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diff --git a/43061-8.txt b/43061-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4c2f51f..0000000 --- a/43061-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6083 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the West Country, by Francis A. Knight - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: In the West Country - -Author: Francis A. Knight - -Release Date: June 29, 2013 [EBook #43061] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE WEST COUNTRY *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, RichardW and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: - -Original spelling and punctuation has been retained, with a few -exceptions. Some quotation mark errors were corrected. Italicised -text has been coded with underscores before and after. Small caps -were converted to uppercase. - -A few of the illustrations were untitled. Short descriptions have -been added, prefixed by "TN: ". On page 51, the passage "to the -deer-haunted heights of Dunkerry" is retained. There are five -mentions of "Dunkery" in the book, and only one of "Dunkerry". - - * * * * * - - - - - IN THE WEST COUNTRY. - - * * * * * - - [Illustration: CLOVELLY FROM THE SEA.] - - - - - In the West Country - - BY - - FRANCIS A. KNIGHT, - - AUTHOR OF - - _"By Leafy Ways," "Rambles of a Dominie," - "By Moorland and Sea," - &c., &c._ - - _ILLUSTRATED._ - - Bristol: - W. CROFTON HEMMONS, ST. STEPHEN STREET. - - London: - SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD. - - - - - _These sketches are, with alterations and additions, - reprinted from the "Daily News" and the "Speaker," by - kind permission of the editors._ - - - - - WITHOUT PERMISSION, - BUT WITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE - TOO DEEP FOR WORDS, - These Pages are Dedicated - TO - THE DEVOTED COMPANION - WHOSE RAMBLES WITH ME IN - The West Country - BEGAN NOW NEARLY - - "_... five and twenty years ago; - Alas, but time escapes! 'Tis even so._" - - - - - _Printed at the Publisher's Works, St. Stephen Street, Bristol._ - - [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] - - [Illustration: untitled. TN: Sailing Ships in Harbour.] - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - CLOVELLY: "WESTWARD HO!" COUNTRY 1 - - CLOVELLY: THE SOUND OF THE SEA 9 - - CLOVELLY: THE VIKINGS' SEAT 16 - - WESTWARD HO! AN OLD CARRONADE 25 - - DARTMOOR DAYS 36 - - EXMOOR--WYCHANGER: A FAR RETREAT 50 - - EXMOOR--LUCCOMBE: TWILIGHT IN THE - HOLLOW 59 - - EXMOOR: HORNER WATER 67 - - EXMOOR: WHERE RED DEER HIDE 75 - - TORR STEPS: A MOORLAND RIVER 82 - - EXMOOR--WINSFORD: VOICES THREE 90 - - BREAN DOWN: FLOTSAM AND JETSAM 98 - - THE COUNTRY LIFE 114 - - HALE WELL: A QUIET CORNER 128 - - THE GREENWOOD TREE 146 - - CHILL OCTOBER 162 - - TURF MOOR: A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND 176 - - TURF MOOR: THE FROZEN MARSHES 188 - - WINSCOMBE: A CAMP OF REFUGE 196 - - WINSCOMBE: A MIDSUMMER MEADOW 204 - - WINSCOMBE: HARVEST HOME 213 - - THE MENDIPS--WINTERHEAD: AFTERMATH 222 - - WOODSPRING: A GREY OLD HOUSE BY - THE SEA 235 - - KEWSTOKE: THE MONK'S STEPS 250 - - BY COACH TO TINTAGEL 258 - - [Illustration: untitled. TN: Bird, perhaps a heron, flying with - moon and clouds in background.] - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. - - - PAGE - - CLOVELLY FROM THE SEA (_frontispiece_). - - CLOVELLY STREET 1 - - A ROCKY COAST 9 - - MOONLIGHT 16 - - OLD SAILOR AND CHILD _to face_ 22 - - AN OLD CARRONADE 25 - - DARTMOOR: CHAGFORD 36 - - DARTMOOR--EVENING: TAKING HOME - THE SHEEP _to face_ 48 - - A WEST COUNTRY COTTAGE 50 - - THE OLD MILL: TWILIGHT 59 - - EXMOOR: HORNER BRIDGE 67 - - WHERE RED DEER HIDE 75 - - TORR STEPS 82 - - AN EXMOOR SKETCH 90 - - A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA 98 - - MOORLAND NEAR THE SEA 114 - - A WEST COUNTRY MOLE CATCHER _to face_ 124 - - A QUIET CORNER 128 - - THE GREENWOOD TREE 146 - - THE HARVEST MOON 162 - - ON SEDGMOOR 176 - - WINTER IN THE MARSHES 188 - - WINSCOMBE--THE CHURCH PORCH 196 - - A MENDIP VILLAGE--WINSCOMBE _to face_ 200 - - THE MOWERS 204 - - A WEST COUNTRY REAPER 213 - - COUNTRY LIFE 222 - - WINTERHEAD: AN UPLAND PASTURE _to face_ 233 - - A GREY OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA 235 - - THE MONK'S RETREAT 250 - - TINTAGEL 258 - -[Illustration: untitled. TN: Farmstead.] - -[Illustration: CLOVELLY STREET.] - - - - -AT CLOVELLY. - - -There are few parts of English coast-line whose traditions are -more picturesque than those of the beautiful sea-board of Devon. -Its shores are haunted by memories of the great Armada, of the -deeds of Drake and Hawkins, of Howard and Raleigh, and of many -another old sea-dog, who played his part in the making of our -island story. It was the coast of Devonshire that was first -harried by the Danes, when, in the words of the Anglo-Saxon -chronicle, "three ships of Northmen, out of Denmark," put in to -plunder Teignmouth. The other side of the county suffered most. -Again and again the hamlets on the northern shore were wasted by -the merciless invaders. The isle of Lundy, that from the land -shows like a faint blue bar along the sky line, has a stirring -story of its own. It has served in its time as a stronghold even -of corsair Algerines. Pirates from Spain and Holland each held it -in their turn. On the beach of its only landing place there still -lies, buried in the shingle, an ancient gun that was hurled over -the cliff by the French when they were about to leave the island. -Its rightful lords themselves were, in the good old days, little -better, probably, than buccaneers. - -But there is a greater and more real interest linked with this -pleasant shore. The memory that, before all others, haunts the -coast of Devon is the memory of Charles Kingsley. The legends that -have most charm for us here are from the pages of "Westward Ho!" -If Bideford has regained nothing of its lost renown, Bideford that -in Queen Bess's time "was one of the chief ports in England ... -furnished seven ships to fight the Armada; and even more than a -century afterwards ... sent more vessels to the northern trade -than any port in England saving London and Topsham," we cannot -forget that it was there that "Westward Ho!" was written. As we -stroll along the streets of the little seaport that lies opposite, -we are less likely to think of Hubba and his vikings than of how -"the _Vengeance_ slid over the Bar, passed the sleeping sandhills, -and dropped anchor off Appledore with her flag floating half-mast -high, for the corpse of Salvation Yeo was on board." - -Kingsley's pictures of South American forests have fired the heart -of many a reader, old as well as young, to see for himself the -wonders of those enchanted regions, to gaze on a giant ceiba tree, -like that on the green steeps above La Guayra, where "Parrots -peeped in and out of every cranny, while, within the air of -woodland, brilliant lizards basked like living gems upon the bark, -gaudy finches flitted and chirrupped, butterflies of every size -and colour hovered over the topmost twigs, innumerable insects -hummed from morn till eve; and, when the sun went down, tree-toads -came out to snore and croak till dawn." - -But those descriptions, marvellous as they are, were borrowed from -books. It was not until fourteen years after that passage was -written that "the dream of forty years" was fulfilled; that the -author of "At Last" was able to see with his own eyes the West -Indies and the Spanish Main; could, as he says, "compare books -with facts, and judge for myself of the reported wonders of the -earthly paradise." But it is quite another thing when he is -talking of the coast of Devon. There his foot is on his native -heath. He was not, it is true, born within sound of the sea, but -some of his earliest memories were of Hartland and Welcombe, of -Bideford and Clovelly. Above all of Clovelly. To use his wife's -words, "His love for Clovelly was a passion." Even his well-loved -Eversley had hardly a warmer place in his regard. - -Kingsley was just eleven when his father became rector