n some fine though dark and starless evening, when no sound
breaks upon his ear but the monotonous beating of the screw and the
ceaseless flow of unfathomed waters, save that ever and anon in the far
distance the moaning foghorn sounds its note of warning; whilst as he
stands "forward" and inhales the pure health-giving salt distilled from
balmy vapours that rise everlastingly from the surface of the deep,
nothing is visible to the eye--straining westward for a glimpse of
white chalk cliffs, or eastward, perhaps, for the first peep of
dawn--save the intermittent flash from the lighthouse tower, and the
signals glowing weird and fiery that reveal in the misty darkness those
softly gliding phantasies, the ships that pass in the night.

II.

In nine years out of ten autumn lingers on until the death of the old
year; then, with the advent of the new, our English winter begins
in earnest.

It is Christmas Day, and so lovely is the weather that I am sitting on
the terrace watching the warm, grateful sun gradually disappearing
through the grey ash trunks in the hanging wood beyond the river. The
birds are singing with all the promise of an early spring. There is
scarcely a breath of wind stirring, and one might almost imagine it to
be April. Tom Peregrine, clad in his best Sunday homespun, passes along
his well-worn track through the rough grass beyond the water, intent on
visiting his vermin traps, or bent on some form of destruction,--for he
is never happy unless he is killing. My old friend, the one-legged cock
pheasant, who for the third year in succession has contrived to escape
our annual battue, comes up to my feet to take the bread I offer. When
he was flushed by the beaten there was no need to call "Spare him," for
with all the cunning of a veteran he towered straight into the skies
and passed over the guns out of shot. Two fantail pigeons of purest
white, sitting in a dark yew tree that overhangs the stream a hundred
yards away, make the prettiest picture in the world against the
dusky foliage.

Splash!--a great brown trout rolls in the shallow water like a porpoise
in the sea. A two-pounder in this little stream makes as much fuss as a
twenty-pound salmon in the mighty Tweed.

Hark! was that a lamb bleating down in old Mr. Peregrine's meadow? It
was: the first lamb, herald of the spring that is to be. May its little
life be as peaceful as this its first birthday: less stormy than the
life of that Lamb whos