Here one flashed
emerald; there ruby; another a pure brilliance like a diamond. Under
foot by the stiles the fallen acorns crunched as they split into halves
beneath the sudden pressure.
The leaves still left on the sycamores were marked with large black
spots: the horse-chestnuts were quite bare; and already the tips of the
branches carried the varnish-coloured sheaths of the buds that were to
appear the following spring. These stuck to the finger if touched, as if
they really had been varnished. Through the long months of winter they
would remain, till under April showers and sunshine the sheath fell back
and the green leaflets pushed up, the two forming together a rude cross
for a short time.
The day was perfectly still, and the colours of the leaves still left
glowed in the sunbeams. Beneath, the dank bronzed fern that must soon
shrivel was wet, and hung with spiders' webs that like a slender netting
upheld the dew. The keeper swore a good deal about a certain gentleman
farmer whose lands adjoined the estate, but who held under a different
proprietor. Between these two there was a constant bickering--the tenant
angry about the damage done to his crops by the hares and rabbits, and
the keeper bitterly resenting the tenant's watch on his movements, and
warnings to his employer that all was not quite as it should be.
The tenant had the right to shoot, and he was always about in the
turnips--a terrible thorn in the side of Dickon's friend.
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