there, and -for some six years he doubtless spent most of his holidays at -least among the scenes which he describes so well. Thirteen years -passed before he went back. "I cannot believe my eyes," he wrote -to his wife; "the same place, the pavement, the same dear old -smells, the dear old handsome, loving faces again." The cottages -are much the same as when last he saw them, now nearly fifty years -ago, "with jessamine and fuchsia running up the windows." Just the -same as then is "the narrow paved cranny of a street, vanishing -downwards, stair below stair." Any change there is must be for the -better. The village has been drained; that is a substantial -improvement, and the fuchsias and climbers have wreathed half the -hamlet in a very bower of green. Clovelly Church--so far away that -the sound of its bells never reaches the village in the cleft -below--has few features of its own to recommend it. But the -grey-haired sexton remembers how he sat with young Kingsley in the -choir, sixty years since, when they were boys together. And the -churchyard is to us like a chapter of romance. Half the names we -know best in "Westward Ho!" are on its stones. - -Here are two names that conjure up those "five desperate minutes" -on the mountain road when the gold train was taken; when the -surviving Spaniards, "two only, who were behind the rest, -happening to be in full armour, escaped without mortal wound, and -fled down the hill again." They were chased by "Michael Evans and -Simon Heard ... two long and lean Clovelly men ... who ran two -feet for the Spaniards' one; and in ten minutes returned, having -done their work." Another stone reminds us of "the armourer, who -sat tinkering a head-piece," humming a ballad in honour of his -birthplace. "'Tis Sunderland, John Squire, to the song, and not -Bidevor," said his mate. "Well, Bidevor's as good as Sunderland -any day, for all there's no say-coals there blacking a place -about." - -The names of Ebbsworthy and Parracombe recall that scene by the -banks of the Meta, when Amyas went with Ayacanora in search of two -of his men, who had taken to the forest, each with an Indian -bride. It was Parracombe who asked only to be left "in peace, -alone with God and God's woods, and the good wives that God has -given us, to play a little like school children. It's long since -I've had play-hours, and now I'll be a little child once more, -with the flowers and the singing birds and the silver fishes in -the stream that are at peace and think no harm, and want neither -clothes, nor money, nor knighthood, nor peerage, but just take -what comes." - -Here are Yeo and Hamblyn. And if there are no Careys in the -churchyard, they lie in plenty in the church itself. Here, too, -is a Passmore. "Lucy Passmore, the white witch to Welcombe. Don't -you mind Lucy Passmore, as charmed your warts for you when you was -a boy?" It is a far cry from Clovelly to the deep gorge of -Welcombe: a good way even to Harty Point, with whose lesser -altitude the crew of the _Rose_ compared the towering heights -above the mangrove swamps of Higuerote. But the place is close to -the village where Frank and Amyas kept watch after that strange -missive had been left at the Court by some "country fellow"-- - - "Mister Carey, be you wary - By deer park end to-night - Yf Irish ffoxe com out of rocks - Grip and hold hym tight" - -We can stand there now and look out over just such a scene as -Amyas saw when, "outside, the south-west wind blew fresh and -strong, and the moonlight danced upon a thousand crests of foam; -but within the black, jagged point which sheltered the town, the -sea did but heave in long, oily swells of rolling silver, onward -into the black shadow of the hills, within which town and pier lay -invisible, save where a twinkling light gave token of some weary -fisher's wife, watching the weary night through for the boat which -would return with dawn." - -The beech below, the "steep hillside fenced with oak wood," are at -least the same as in Kingsley's time. And if the stout craft that -he used to watch putting out from the pier have not outlived the -gales of half a century, there are men on the fishing boats of -to-day that remember him well. There are those in the village who -recollect even his father, "a man who feared no danger, and could -steer a boat, hoist and lower a sail, shoot a herring net, and -haul a seine as one of themselves." Who that stands looking -seaward from the ancient quay, whose rude, unmortared masonry has -weathered full five hundred winters, and watches the great green -rollers thundering up the beach, but thinks of the bay as Kingsley -saw it, "darkened with the grey columns of the waterspouts, -stalking across the waves before the northern gale; and the tiny -herring-boats fleeing from their nets right for the breakers, -hoping more mercy even from those iron walls of rock than the -pitiless, howling waste of spray behind them?" Yes, it is -"Westward Ho!" country. Turn where we will--the bay, the cliffs, -the woods, the village--all remind us of Amyas Leigh, of Will -Carey, of Salvation Yeo. - -[Illustration: A ROCKY COAST.] - - - - -THE SOUND OF THE SEA. - - -The long curve of the shore on either side this little fishing -port, guarded here by a mighty wall of cliff, here by steep faces -of red rock, and bordered here with fields that come down nearly -to the water's edge, is fringed with a wide belt of shingle--no -smooth stretch of yellow sand, but miles and miles of great grey -pebbles, the ruins of old cliffs, the wreck of rocky battlements -shattered by the surges, and rolled and shaped and rounded by the -rude play of winds and waves. Down the long shore, headland beyond -headland shows fainter and more faint, until the shadowy outline -of the land fades into the far horizon. Westward from the harbour, -a long cliff towers above the shore, with strange curves and -mighty buttresses, of endless shades of red and brown, its seaworn -faces weathered to cool grey or stained to inky black, touched -with the gold of clinging lichens and the bright green of tiny -ferns. Along its ledges sturdy rowan trees are rooted, among -thickets of gorse and bracken and heather. Higher up there hangs -over the rocky brows a crown of dwarf oak trees, gnarled and -storm-beaten. - -At the foot of the vast wall, growing dim now as evening darkens, -is a little space of shingle-covered beach, that at high water is -altogether shut out from the world. When the tide is in there is -no way in or out. If on the steep side of the cliff there are -tracks up which a goat might clamber, yet round the points of rock -that fence it in, against which now the waves are breaking, there -will be no way for hours. For hours nor voice nor foot of man can -break the quiet of this lonely spot. A single gull, rocking idly -on the waves, over its double in the clear water under it, and one -solitary cormorant standing erect and motionless on a great rock -that is almost as dark as he, deepen the sense of solitude. -Solitude there is, but not silence. The warm air of the summer -twilight is full of the sound of the sea--"low at times, and loud -at times, and changing like a poet's rhymes;" and after each -wave-beat on the storm-worn rocks the dark cliff overhead so -flings back the answer that it seems as if - - "From each cave and rocky fastness, - In its vastness, - Floats some fragment of a song" - -The hour is late. The cliff grows cold and sombre. Darkness is -settling in its cavernous hollows. The shadow of the shore steals -slowly out over the pale green sea. Over the bay are scattered the -fishing-boats of the port, still far off, but making for home -towards the tiny quay that, from the shore below the village, -stretches out its sheltering arm. Far out at sea, beyond the -jagged line of tumbling waves against the sky, lies a great ocean -highway, whose white sails and drifting smoke show faintly through -the haze. Over the vast sea, here dark with shifting -cloud-shadows, there still bright in the clear sunshine, are hues -a painter might toil for in vain. Who could render the swift -changes