AUTUMN IN THE VALLEY Autumn in the valley was autumn, melancholy and sinister, as you find her only in such low-lying immemorial drifting places of leaves, and oozy sinks of dank water.

For the moors autumn is the spring come back in purple, and in golden woods and many another place where the year dies happily, she smiles like a widow so young and fair that one thinks rather of life than death in her presence.
But in the valley Autumn was a fearsome hag, a little crazy, two-double, gathering sticks in a scarlet cloak.

When she turned her wicked old eyes upon you, the life died within you, and wherever you walked she was always somewhere in the bushes muttering evil spells.

All the year round under the green cloud of summer, you might meet Autumn creeping somewhere in the valley, like foul mists that creep from pool to pool; for here all the year was decay to feed upon and dead leaves for her to sleep on.

Always the year round in the valley, if you listened close, you would hear something sighing, something dying.