He had never before been quite so acutely aware of theparticular quality and function of November, its ripeness and itshushed sadness. The year proceeds not in a straight line throughthe seasons, but in a circle that brings the world and man back tothe dimness and mystery in which both began, and out of which a newseed-time and a new generation are about to begin. Old men, thoughtCadfael, believe in that new beginning, but experience only theending. It may be that God is reminding me that I am approaching myNovember. Well, why regret it? November has beauty, has seen theharvest into the barns, even laid by next year’s seed. Noneed to fret about not being allowed to stay and sow it, someoneelse will do that. So go contentedly into the earth with the moist,gentle, skeletal leaves, worn to cobweb fragility, like the skinsof very old men, that bruise and stain at the mere brushing of thebreeze, and flower into brown blotches as the leaves into rottinggold. The colours of late autumn are the colours of the sunset: thefarewell of the year and the farewell of the day. And of the lifeof man? Well, if it ends in a flourish of gold, that is no badending.

Hugh, coming from the abbot’s lodging, between haste toimpart what he knew, and reluctance to deliver what could only bedisturbing news, found his friend standing thus motionless in themiddle of his small, beloved kingdom, staring rather within his ownmind than at the straggling, autumnal growth about him. He startedback to the outer world only when Hugh laid a hand on his shoulder,and visibly surfaced slowly from some secret place, fathoms deep inthe centre of his being.