of colour that wind and sun are weaving with their -magical loom over the wide expanse? Here a band of pale, clear -green stretches far across the bay; here a belt of soft amber; -there a long stretch of rich, imperial purple, with endless -interchange of brown and green and blue, ruffled with light flaws -of wind, and touched at far intervals with white points of foam, -as of waves that were fleeing from the rougher sea outside. - -The art of man might copy to the life the curve of that great -green wave, with scraps of seaweed showing darkly through its -cool, transparent depths; but not the deftest hand that ever drew -could give the low roar of the incoming roller, the sound of its -plunge on the unyielding rock. The painter might imitate the snowy -whiteness of the water beaten suddenly into foam, but not its -seething hiss as it rushes in among the boulders, not the rattle -of the pebbles as the wave draws back for its next plunge along -the beach. He might show us the glisten of the wet stones, rounded -and polished by the eternal chafing of the surges; he might make -the white foam flicker in the black shadows under them, but not -the sullen sound of boulders shaken to their stony roots by the -resistless tide--boulders that on rough nights of winter, when -the lighthouse tower is veiled in storm-drift, and great waves are -thundering on the bar, are hurled like play-things up and down the -beach. The cormorant on the canvas might be to the full as stately -and sombre as that dark figure yonder, brooding like some spirit -of evil; but no shout could startle him to flight, driving him, -with slow beat of his broad wings, to seek safety in some still -more secluded resting-place. The clearest colours of the palette, -the deftest touches of the brush, the highest ideal of the painter -can give us but one glimpse of what after all is one unending -change. His may be the ideal. This is the real, the restless, -seething, stormy sea. What is the sea without its sound? As we -gaze at the dumb fury of a painted storm--the fatal reef, the -doomed ship, the white lash of the pitiless surges, it is to Fancy -alone that we must look for - - "The sound of the trampling surf - On the rocks and the hard sea sand." - -But now the fishing-boats are coming in. Their brown sails, always -so dear to the soul of the artist, have taken colour from the -flaming west, and shine like fiery orange in the light of sunset. -Their dark hulls are glistening with spray, the white foam shines -like silver underneath their bows. One after one they near the -shore, and as they pass into the shadow of the cliff the silver -melts from the hissing foam below them, the borrowed colour fades -slowly from their sails, that, as each craft reaches her moorings, -rattle down, mere heaps of sombre, sea-beaten canvas. Boats are -putting out from the shore to bring in the fish. Groups of idlers -and fishing-folk gather on the quay. For the moment the hum of -voices rises louder through the narrow street of the little town, -half hidden now in the darkness of the hollow--the little town -that is like no other in the islands. - - "'Tis a stairway, not a street. - That ascends the deep ravine." - -The sun is down. Far off across the bay the lighthouse has mounted -guard over the bar,--the very bar over which - - "Three fishers went sailing away to the west, - Away to the west as the sun went down." - -Now silence begins to settle on the village. The bearded vikings -are gone from the seat where, night after night, they spin the -same old yarns; where night after night the wayfarer over-hears -scraps of seafaring talk--of prodigious hauls of fish, of -hairbreadth escapes, of trawlers that, fleeing from a storm, were -caught on the very threshold and dashed to flinders on the quay. - -A sound of the sea is in it all. And when the last group of idlers -has broken up, when the clatter of the last belated footsteps has -died away up the little, unlighted, stony street, and the hush of -night is brooding on this quaint old village, the song of the sea -grows louder still. Now through the quiet air comes faintly up the -cry of some wandering plover, the muttered croak of a solitary -heron. All night the little town is full of voices of the sea-- - - "The grand, majestic symphonies of ocean." - -[Illustration: MOONLIGHT.] - - - - -THE VIKINGS SEAT. - - -Half way down the one street of this "little wood-embosomed -fishing town--a steep stair of houses clinging to the cliff," as -Kingsley calls it, is one of the few level spaces that break the -otherwise abrupt descent. No better place could have been chosen -for a seat, for no point in all the village commands so wide a -view of the sea. There is no place so good as this for watching -the trawlers putting out, hauled slowly to the head of the quay, -and then spreading their great brown mainsails,--double-reefed of -late, for there is mostly a stiff breeze outside the bay. On the -left, in front of one of the prettiest of many pretty houses in -the village, half covered with a bower of creepers, is a low wall, -on which, when their day's work is done, the sailors and the old -sea captains gather for their nightly gossip. Below are groups of -cottages, scattered in picturesque confusion, with ancient roofs -of crumbling slate, and quaint old gables, all wreathed in -creepers and honeysuckle and tall fuchsias. Lower still is the old -quay, five centuries old, with brown fishing nets hung up to dry, -and with a half-score or so of trawlers moored to old corroded -guns embedded in the masonry, their tall masts swaying idly on the -long swell that now, at high tide, fills the little harbour. The -fishermen are still busy over their gear. When all is stowed they -will make their way up here, to the wall yonder, or to this bench, -to talk over the doings of the day. Here the old captains, -grey-headed, storm-beaten sea kings, sit, night after night, and -spin over and over their well-worn yarns. There is not so much in -their speech of - - "... the magic charm of foreign lands, - With shadows of palms, and shining sands;" - -not so much of the high seas, - - "Of ships dismasted, that were hailed, - And sent no answer back again," - -as of disasters nearer home, of some mishap among the boats. - -It is always the boats. The talk is ever and ever the same--of -spars carried away, of split mainsails, of the failure of the -fishing. A few days since the trawlers put out with a fair wind -and a smooth sea. The trawls were not yet down when clouds swept -off the land, the air was darkened by a great rush of rain, and a -sudden storm, with heavy squalls of wind, broke over the boats. -One by one the brown sails disappeared. On the quay stood a group -of anxious figures vainly endeavouring to peer through the storm. -When the weather cleared it was seen that one of the boats was in -trouble. A squall had laid her on her beam ends, and she shipped a -heavy sea. The men had given themselves up for lost, for no help -could have got to them in time, even had their plight been seen; -when, happily for them, the bowsprit carried away, some of the -strain was taken off, and the boat righted. All next day her -skipper was strolling idly on the quay, like a man dazed; and as -you pass the Vikings' Seat in the evening, or indeed any little -knot of sailors, you will still hear scraps of the story. - -The gravestones round the church on the hill are evidence enough -of the risks they run that go down to the sea in ships. More -eloquent still are the tales of the old fishermen:--how, for -instance, in one great storm, now "five-and-fifty years agone," as -they put it, twenty-one men from this port were drowned in the -bay, within sight of land. Still farther back, "a matter of -one-and-seventy years agone," no fewer than thirty-two were lost; -and the whole population of the port is even now not much over two -hundred. Of such great disasters the churchyard has few records. -So strong are the currents in the bay that bodies are seldom -recovered. Some of the stones are only in memory of those whose -rest remains unknown--not