Prince Autumn

O N the top of the hills in the West stood the Prince of Autumn and surveyed the land with his serious eyes.

His hair and beard were dashed with gray and there were wrinkles on his forehead. But he was good to look at, still and straight and strong. His splendid cloak gleamed red and green and brown and yellow and flapped in the wind. In his hand he held a horn.

He smiled sadly and stood awhile and listened to the fighting and the singing and the cries. Then he raised his head, put the horn to his mouth and blew a lusty flourish:

All the trees of the forest shook from root to top, themselves not knowing why. All the birds fell silent together. The stag in the glade raised his antlers in surprise and listened. The poppy's scarlet petals flew before the wind.

But high on the mountains and on the bare hills and low down in the bog, the heather burst forth and blazed purple and glorious in the sun. And the bees flew from the faded flowers of the meadow and hid themselves in the heather-fields.

But Autumn put his horn to his mouth again and blew:

The Prince of Summer stopped where he stood in the valley and raised his eyes to the hills in the West. And the Prince of Autumn took the horn from his mouth and bowed low before him.

"Welcome!" said Summer.

He took a step towards him and no more, as befits one who is the greater. But the Prince of Autumn came down over the hills and again bowed low.

They walked through the valley hand in hand. And so radiant was Summer that, wherever they passed, none was aware of Autumn's presence. The notes of his horn died away in the air; and one and all recovered from the shudder that had passed over them. The trees and birds and flowers came to themselves again and whispered and sang and fought. The river flowed, the rushes murmured, the bees continued their summer orgy in the heather.

But, wherever the princes stopped on their progress through the valley, it came about that the foliage turned yellow on the side where Autumn was. A little leaf fell from its stalk and fluttered away and dropped at his feet. The nightingale ceased singing, though it was eventide; the cuckoo was silent and flapped restlessly through the woods; the stork stretched himself in his nest and looked toward the South. But the princes took no heed.

"Welcome," said Summer again. "Do you remember your promise?"

"I remember," answered Autumn.

Then the Prince of Summer stopped and looked out over the kingdom where the noise was gradually subsiding.

"Do you hear them?" he asked. "Now do you take them into your gentle keeping."

"I shall bring your produce home," said Autumn. "I shall watch carefully over them that dream, I shall cover up lovingly them that are to sleep in the mould. I will warn them thrice of Winter's coming."

"It is well," said Summer.

They walked in silence for a time, while night came forth.

"The honeysuckle's petals fell when you blew your horn," said Summer. "Some of my children will die at the moment when I leave the valley. But the nightingale and the cuckoo and the stork I shall take with me."

Again the two princes walked in silence. It was quite still, only the owls hooted in the old oak.

"You must send my birds after me," said Summer.

"I shall not forget," replied Autumn.

Then the Prince of Summer raised his hand in farewell and bade Autumn take possession of the kingdom.

"I shall go tonight," he said. "And none will know save you. My splendour will linger in the valley for a while. And by‑the‑by, when I am far away and my reign is forgotten, the memory of me will revive once more with the sun and the pleasant days."

Then he strode away in the night. But from the high tree-top came the stork on his long wings; and the cuckoo fluttered out of the tall woods; and the nightingale flew from the thicket with her full-grown young.

The air was filled with the soft murmurings of wings. Autumn's dominion had indeed begun on the night when Summer went away, with a yellow leaf here and a brown leaf there, but none had noticed it. Now it went at a quicker pace; and as time wore on, there came even more colours and greater splendour.

The lime trees turned bright yellow and the beech bronze, but the elder-tree even blacker than it had been. The bell-flower rang with white bells, where it used to ring with blue, and the chestnut tree blessed all the world with its five yellow fingers. The mountain ash shed its leaves that all might admire its pretty berries; the wild rose nodded with a hundred hips; the Virginia creeper broke over the hedge in blazing flames.

