Stepping Westward

Synopsis

The wayside hedgerow, gay with its autumn tints, stretched its undulating length beside the rather stony lane that wound upwards from the high road, and lost itself amid a multiplicity of sheep-tracks on the down. It was one of those mild days that here in the south country cheat the fancy with their likeness, not merely to spring, but to summer.  The sky was blue and cloudless; the birds were singing; the banks were still starred with many flowers: crane’s-bill, mallow and scabious. 

Here and there the gorse was blooming afresh, and new blossoms of guelder-rose surmounted, incongruously enough, twigs with claret-coloured leaves that dropped at a touch.  Here, indeed, the finger of autumn had left its trace, and all along the hedge were tokens of its magic.  Such miracles of colour as the conjurer had wrought this year are rarely to be seen: such goldens and ambers, such scarlets and crimsons; stretching away beyond the hedge were fields still silvery with night-dews, and woods shining with the incomparable burnish of the season.

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