here, but somewhere in the stormy sea. - -Every son of the village is a fisherman born. Every man has been a -sailor almost since he could remember anything. Few as are the -inhabitants of the place, twenty of them are captains on the high -seas, or, having spent their lives in battling with the storm, -have put in for the last time to spend in this harbour of refuge -their few remaining days. These are the men of the old school, -who, from childhood to old age, have kept green the memory of -their native village, always cherishing the hope - - "... their long vexations past, - Here to return, and die at home at last." - -The modern captain is a more prosperous man. He knows more of the -world. He is not content with the narrow street, the tiny rooms, -the small affairs of this awkward out-of-the-way corner. His home -will be at some larger port. In twenty years there will be few of -the old race of sea captains left to rule the conclaves round the -Vikings' Seat. - -They are a kindly race, those West Country fishermen. Kingsley's -eulogies of his beloved Devon folk were never more deserved than -here, never were more true than now:--a warm-hearted, honest, -pleasant-spoken race, gentle and courteous, yet free and -independent as ever. A fine old figure is that venerable, -white-headed, white-bearded mariner, whose memories go back over -eighty years of seafaring life. He is never tired of the story of -a sailor of this village, who, returning home in a gold-ship, was -cast away on Norfolk Island--then entirely uninhabited--together -with his wife and a handful of the crew. The men saved nothing -from the wreck but one precious lucifer match, parent of all the -fires they had in many dreary years. Some of the party, in -despair, put off in a boat, but nothing was ever known as to their -fate. Years passed before a sealing brig put in and took off the -few survivors. The portrait of the castaway and his wife, in their -rude dress of skins, sewn with bone needles of their own making, -is still shewn in the village--he, with lifted hand, as if -pointing to the long-looked-for sail; she, with a bright look of -joy upon her pretty face. - -The white-haired sailor, for all his eighty years of sailing, has -never been out of sight of land; but that tall, grizzled sea -captain standing yonder has been round the Horn more times than he -can well reckon up. After forty years he came home, with every -intention of getting another ship, feeling that nothing could ever -part him from the sea. But the years have passed, and still he -lingers in the village. Nothing now could tempt him from the -shore. Of all the wonders of his forty years' experience, none -seems to have burnt itself so deep into his memory as a night in -the tropics, in a perfect calm, on a smooth and oily sea, in -which all the stars were copied with such perfect clearness that, -as he puts it, "you would almost think there really was another -world, and that you were in it." - -In a doorway hard by, festooned after the manner of the place with -creepers and tall fuchsias, is a picture for an artist. At the -threshold there sits, on the brick-floor, the grandfather, an old, -sunburnt, sea-beaten fisherman, nursing a fair-haired, -rosy-cheeked youngster, who laughs and crows and struggles to -escape the old man's careful arm, bent on setting off alone on a -voyage of discovery down the stony slope. Behind them, framed in -the darkness of the room beyond, stands the mother, looking on -well pleased. - -[Illustration: OLD SAILOR AND CHILD.] - -What have the years in store for that young fisherman? Will his -grave be here? Will days that are coming see one more stone set up -in memory of a sailor lost at sea? Perhaps not. As one of the old -captains says, "Boys don't take to the sea now. Going to be -artists. Learn to draw and all manner of things." In his time "the -schoolmaster was a very different sort from now. He had to be a -schoolmaster, land-measurer, pig-killer, all in one. You paid -three halfpence a week for learning to read, three halfpence -more for learning to write, and then you went to sea. Boys all -went to sea at twelve. They had their choice--work or starve." -Sailors of his day had rarely even as much schooling as that. He -had never, he said, courted but one woman in his life, and that -was for another man. He had had so much trouble reading and -writing other folks' love-letters that he never had the heart to -try it for himself. - -Round the Vikings' Seat the children of the village are playing. -Hard by, on a tiny stretch of level ground, half-a-dozen boys are -intent on some running game--nautical little figures in regulation -jerseys; sea boots too, some of them. Where will they be in twenty -years? If they are not to man the trawlers of the future there is -all the more chance that they will be scattered. If they are not -to be fishermen, there is no room for them here. Here there is -nothing but the fishing. - -And the girls? These laughing, sunny, bright-eyed little flowers -of Devon, absorbed in an old-world country game, singing as they -play-- - - "How many miles to London town? - Three score ten. - Shall us get there by candle light? - Oh yes, if your legs are long and straight." - -What of the girls? Below there, sleeping in the twilight, is the -sea, the cruel, treacherous, hungry sea, destined but too surely -to darken the sunshine of their simple lives. That small figure -now, that dainty little golden-haired darling, for her what have -the years in store? In days to be will she - - "... start from her slumber - When gusts shake the door?" - -Will she make her way against the storm, some winter's night, down -to the little quay, and peer with wild eyes through the rain and -the spray, amid a roar of wind and surge, and of great waves -thundering on the bar, hoping against hope for the home-coming of -the _Madcap_ or the _Village Girl_? What would you? It is an old -story, and - - "... men must work and women must weep, - Though the harbour bar be moaning." - -[Illustration: AN OLD CARRONADE.] - - - - -AN OLD CARRONADE. - - -Half-buried in the soft turf that clothes the rocky brows of a low -headland in the West there lies an ancient carronade. It is a -quiet spot. There is no sound save the lap of the tide along the -shore, the stir of the wind in the long grass, the cry of a -sea-gull wheeling over, or now and then the sharp clamour of a -troop of daws that flutter round their harbour in the cliff. About -it grow great tufts of sea-pink, whose flowers, save here and -there a belated bloom or two, have long since gone to seed. But in -summer the air is sweetened by the breath of thyme and crowfoot, -and at times, from the rocky steeps below, comes the strange smell -of blossoming samphire. There is no mark on the old gun. The rust -of years has eaten deep into its battered metal. No date remains, -no royal cipher. But there is a tradition that it was recovered -from the wreck of a Spanish warship that, in the flight of the -Armada, went to pieces on this rock-bound coast. In the face of -the cliff, a few hundred yards to the westward, there were found -embedded, many years ago, some corroded cannon-balls that once -might have fitted such a gun as this, but surrounded by so thick a -coat of rust that they were increased to nearly four times their -original calibre. The gun has at any rate seen some hard fighting. -It has been spiked. Some part at least it has played in our rough -island story, whether on pirate or privateer, or on one of the -unwieldy galleons of the Great Armada. But as it lies here now, -deep sunk in its green rest, it is a very emblem of peace and of -disarmament. - -The tide is at the full, almost "too full for sound or foam;" yet -along the broad beach below, - - "... where the sand like silver shines, - Flows the long, monotonous cadence of its unrhymed lyric lines." - -And round the rocky bases of the little island yonder--once, so -tradition says, a Viking stronghold--there is the low fret of pale -green waves. Beyond the island stretches away to the horizon a -vast sweep of sea, smooth, unbroken; an