Country Life
By IAN NIALL
THERE is perhaps no time of year when the country- side looks more denuded and sad than it does at this moment. The leaves have gone from the trees, the pasture is bare, the rape field devastated by folded sheep, the first lamb hasn't yet bleated on the earliest farms round about, and the barest nucleus of geese and duck remains to underline the casualties inevit- able at the approach of the season of gourmandising. Add the sight of the topped fir tree and the mutilated holly limb, and the sigh one gives is long and deep. The Carol-singers are no more in tune this year than ever they were and they seem to have marked us as the tramp marks a 'soft mark,' but there was that hope- ful message, 'Merry Christmas,' as we opened the door and found them blinking in the light. We couldn't hear what they said as they took themselves off into the darkness, for the stream across the road in the glen drowned their 'murmurings. It may have been something about generosity in different places and speculation about the chances of better harvest at the village up on the hill, which is, nevertheless, a steep climb and a sort pull on a winter's evening.
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