“This comes extremely well from you,”
he says, in a voice of concentrated anger, with a
bitterly-sneering tone; “how is Musgrave?”
Before I can answer, he has jumped out, and is half-way
back to the house. But indeed I am dumb.
Is it possible that he makes such a mistake?—that
he does not see the difference?
For the next half-mile, I see neither ponies, nor
misty hedges, nor wintry high-road, for tears.
I used to get on so well with the boys!
I return home, I find that Barbara is still no better.
She is still lying in her darkened room, and has asked
not to be disturbed. And even my wrongs are not
such as to justify my forcing myself upon the painful
privacy of a sick-headache. How much the better
am I then than I was before my late expedition?
I have brought home my old grievance quite whole and
unlightened by communication, and I have got a new
and fresh one in addition, with absolutely no one
to whom to impart it; for, even when Frank comes,
I will certainly not tell him. I am too
restless to remain in-doors over the fire, though
thoroughly chilled by my late drive, and resolve to
try and restore my circulation by a brisk walk in
the park.
The afternoon is still young, and the day is mending.
A wind has risen, and has pulled aside the steel-colored
cloud-curtain, and let heaven’s eyes—blue,
though faint and watery—look through.
And there comes another strong puff of autumnal wind,
and lo! the sun, and the leaves float down in a sudden
shower of amber in his light. I march along quickly
and gravely through the long drooped grass—no
longer sweet and fresh and upright, in its green summer
coat—through the frost-seared pomp of the
bronze bracken, till I reach a little knoll, whose
head is crowned by twelve great brother beeches.
From time immemorial they have been called the Twelve
Apostles, and under one apostle I now stand, with
my back against his smooth and stalwart trunk.
How beaming is death to them! Into what
a glorious crimson they decline! My eyes travel
from one tree-group to another, and idly consider
the many-colored majesty of their decay. Over
all the landscape there is a look of plaintive uncontent.
The distant town, with its two church-spires, is choked
and effaced in mist: the very sun is sickly and
irresolute. All Nature seems to say, “Have
pity upon me—I die!”
It is not often that our mother is in sympathy with
her children. Mostly when we cry she broadly
laughs; when we laugh and are merry she weeps; but
to-day my mood and hers match: The tears are as
near my eyes as hers—as near hers as mine.
“See the leaves around us falling!”
say I, aloud, stretching out my right arm in dismal
recitation. We had the hymn last Sunday, which
is what has put it into my head:
“See the leaves around us falling,
Dry and withered to the ground—’”