expanse of vivid blue, -more brilliant than the brightest sapphire. But - - "When descends on the Atlantic - The gigantic - Storm-wind of the equinox," - -then the huge green rollers come charging up this narrow strait, -and thunder in the caverns of the cliff, whirling great flakes of -foam a hundred feet into the air. They are gentle waves that lap -to-day against the rocky wall. But there is no stormier sea when, -on rough nights of winter, - - "The wild winds lift it in their grasp, - And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece." - -A few brown-sailed luggers are cruising in the bay,--mackerel -fishing perhaps. The pilchards have deserted this coast -altogether. Some of the men say that the constant passing of -steamers has disturbed them. Others declare "there have been no -pilchards since the new parson came, and there'll be none till -he's turned his back on the parish." - -On the verge of the next headland, a rampart of grey cliff that -stands out towards the open Atlantic, are two great grave mounds, -mere flaws on the horizon's edge, piled over the ashes of some -long-forgotten warriors. There is a legend here that, at midnight, -two kings in golden armour rise from these green barrows, and -fight on the short sward of the downs until the lighthouse on the -far point - - "... shows the matin to be near. - And 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire." - -Then the old sea-kings turn back to their rest, to lie till -nightfall, each - - "Arched over with a mound of grass, - Two handfuls of white dust shut in an urn of brass." - -On a ledge of rock below the barrows, a pair of ravens build. Year -after year their brood is reared in safety, beyond the reach even -of the most venturesome of climbers. The old birds patrol the -cliff for miles, like wandering spirits of two wreckers, -condemned to haunt for ever the scene of their ill deeds. Here -they come now, sailing slowly along on their broad wings, the -sunshine glancing on their glossy plumage. They go sweeping by, -uttering at times a crooning sound, not a croak at all, a soft, -low note, with no touch of harshness in it. Gracefully they wheel -and soar and glide, now turning over in the air, now poising like -a pair of kestrels. Below them, crouching on the hot sand of the -beach that skirts the bases of the cliff, a flock of gulls are -resting, like heaps of foam left stranded by the tide. They do not -shrink as the dark figures pass over. There are no eggs to plunder -from the rocks; no young broods to harry; and a full-grown herring -gull will show fight even to a raven. - -It is a noble wall of cliff that guards this sandy fringe of the -Atlantic; now light, now dark; here bare and weathered and -windswept, there overgrown with sea-pink and samphire; and here -again worn into deep clefts and cavernous hollows, which, when -this old gun was new, were thorns in the side of the Preventive -men. No shore in England has seen more smuggling than this. Many a -contraband cargo has been landed at the little village at the -head of the creek. It is whispered that more than one family of -standing here owes its rise to well-planned "runs" of silk and -spirits and tobacco. In the side of the Witan Stone--a grey old -Menhir that was old in Roman times--there is still pointed out a -hole called the "Gauger's Pocket," into which a bag of gold was -dropped when a "run" was coming off, with due notice to the -exciseman to go and look for it, and then to keep well in the -background. It was quite an open ceremony. "Please, sir," a -smuggler would say to the officer, "please, sir, your pocket's -unbuttoned." "Aye, aye," was the answer, "but I shan't lose my -money for all that." - -Those days are not so long ago. It is not really many years since -the clergyman who tells that story entered on that cure in the -West Country which, to use his own words "was a mixed multitude of -smugglers, wreckers, and dissenters," who still held that to shoot -the gauger was not only a venial but a meritorious deed. When a -man was hanged for murdering one of those hated representatives of -law and order, his death was regarded as a piece of flagrant -injustice, a crime in the eyes of Heaven itself; the very grass, -it was triumphantly pointed out, refusing to grow upon his grave. - -Those were days when the prosperity of a sea-board farm depended -less on its scanty grazing and its sterile corn-land than on its -ill-gotten harvest of the sea. They were all in it. Even a parson -has been known to hold the lantern while the spirit kegs were -hauled safely through the surf. And once, when a wreck came ashore -in church time, and the congregation had with one accord rushed -out of doors, the vicar stopped them on their way to the sea. -"Brethren," he shouted, "I have but five words more to say." Then -walking deliberately to the front, and taking off his surplice, he -said: "Now, let us start fair." - -This is a terrible coast. There are villages where half the -gardens are decorated with figure-heads of lost ships, where the -churchyards are strewn with sorrowful memorials of men, known or -nameless, whose lifeless bodies have been given up by the sea. It -is not long since corpses that were washed ashore were buried with -scant ceremony just above high-water mark. But of recent years -these wasted relics of mortality have been treated with more -reverence, and in some villages it has become a custom to use -figure-heads of wrecked vessels as memorials of the dead. In one -place the white effigy of an armed warrior guards the grave of -thirteen sailors, whose bodies the sea had laid upon the shore. In -another graveyard the stern of a ship's boat has been set up over -the remains of ten seamen "who were drifted on shore in a boat, -frozen to death, at Beacon Cove, in this parish," one Sunday in -December, now nearly fifty years ago. The rock-bound coast is as -perilous as ever, but the days have gone when the shipwrecked -mariner was dashed ashore alive only to meet his death from -enemies more relentless than the waves. It was the height of -rashness in the good old wrecking times to rescue a drowning -man:-- - - "Save a stranger from the sea, - And he'll turn your enemy." - -In our time, at any rate, no shipwrecked sailor would meet with -anything but kindness at the hands of Englishmen. The real race of -wreckers has died out--that is to say, the cold-blooded wretches -who would lure a ship ashore, and then murder the crew by way of -precaution before proceeding to plunder the cargo. But the spirit -of plunder at least is not dead. Coastguardsmen and agents of -insurance companies know only too well how cleverly the Cornish -fishermen even of to-day, though ready to lend willing hands in -salving, and though fairly well paid for it too, contrive to -appropriate stray things that take their fancy. It is not long -since a large ship went ashore at the Lizard, and finally ground -herself to pieces on the rocks. The closest watch was kept by the -agents and preventive men, but next spring a perfect epidemic of -musical instruments broke out in every village in the district, -proving audibly enough that the light-fingered wreckers had been -at their tricks all the time. How it is done the rambler in the -West Country, who can use his eyes and ears, will soon discover; -will agree too, with the remark made the other day in a Western -village, that people who talked of wrecking as a thing of the past -knew very little about it. - -"You see, sir," said a weather-beaten fisherman, "a great deal -drifts out of a wreck, and although there are salvage men always -on the watch, there's many a cask and bale that's picked up by our -boats. One man with a long pair of tongs and another with a -water-telescope can make a good thing of it between them. There -was an Italian steamer, now, that went ashore at Mullion. She was -full of fruit and wine and all sorts of things--enough for -everybody. There was great cases of champagne lying about, and the -word went round among our men that it was 'real' pain, with no -'sham' to it, for when we did