This is the weather which the Vagabond, like Mr. Hardy and his cookoo, prefers. For the autumn rain has been upon us, and left the chill of autumn in the air. Summer is alive in his mind but the Vagabond turns a speculative eye on the orchards where the russet apples are growing ripe. Over the moors by the sea the gulls are still crying, but the sandpiper is gone from the shore. The sea-weed sways among the brown rocks, and the sun goes down in purple.

In a fishing village which the Vagabond remembers, the streets are cobble-stoned, and the old houses have iron gates. A wind comes up from Spain, and shakes the elm trees on Main Street until the cobbles are buried in leaves. They are falling now, for Autumn comes early there, and blowing, red and gold, over the cobbles. The people who come every year with paint and canvas have packed up and gone. And one by one, every day, the ships come in from the fisheries: ships whose hulls have been painted by the wind and the sea for a whole summer. They come in with quiet sails, and rest in the shallow harbor.

The Vagabond likes to remember once in September when he walked through the town to the harbor, and watched the sailors leaving their ships. He thought of a time when this town sent out the proudest ships in the world, with famous captains, now forgotten. They cleared Cape Horn in midwinter, and struck for whales in the Sea of Japan and on the Malabar Coast. That was a century back. Now they cast their nets in the west Atlantic, and when Autumn comes they glide back to port.

The Vagabond stayed all day on the docks, until the last ship came in and anchored, its bare masts standing up against the sunset.