it is, of course, the same mist, but looking upwards it apparently recedes and becomes indefinite.  The glance finds no point to rest on—­as