knock the tops of the bottles off, -the wine all went out at one spurt, and we couldn't get a drop. -But at last we got corkscrews, and then we was happy. Well, I had -a cask of sherry wine out of her," he went on, "and I got it safe -in by the back way, and you see I've a coastguardsman living on -each side of me. But, law bless you, sir! they be just the same as -we.... Oh, yes, sir, everything is supposed to be given up, but -everything isn't, not by a good way. And when we risk our lives to -save the cargo, who has a better right to a share of it than we?" - -He was near the _Mosel_, he said, when she ran full speed upon the -rocks, and the sound of it was like a thousand tons of cliff -falling into the sea, and such shrieks as never were heard.... -Might he have stopped her? Well, perhaps he might. But a mate of -his who put out at the risk of his life, and warned a big liner -that was too close in shore--she was backed off and saved--never -got so much as a word of thanks, let alone any reward, for saving -her. "Another man," he went on, "warned a steamer from his boat, -and, as I'm a living man, they tried to swamp him for fear the -captain should be blamed for his bad sailing. No, sir, we'll never -do nothing to risk life, but if we can't get fair pay for saving a -ship, we'll get fair share by helping ourselves." ... Might -anything be kept that was picked up? Oh yes, pieces of timber -below a certain length. He was pressed further as to how the -particular length was settled. "Well," he said slowly, "we do keep -a saw in our boat." - -[Illustration: DARTMOOR: CHAGFORD.] - - - - -DARTMOOR DAYS. - - -The dwellers in the picturesque homesteads scattered at wide -intervals over this countryside would hardly be content to hear -these hills of theirs called a wilderness. But up yonder against -the sky line, with grey clouds trailing low along its topmost -ridges, is a brow of the wildest wilderness in England, and these -hillside pastures are the fringe of Dartmoor. One might well -imagine, too, looking out over this beautiful landscape, that the -lines of these West Country yeomen were fallen to them in pleasant -places. And, indeed, fortunes have been made here in the "good old -days," when bread was dear and wages were at starvation point. But -times are hard. And there are sons of the soil here now working -for hire on other farms, whose sires held broad acres of their -own. - -The wayfarer who, making his way up from Chagford towards the -moorland, should chance to pass this little settlement, might well -pause in wonder as he passed the gate, and stand and rub his eyes -in doubt whether it was a dream or not. So unlike the old country -is this log hut and all about it that a settler from the Bush -might, if he saw it, almost fancy himself upon his native heath. -The very trees that flourish here are strange. Among shrubs that -have been brought from the slopes of the Himalaya, grow tall -bamboos whose feathery crowns look over the topmost ridges of the -roof. And yet on every hand there are suggestions of the -moorland--those stacks of peat, with their picturesque coverings -of furze and straw; that granite roller, so thickly set with -crystals of felspar. The very props of the clothes-line are -untrimmed birch poles from the wood, wearing still their silvery -bark. It is moorland earth that made those rhododendron thickets -so broad and strong. It is moorland air that has draped the trees -with shaggy lichens, adding centuries of age to oaks yet hardly in -their prime, and lending to the sturdy fruit bushes of the borders -the air of hoary patriarchs. Furze bushes, in whose thorny depths -the yellow-hammers build in springtime, and willow-warblers weave -their domes of grass, flourish in the garden precincts. And all -the banks are overgrown with a green jungle of fern and broom and -bilberry--children of the moorland, stealing down to regain their -lost dominions. - -This is winter by the calendar. But it is a day of clear shining -after rain. The air is full of the sound of streams--of the roar -of moorland torrents, of the deeper voice of the river plunging -through the wooded gorge below. The stems of the tall birches in -the wood below the house, still wet with last night's rain, shine -as if they were sheathed in silver, and their branches glitter as -if every twig were hung with silver beads--as, indeed, they are, -the silver of the clinging raindrops. - -A graceful, yellow-breasted wagtail, still lingering here when the -rest of her kindred are across the sea, flutters down now and then -from the top of the dovecot to catch the flies that are sunning -themselves against the wall. On the roof above the pigeons sit in -conclave, their slumbrous voices just in keeping with the music of -the streams. In his cage against the wall of the hut I can hear, -now and then, a raven stirring. He is a silent bird for the most -part: - - "He speaketh not; and yet there lies - A conversation in his eyes-- - The golden silence of the Greek, - The gravest wisdom of the wise, - As if he could, but would not speak." - -Some day he will talk, and then perhaps we shall learn what -strange things he has been hoarding in the dark places of his -memory. Again and again last night he woke me by rattling the bars -of his prison, or by sharpening that great bill of his against his -perch. I doubt if he slept a wink before daylight. It was strange -to hear him thus in the darkness. At times, too, I heard the -mellow voices of the owls, sounding clear above the rush of the -streams and the patter of rain upon the roof. - -Birds pass and repass now in the sunlight. At times the pigeons -sweep down from their rest overhead, with sudden clatter of wings, -and as they wheel round the house they rouse into speech for a -moment the taciturn jackdaw, whose cage adjoins the prison of the -yet more silent raven. - -From far up the moorland sounds the hoarse clamour of crows. And -magpies go by, carefully keeping clear of the precincts, as if -they were aware that the Master of the House had a keen eye and a -steady hand. But they might lay aside their fears. No beast or -bird is vermin in this corner of Arcadia. No jay or magpie ever -suffered here the penalty of evil deeds or tarnished reputation. -One night the Master of the House was roused by the sounds of a -slight scuffle outside. An owl had swooped on a rat in a corner of -the verandah, and through the wooden wall of the hut was plainly -heard the rustle of feathers as the bird spread its broad wings -over the body of its victim. Weasels find sanctuary under the very -flooring of the shanty, and stoats may hunt the covers at their -will without fear of trap or gun. The Hunt know well that there is -no surer spot to find a fox than the larch plantations up yonder -on the hill. And there, too, the badgers pursue in safety the even -tenour of their harmless lives. - -When the larches were first planted, and were but just struggling -to get their heads above the hillside jungle, -grasshopper-warblers hid their nests on the ground among them, and -chats, and tree-pipits. A few years later blackbirds came and -built among the branches. Now the ring-doves trust their frail -platforms of stick to the strong young arms. And in a year or two -sparrow-hawks and magpies will build in the green tops. The trees -have already killed the grass about their feet, and the bare earth -beneath their shadow is a favourite haunt of the woodcock. - -But in spite of crows and magpies, stoats and weasels, and all the -creatures of the wild that are too often branded as vermin, there -is no want of pheasants in the cover. And the Master of the House, -with his man behind him, and three eager little terriers dancing -at his heels, has but this moment left me to look for a woodcock. -The dogs are much keener for the sport than their owner, master of -woodcraft though he be. He is always readier to use his -field-glass than his gun. Many a time, as he stood motionless, gun -in hand, has a rabbit cantering by paused to look up at him, or a -woodcock settled near, and come and gone unharmed. The