After the Gale it
A .gale changes the countryside. The hedges give most of thelf leaves to the rushing wind at this time of year; the seeds of weeds are hammered out and scattered, and in the woods dead branches arc torn down. I had not been up to the wood after the gale until the week-end, for the weather has been wet, but when I went to look round I saw the changes. An old chestnut has been shattered at the tor, and the elms have lost thousands of twigs and many mouldering branches. Among the conifers the floor is strewn with cones, and beside the sycamores the stream is full of winged seeds and stalks; Out on the field. a piece of gorse still tumbled along. It had been used to stop a gap in the hedge. When the sheep are on the move again, someone will curse the gale, for all the gaps in the hedge have opened. The branches of hawthorn, bits of holly and tops of gorse have been pushed aside. The skyline is different too. The elms up on a ridge are clear-cut. Without their leaves the-old trees look beautiful. ,Birc11 and beech, too, always seem to me -to be more handsome when their leaves have gone.
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