AUTUMN SIGNS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13378, 20 March 1909, Page 6

AUTUMN SIGNS.

v AUTUMN SIGNS. (BY CjOCTEKBURr.) The day had been spent in dipping obdurate sheep, and refreshed with afternoon tea we tennis, wheu the half-light darkened the court. Our opponents guessed that it was seven o'clock, but some one who had a watch decreed that it was only five minutes past six. and then followed the remark "How the days are drawing in." We have heard this saying many times, but when it is voiced for the first time in autumn, a crowd of old and cold sensations are recalled. Suddenly one is brought to face tho fact that summer has departed ; that we are within measurable distance of frost.and snow, and a momentary feeling of chill strikes home in the heat of ,the game. On our homeward way that chance saying is renumbered, and now that we liave leisure to observe them, the signs of a waning season are only too plain. The landscape is touched with autumn tints, nnd the clean-reaped spiky stubbles bear witness that the harvest month has patiscd. Far across a field _n the left, beyond the trim and accurately built stacks, the sombre hues of the long plantation are lightened with gold and brown, poplars and willows show early traces of the fall, and we gaze elsewhere for a negative sign, thnt shall put away the fear of winter cold.

All this I did, but it availed mc not. _-ren las I found an instant relief in looKing at a pasture ankle deep with a spring-like growth, a whirr nnd rustle of wings sounded overhead, as a full-fledged brood of nine grey ducks sped to n feeding place fnr'ur> the creek. There in the riverbed was gorse in bloom; the water in the stream was clear. and unrufted by any evening rise of trout such as takes place during the summer months Out of an orchard came a ooy; his pockets—and doubtless his littla inside also—stuffed with great rosy apples, to which I am by no means sure that he had any right. He offered one to mc, as a sort of bribe. I think ; but I resisted thc temptation, and! hearing someone among tlie trees, he vanished down the road in a suspiciously agile manner.

Next day my affairs took mc on a railway journey. In the early morning a thick, white, fleecy fog shrouded the whole country-side, but later on tho enn broke through and changed tho Rneno into a crlorious autumn day. There is a j-iece of poetry about autumn, written by I know not whom, but it has n swing to it which keens oxaotly in time and tune with tho onaine. at full speed :— " When the pods go pop, on the broom, green broom, And tho coverts begin to bo gold and brown," These are the first lines. Try them when next yon are in n train. nrH having mvAv the words fit in, I will Ivt money that you cannot for-got them for vrs hour. Seen from the carriage window, the prospect was of a rocorc* hnr~est. Porno of the trrasslonds were bn-o nnd dusty, but I never remember tr. have .m> m.-ny stacks of grain. Corn and fruit in plenty, every whero one looked, and Inst, tboufih not len.st, I met _ farmer who was well content.