moor-folk -here are sportsmen born, with the keenest eyes for the whereabouts -of hare or pheasant, and far too much given to the setting of -gins. The Master of the House--who says that half the pheasants he -shoots have already lost a leg--showed me yesterday an illustrated -price-list of the traps made by a man who boasts of supplying the -Queen and the Prince of Wales, and who reckons in his long list of -noble patrons not a few distinguished names that we have been -accustomed to think of as belonging to champions of the "brute" -creation. Yet here were not only rat-traps and rabbit-traps, traps -for foxes and even for tigers, but traps--of horrible device, and -certain to inflict the most cruel tortures--for killing hawks and -herons. Surely, if some keepers are still ignorant and brutal, -better things might have been expected of their masters. And his -must be a mean and sordid soul who would grudge the kingfisher his -meed of beauty--even supposing that so rare a bird can do any -appreciable amount of harm. Yet in this list of fiendish enginry -is figured a kingfisher-trap. This the purchaser is directed "to -screw to a stump in the water where the birds resort, and place a -piece of wood on the fork for them to alight on, or a small fish -may be used as bait." - -In the last few days, when from other parts of the island have -come reports of bitter weather, of rough winds and frosty airs, -the climate here has been almost summer-like. Yesterday, as I sat -in the verandah, more than one wasp, roused by the sunshine from -her winter slumber, was buzzing among the rafters overhead. But, -as the day wore on, there were signs of a change. Ominous-looking -clouds began to gather up from the southward. And, in the late -afternoon, as we rode slowly up the steep track towards the moor, -there came now and then a spurt of wind and rain. - -The road, like so many of the Dartmoor roads, was fenced by rude -walls of granite, built of blocks so ponderous as to suggest that -only giants could have reared such cyclopean masonry. Every chink -between the stones was fringed with fern and bilberry. Clinging -lichens made the grey faces of the granite greyer still; while -others, nestling in mossy hollows, were tipped with scarlet, -recalling the vivid touches of colour over the eyes of a moorfowl. - -High up on the moorland, looking down on one of the most beautiful -of its many river valleys, we came on a great stone circle, known -to the moor men as the Roundy Pound--a double ring of unhewn, -irregular blocks of granite, shaggy with ages' growth of lichens, -and with a single thorn tree standing in the midst, mantled from -base to crest with grey--a hoary patriarch, like the lone priest -of long-forgotten rites. Far below lay the valley of the Teign, -winding away into the hills. To the right rose the sad-coloured -slopes of the moorland, here darkened with dead bracken, and there -brightened by pale sheets of withered grass. On the left was a -birch wood, with a rare purple bloom upon its leafless boughs, -like the purple of far hills at sunset. Here and there a dead -birch stem glimmered white against the dark. And about the feet of -the bare trees was a wealth of colour almost more marvellous -still--the rich brown, lustrous velvet of mosses and dead leaves, -the fiery red of withered brake fern, beaten down by wind and -rain. Below the wood, on a little island in the river, was a group -of old Scotch firs, with the water gleaming white between the -ruddy branches. Over all there stretched away the far-reaching -wastes of the moorland, lifeless, desolate, with a fringe of mist -along the sky line. - -Night closed in grey and wet. As the hours passed, I woke at times -to hear the rush of the rain, the growing sounds of multitudinous -streams, the deepening voice of the river roaring through its -wooded passes. Morning broke on a day of undoubted Dartmoor -weather--no gleam of sunshine anywhere; cold, clinging mists on -every hand; grey sheets of rain stalking like ghosts across the -landscape. - -The day was at its very worst when the keeper, who had been at -work since daylight rescuing trout that, in struggling up the -swollen streams, had got themselves into difficulties in -unexpected shallows, came up to the house and stood for a minute -in the rain, the water streaming from every outlying point in his -figure, and looked inquiringly at the Master of the House. The -Master groaned. But he threw on his old shooting-coat, picked up a -handful of cartridges, and took his gun from the corner, and the -two men sallied out into the rain. - -It was, in truth, a dreary morning. There was no sunshine now to -light the dripping birch stems. But even under that grey sky there -was marvellous beauty in the bare boughs, in the brown oak leaves, -in the streaming ferns on the green bank below. Under the bank was -a new gleam of silver, where the swollen brook went swirling by -under a grey brow of granite. Hour after hour fell the pitiless -rain. Every thread of water on the hillside was a headlong -torrent. The road below the house was deep under a rushing flood. - -It was late when the little shooting party came back, their coming -heralded by the screaming of a troop of jays that apparently kept -pace with them as they plodded through the underwood. But the -birds were not inveighing against the sportsmen. When my friend -returned, he told me that as he passed under a pollard oak an owl -flew out, almost brushing him with its wings. The jays, who were -hanging about among the thickets on the edge of the wood, espied -it in a moment. And, raising a hue and cry that was caught up by -every finch and tit and blackbird within hearing, they chased the -bewildered bird from tree to tree, scolding and storming, and -buffeting it with their wings. Earlier in the afternoon a rabbit -passed, unnoticed by the dogs, not running, but leaping, across -the wood; and close at its heels a weasel, following in hot -pursuit. - -The rain was slackening a little as we turned into the hut. But a -heavy fog was closing in from the moor, blotting out even the near -woodland with its wall of grey. Pleasant, indeed, after the mist -and the rain was the glow of lamplight. And pleasanter still the -glow of roaring oak logs, as we sat that night, each with a -terrier on his knee, before the great wood fire. The dogs have -taken kindly to the casual stranger, and one of them in particular -is fond of sitting by me on a chair at meal times, resting her -head on my arm in the most engaging manner. The two are on the -best of terms for the most part, but a little attention paid to -one is apt to lead to trouble with the other. I am told that there -is sometimes a good deal of jealousy shown in the retrieving of a -rabbit--a circumstance which, as may readily be guessed, does not -tend to improve the condition of the game. And the slippers which -we threw to distant corners of the hut for the dogs to bring back -to us suffered severely in the bringing. - -As we sat by the fire I heard something of the dangers of the -moor, and of the reality of getting lost at night or in a Dartmoor -fog. The oldest hand, said the Master of the House, would be -helpless in such a fog as now lay round the house. A good plan, he -added, is to follow a stream if you are fortunate enough to find -one. Sooner or later you are sure to come to a house. He himself -was on the moor once, with two companions, far away from any path, -when a dense mist came on. After long walking, he happened, by -great good fortune, on the wall that bounded his own common, and -came at length to a familiar gate that he knew was only half a -mile from home. - -The three wanderers drew a breath of relief. They were all right -now. The haunting fear of having to pass a night upon the moor, as -many a lost wayfarer has done, was forgotten in a moment. With -confident steps they marched through the mist straight down the -slope towards this bungalow. But after going steadily for three -hours, with a gradually growing conviction that something after -all must be wrong, they found themselves back