Yes, the summer is gone, in very truth. With every day now, and every hour of the day, the writing on the wall shows plainer. While the hushed, hot times endured, it was still possible to believe red autumn as far away as ever; for not a leaf in oak or elm has changed, nor will change, perhaps, for weeks to come. But the tell-tale winds of the equinox are upon us, bringing the very voice of autumn with them; and the acorns are falling by the river, and the thistle-down drifting white upon the hills. I began this day badly—badly, that is to say, from my own private point of view; which is a point, it may well be, like Euclid’s, having position but no dimensions, yet a point nevertheless. Chancing to wake with the dawn, I saw that the day was beginning with a beautiful smoke-pearl trellis in the east, behind which welled up an ever-strengthening fountain of silver white. Coming presently out upon the green under this pure pale glow of morning, I was startled by a cry that came echoing from the misty twilight of the hills. ‘Hi-up! Hi-up! Voller, voller, voller!’ Hoarse, harsh, undeniably brutal it sounded in the sweet, snow-white lustre of the virgin light. And then came the shrill blare of the huntsman’s horn, the confused yelping and baying of the pack, and the dull thunder of beating hoofs, as the hunt drove over the hill-top, and fell to drawing Windle coverts. At once the silent village awoke. Windows were thrown open and heads appeared. Dark figures burst from cottage doors and went pounding up the lane that led to the hills. Round the covert the horsemen gathered in a motionless ring, while the huntsman drove his pack through the undergrowth, for ever urging them forward with that fierce guttural note, which was more like the cry of a wolf than a man. At length a fine cub fox broke cover, and led the whole company a ding-dong chase over the hills, and out of sight and hearing for good. Some hours later, I met Farmer Coles and his two sons returning from the sport, the youngest, a mere schoolboy, mounted on a pony, his head, as he rode, reaching scarce to his father’s saddle-peak. He was in huge high spirits, displaying the brush, his share of the spoil, to all acquaintance as he passed. And the face of this yellow-haired, chubby child was bedaubed with blood, thick zebra-like streaks of it smudged across his smooth forehead and rosy baby cheeks. He was going home delighted, to show to an admiring mother how he had been ‘blooded’ at his first cub-hunt; and in all that country-side, I thought to myself as I passed on, there was scarce a man or woman of station and breeding who would not have applauded son of theirs returning home in such a plight.