was much beauty which was natural without being rural. But I have said enough for either those who know, or those who do not know what it is to remain in London when hardly an acquaintance is left, and with leisure enough to enjoy the season in a genuine way. This last condition will prevent my having the sympathy of the Cabinet. The minister who must remain at head-quarters when all his colleagues are dispersed for their recreation, cannot go about studying architecture in the streets and churches, nor be lost for hours in Kensington Gardens, nor start off for the day without saying where he is going. Business detains him, and business engrosses him, except during his constitutional ride in the afternoon. If there be any lawyer, stranded by some accident when all others are afloat; or any artist tempted to seize the quietest weeks of the year for work; or any citizen not too busy in office, counting-house, or shop, to spare hours daily for the open air, let him say whether I am not reasonable in my love of London in autumn, however few of my acquaintances may value it as I do, or court it as I did, in my bachelor days.
To what an infinite variety of places, meanwhile, are one’s acquaintance gone! There is A., standing knee-deep in a rapid, or scrambling, as fast as he can go, over the rocks which confine a rushing river in Norway. A stout salmon is leading him a dance which he will boast about at home, whether he captures or loses it. B. is in full gallop beside a herd of buffaloes, on a western prairie, having selected his victim, and boarded him, and got hold of the revolver with which he is to finish him. The buffaloes make more hubbub on the prairie than the strongest torrent in the Norwegian watercourses. C. is in his yacht, quiet enough as long as he has the trade-wind, and the smooth seas which belong to it. He sits in the shadow of a sail reading Byron, as these yacht gentry do, or dreaming, or agreeing with a friend how pleasant this is . . . for a time. D. is in a different scene. He is going to the Mediterranean for a few weeks, and now wishes he had taken the land way. These equinoctial gales are fine things to witness for once; but they use up rather too much time. It is a fine thing to see the squall coming, with the regular, swift march of the solid rain over the dark myrtle-green sea; and to hear the loud, vibrating storm-organ opening out its strain in the rigging, till the mighty chords swell and subside as the blasts pass over the ship and away. It is well to see for once the tossing together of sea and clouds, and shine and shadow, with all imaginable rushing, roaring, sousing, and splashing; but it is a vexatious matter to a man to feel his holiday slipping away while he is kept floating for a week together, while the weather is making up its mind, or he is carried some long way round to escape its spite. E. has met with no such delays. He is reclining in the shadow of a column of Pharaoh’s Bed on Philæ, contemplating the avenue to the temple, or the flow of the Nile towards the neighbouring cataract, or the orange and blue lights and shadows visible through the screen of palms. F. has probably been unable to resist the temptation to go and see what Abd-el Kader is doing with the Damascus people, and how he gets on with the new Turkish authorities; and if so, F. certainly is or has been treading down hundreds of infant cedars, sprouting under the shadow of the old trees on Lebanon which Moslem and Christian venerate alike; and he certainly is or has been picking up fragments of sculpture among the sands, round the temple at Baalbec. When he comes home, he will say that the fairest spectacle the traveller’s eye can rest on is Damascus, seen from the Salahieh side, by evening light. G., who had a fancy in the summer to see the fair of Nijni Novogorod, no doubt took the opportunity of going further, and is probably on the Amoor, hoping to see for himself what sensation Lord Elgin and his naval and military and diplomatic party will have left in the Peiho. H. is a quiet fellow, who is satisfied with the wildness of Belmullet and Achill, where he is fishing and sketching, and catching a fine brogue, while I. is taking a row on Killarney, and K. is geologising on the Giant’s Causeway. L. finds the German mediæval churches particularly fine in an autumnal sunshine; and M. has the same opinion about the grapes of southern France. N. and O. are Alpine clubmen; so they are bent on making the very last ascents of the season, through all warnings about the new snow. P. is a temporary soldier. He must just see Italy through her troubles, and then he will come home to business. Such are the holidays of one’s friends while one has been staying at home for holiday in the solitude of London.
We rural people, however, dearly prize our English country October, while sympathising with any who spend the month elsewhere. October is a month very rich in pleasures to young and middle-aged; and the sight of an orchard full of ripe fruit is welcome to the aged, when they turn out at noon to bask on the sunny side of it.
As for the youngsters, if my boys were asked where they would best like to be on the 1st of October, they would exclaim—“On Decoy-day! Why at Uncle Willis’s, to be sure.” Uncle Willis lives in Lincolnshire; and in Lincolnshire there are still places where Decoy-day is quite as great an occasion as the 1st of September is to people in the midland counties. By Act of Parliament, the taking of wild fowl by decoys begins on the 1st of October. To those who are past the fun of getting soaked or chilled in stagnant water for many hours of the day, there is something impressive in the opening of the fowling season. The whirr of the pheasant from the covert, and the rustle of the partridge family disturbed in the furrow, are never forgotten when once heard; but far more impressive is the scream of the water-fowl heard amidst the silence of a dark night. The belated countryman, plodding home on a moonless night, starts when it comes down to him from an immeasurable distance. He always believed those creatures travelled by night, from the numbers that sometimes appear in the morning; and now he is sure of it. He thenceforth goes out every night, and stands at his door the last thing before getting into bed, to listen for that cry.
Many times in the day, eyes are searching the upper air for a flight of cranes or wild swans; and if the gaze is successful, and something like a