Perhaps I may now safely return to my duty, of depicting the several unamiable aspects which the face of November is apt to assume; and which, in my lover-like disposition to "see Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," I had serious thoughts of either passing over altogether, or denying the existence of outright!
Now, then (there is no denying it), cold rains do come deluging down, till the drenched ground, the dripping trees, the pouring eaves, and the torn ragged-skirted clouds, seemingly dragged downward slantwise by the threads of dusky rain that descend from them, are all mingled together in one blind confusion; while the few Cattle that are left in the open Pastures, forgetful of their till now interminable business of feeding, turn their backs upon the besieging storm, and hanging down their heads till their noses almost touch the ground, stand out in the middle of the Fields motionless, like dead images.
Now, too, a single rain-storm, like the above, breaks up all the paths and ways at once, and makes home no longer "home" to those who are not obliged to leave it; while, _en revanche_, it becomes doubly endeared to those who are. What sight, for instance, is so pleasant to the wearied Woodman, who has been out all day long in the drenching rains of this month, as his own distant cottage window, seen through the thickening dusk, lighted up by the blazing faggot that is to greet his sure return at the accustomed minute? What, I say, is so pleasant a sight as this, except the window of the village alehouse, similarly seen, and offering a similar greeting, to him who has _no_ home?
The name of home warns us that we are too long delaying our approach to its environs, even though they have little to offer us different from the comparative desolation that prevails elsewhere.
In short, the Fruits of the Orchard are all gathered in, and all but the keeping ones are gone; and the Flowers of the Garden are gradually growing thinner and thinner, and the places where they lately stood are forgotten.
Still, however, of the former we have the Winter store, laid by in fragrant heaps in the low-roofed loft over the Granary; and of the latter we have yet left some that scatter their till now neglected beauties up and down the half-deserted Parterre, and gain that admiration by their rarity, which in the presence of their more fleeting rivals they were fain to do without; and even a few that have not ventured to show their faces to the hot sun of Summer, but are bold enough to bare them before the chilling winds of Winter. Of these the most various and conspicuous are the Chrysanthemums, shooting out their sharp rays of different lengths, like stars--purple, and pink, and white, and yellow, and blue; but all pale, faint, and scentless, and looking more like artificial flowers than real ones.