eaten them all at home, but that there can never be too many in all the cottages round.
There are more plums of various sorts to be got, the most bloomy and fragrant for dessert and for presents, and the commoner for pies, puddings, and preserves. The grapes grow transparent now under their bloom, and crave gathering. My wife wants walnuts to pickle; so we go to the great tree on the windy side of the orchard, and get no more than enough, that the rest may ripen fully. We find a few mulberries, and the sight of them sets Harry asking for his promised blackberry holiday. Jane says she thinks it might do already. On every bramble there are still blossoms, and green and red fruit; but there is also some black, and we can but try.
It is very pleasant to get blackberries; but the real treat, in my opinion, is the sight of an autumn hedge. The rough stone fences in the northern counties are charming when well mossed over, and tufted with ferns in the crevices, and tinted with lichens, and with a running fringe of pansies and small wild geranium along the top: but a hedge in autumn is yet lovelier, however true it may be that it is damp—that it harbours vermin—that it wastes broad strips of good soil. Look at the briony with its scarlet transparent berries, and the fruitage of the wild apple and plum, and the privet, and the elder, and the service—the black shining clusters here—the blue sloes there, the dull red haws and the scarlet hips, and the green and red crab apples! Look at the catkins of the birch, and the keys of the ash and sycamore, and the flowering of the ivy, and the pale last blossoms of the wild honeysuckle! If the grass and weeds are somewhat dank, look at the dew-drops on the spider-webs, and the changing colours of the foliage of the hedgerow trees!
The blackberrying must be on a dry day, and if possible, a sunny one. The baskets must be of good capacity, with basins or trays at the bottom to catch the juice; for, however many are eaten, more must be brought home. I say nothing about the jam. It is very good to those who like it; and it is decidedly better than none. So are blackberry pies and puddings. But, if the jam be the lowest of jams, the jelly is the highest of jellies—of fruit jellies. Blackberry jelly is truly a dainty, not only good for sore throats and hoarsenesses, but a dainty sweet with cream, or on puffs. So Harry and his party are to bring home a vast crop;* the elder ones being always careful to gather only those which grow out of reach of the poor children who have a sort of natural right to all wild good things that they can lay hands on. I much doubt, too, whether a large portion of the highest growing blackberries are not deposited somewhere on the way home.
Lastly, there will be the nutting—the best of all. The getting together the hooked sticks and the bags, and the gardening aprons with great pockets, is merry work; and once in the wood how busy everybody grows! The clusters have been watched (and the secret kept about the best) ever since the green points first peeped out, through the pithy stage, and the milky stage, and the ripening, till they become grey or brown enough for the gathering. We are always telling the village boys how foolish it is to pull them before they are half ripe; and every year the boys do it again: and almost every year there is a clothes’ basket-full of nuts in every house where anybody lives who likes nutting. The fatigue that girls will go through in stretching, and jumping, and twitching, and carrying an increasing load, is amazing. Scornful people tell them that they might get better nuts in equal quantity for a few pence, and save walking all those miles, and making themselves stiff for days after. The answer is that pleasure is the object and not pence, and that they never count the miles gone over, nor mind the aches incurred in nutting; which is a new wonder to scornful people.
While the children are thus busy abroad, mother and maids are not idle at home. The apple-chamber and other fruit-rooms are now cleared out, scoured and ventilated; the cottage neighbours and the farmers’ wives are encouraged to prepare for the collection of goose-feathers, now that Michaelmas is coming on. The last preserves are made. The flower-seeds are dried, sorted, and put away; and so are the sweet herbs. Elder wine is made—the only domestic wine we venture upon; but elder wine is a singular antiquity, out of the way of everything modern; and we have certain visitors who like nothing so well after a cold ride, as a glass of hot elder wine (out of a pitcher), and toast.
But I shall never have done, if I tell all that marks the month of September. I can only remind my readers to watch for the departure of the swallows, (an event of which we always have ample notice by the commotion they make about our roofs before they go); and to order a Michaelmas goose in time, and gather brisk apples for the sauce: and to induce their cottage neighbours to try fish dinners, at the time when herrings are so cheap; and to watch over them, as over their own households, during the weeks of autumn sickness. This is the time for choleraic diseases, and the time of all the year when the inexperienced and ill-informed most need the guidance of their wiser neighbours in the management of health. Ague, rheumatism, and disorders of the alimentary system often take their rise in September. One thing more, we shall be reminded of at the end of the month by the rushing winds which will bring down the leaves in our avenues, and roar in our chimneys. While we are snug by our early autumn fire, we shall not forget the mariners who are having their first warning of winter in the equinoctial gales. In mid-winter, seamen are prepared for any weather: but now, when they are floating at sunset in a purple and golden summer sea, it is scarcely credible, and very awful, to think that they may be pitching in a raging gale before morning. Whether those whom we care for at sea are yachting for pleasure, or doing duty on board the fleet, or out on hire in a merchant-ship, let us send forth our sympathy from under our sheltering roof-tree. If we happen to have no friend or acquaintance at sea, let our fellow-feeling be all the wider. As islanders we should feel every equinoctial gale an event, for its importance to our countrymen who are at sea.