Then Autumn put his horn to his mouth and blew:

And blackbird and thrush chattered blithely in the copsewood, which gleamed with berries, and a thousand sparrows kept them company. The wind ran from one to the other and puffed and panted to add to the fun. High up in the sky, the sun looked gently down upon it all.

And the Prince of Autumn nodded contentedly and let his motley cloak flap in the wind.

"I am the least important of the four seasons and am scarcely lord in my own land," he said. "I serve two jealous masters and have to please them both. But my power extends so far that I can give you a few glad days."

Then he put his horn to his mouth and blew:

But, the night after this happened, there was tremendous disturbance up on the mountain peaks, where the eternal snows had lain both in Spring's time and Summer's. It sounded like a storm approaching. The trees grew frightened, the crows were silent, the wind held its breath. Prince Autumn bent forward and listened:

"Is that the worst you can do?" shouted a hoarse voice through the darkness.

Autumn raised his head and looked straight into Winter's great, cold eyes!

"Have you forgotten the bargain?" asked Winter.

"No," replied Autumn. "I have not forgotten it."

"Have a care," shouted Winter.

The whole night through, it rumbled and tumbled in the mountains. It turned so bitterly cold that the starling thought seriously of packing up and even the red creeper turned pale.

The distant peaks glittered with new snow.

And the Prince of Autumn laughed no more. He looked out earnestly over the land and the wrinkles in his forehead grew deeper.

"It must be so then!" he said.

Then he blew his horn.

Then suddenly a terrible bustle arose in the land, for now they all understood.

"Quick," said Autumn.

The poppy and the bell-flower and the pink stood thin and dry as sticks with their heads full of seed. The dandelion had presented each one of his seeds with a sweet little parachute.

"Come, dear Wind, and shake us!" said the poppy.

"Fly away with my seeds, Wind," said the dandelion.

And the wind hastened to do as they asked.

But the beech cunningly dropped his shaggy fruit on to the hare's fur; and the fox got one also on his red coat.

"Quick, now," said Autumn. "There's no time here to waste."

The little brown mice filled their parlors from floor to ceiling with nuts and beech-mast and acorns. The hedgehog had already eaten himself so fat that he could hardly lower his quills. The hare and fox and stag put on clean white woollen things, under their coats. The starling and the thrush and the blackbird saw to their downy clothing and exercised their wings for the long journey.

The sun hid himself behind the clouds and did not appear for many days.

It began to rain. The wind quickened its pace: it dashed the rain over the meadow, whipped the river into foam and whistled through the trunks in the forest.

"Now the song is finished!" said the Prince of Autumn.

Then he put his horn to his mouth and blew.

And then it was over.

The birds flew from the land in flocks. The starling and the lapwing, the thrush and the blackbird all migrated to the south.

Every morning before the sun rose the wind tore through the forest, and pulled the last leaves off the trees. Every day the wind blew stronger, snapped great branches, swept the withered leaves together into heaps, scattered them again and, at last, laid them like a soft, thick carpet over the whole floor of the forest.

The hedgehog crawled so far into a hole under a heap of stones that he remained caught between two of them and could move neither forwards nor backwards. The sparrow took lodgings in a deserted swallow's nest; the frogs went to the bottom of the pond for good, settled in the mud, with the tips of their noses up in the water and prepared for whatever might come.

The Prince of Autumn stood and gazed over the land to see if it was bare and waste so that Winter's storms might come buffeting at will and the snow lie wherever it pleased.

Then he stopped before the old oak and looked at the ivy that clambered right up to the top and spread her green leaves as if Winter had no existence at all. And while he looked at it the ivy-flowers blossomed! They sat right at the top and rocked in the wind!

"Now I'm coming," roared Winter from the mountains. "My clouds are bursting with snow; and my storms are breaking loose. I can restrain them no longer."

The Prince of Autumn bent his head and listened. He could hear the storm come rushing down over the mountains. A snowflake fell upon his motley cloak . . . and another . . . and yet another . . .

For the last time he put his horn to his mouth and blew:

Then he went away in the storm.