at the same wall, -and at the very identical gate. They had been walking in a -circle--an experience only too familiar to travellers who have -lost their way in the desert. They now followed the wall until it -turned abruptly down the hill. My friend then walked close to it, -while the others kept abreast of him, at a distance of a hundred -yards or so, that they might avoid a bog which skirted the -enclosure. In this way, shouting to each other now and then, they -reached here in safety, not having seen each other since they -parted company. - -[Illustration: DARTMOOR--EVENING: TAKING HOME THE SHEEP.] - -Another man, well known in the district--a man who rather prides -himself on his acquaintance with Dartmoor--will not soon be -allowed to forget how he set off on horseback one day in the mist, -taking a short cut across the moor, by which he expected in half -an hour to strike the Princetown road, and how, after an hour and -a half of pretty hard riding, he too, found himself at the spot -from which he had started. - -[Illustration: A WEST COUNTRY COTTAGE.] - - - - -WYCHANGER: A FAR RETREAT. - - -On the northern edge of Exmoor, parted from the outer world by a -long ridge of wooded hills that die away into a bold headland by -the grey sea, there lies a spacious valley--fair even for the West -Country, a valley that for its beauty of broad fields and noble -trees and old-world villages, may rank among the fairest in all -England. The traveller by the well-kept coach road that passes -along the foot of the hills, almost from end to end of it, looking -across its green meadows and its red corn-lands to the -deer-haunted heights of Dunkerry, sees something of its beauty, of -its picturesque cottages, its wooded slopes, its rich pasture -lands; may even catch a glimpse in passing of that old mill that, -with its pointed gables, its rambling outbuildings, its rude -bridges, and its - - "Dark wheel that toils amid the hurry - And rushing of the flume," - -is like an artist's dream. - -He who fares through on foot will know more of its charm, but even -he is hardly likely to discover the best of its lovely lanes, deep -set under over-arching hedgerows, the oldest and most magnificent -of its trees, the most picturesque and retiring of its cottages. -While hidden behind a rampart of low hills on the very skirts of -Dunkery, the most beautiful village of all, an ideal West Country -hamlet, will escape him altogether:--a village in a nest of hills, -with brown gables all embowered in green. By the church, whose -grey tower rises in the midst, two poplars stand, their young -leaves trembling in the sunshine, their tall forms just swaying in -the wind. - -The old manor house, whose traditions go back beyond the days of -the Armada, seems to stand at the very limit of the world. So near -the wilderness is it that the creatures of the wild, the birds, -the beasts, share with man the possession of its barns and -outbuildings. Its lawns, its thick-growing bays and laurels, its -broad eaves, the masonry of its old walls are haunted by -innumerable birds. - -In the early morning, an hour or more before the sunrise, the -whole air about the house is filled with sweet sounds, with the -sunny ripple of the goldfinch's song, with the mingled chorus of -thrush and blackbird, of wrens and robins and warblers, with the -call of the cuckoo, the pipe of the wryneck, the croon of doves -among the larches on the hill. At times, from far up the moorland -comes down even the strange cry of a buzzard, or the croak of a -wandering raven. All day the garden is full of pleasant sounds and -sweet suggestions of the woodland, of the hushed whispers of swift -moorland streams, of the stir of winds among the restless pines. - -Even after sundown life is still stirring. Long after the mists of -evening have begun to gather on the darkening hills the cuckoo -calls. The musical halloo of wandering owls breaks in through the -vespers of the blackbird, and the shrill challenge of the -black-cock sounds loud on the fringe of the moorland. Instead of -the swallows, that all day float singing round the eaves, the bats -come out of hiding in old barns and ruinous outbuildings, and -flutter on silent wings through vacant windows. - -In the twilight even the wild red deer stray down from their -fastness to the very precincts of the garden. It is not long -since, in the hind-hunting time, the "tufters" broke away after a -stag and followed it, in spite of all the efforts of the huntsmen, -far across the moor and down into the lowland. And, when at length -the hounds were beaten off, two sheep-dogs from the village took -up the chase and drove the stag up here to the Manor House. There -it stood for hours in a narrow passage near the stables, showing a -bold front to its pursuers, and undismayed by the curious -villagers who came thronging up to gaze at it--a noble beast, with -all its honours. Someone at length opened the door of an empty -stable, and the stag walked quietly in. Tired out with the long -chase over the slopes of Dunkery, it stayed in its strange asylum -two days and nights, entirely unmoved by efforts to dislodge it, -but lowering its antlers in a moment if one of its visitors made -an attempt to cross the threshold; though when one of the men, -thinking it had gone, went into the stable after dark and actually -brushed against it, the stag, happily for him, took no notice. The -door was left open; the noble beast was free to go when it would. -On the third morning the stable was empty; the strange guest had -gone. A line of footprints across the lawn to the fence that parts -the garden from the paddock, and up the long meadow towards the -hanger, showed how it had made its way back unmolested to its -haunt upon the moor. - -Guests almost as strange are two wild ducks that built a nest in a -pool in the field below the house. The eggs were hatched not many -days since, and the young brood were caught and given in charge to -a hen, who, so far, has proved herself but an indifferent -foster-mother. The drake, after the manner of his kind, has -another mate, and she is still sitting on her eggs on a small -island in another pond near by. And he and the mother of the lost -family still linger about the farm. You may see them flying past -the windows on their way down from one of the moorland streams, -or watch them in the meadow by the empty nest. Or you may even -chance upon them among the outbuildings, the drake a little way in -advance, walking slowly forward, looking this way and that, -pausing now and then at some strange sound; while his sober-tinted -mate follows meekly a yard or so behind him. Now they stand -doubtful, uncertain whether or no it is safe to enter the -precincts. At length they venture in. Now walk quietly after them. -There they stand, a gallant pair, he splendid with the rich green -velvet of his glossy head, the white ring about his neck, the dark -chocolate of his breast, his brilliant orange legs, and all the -exquisite shades of grey upon his beautiful back: she with quiet -plumage, streaked and mottled with soft tones of brown, looking -for all the world like a dry heap of reeds and withered sedges. In -a moment they are aware of danger. They move closer together. The -drake utters a low warning call, nodding his head, slowly at -first, then faster and faster until, with a loud note the two -birds spread their beautiful wings, wheel round the house, and -sail down to their old haunt by the pool. - -By the same pool, not fifty yards from the road, there is another -nest--a moorhen's; and if you creep quietly up you may see the -old bird on her nest of rushes under the bank, her dark figure -looking little more than a patch of shadow in the heart of the -bramble bush that overhangs her home. Her, too, you may watch in -the early mornings wading among the long grass of the meadow, or -you may even catch a glimpse of her as she paddles fast across the -pool, keeping time with her glossy head to the rapid movement of -her feet. - -Hood has told us how, in his "Haunted House," - - "A wren had built within the porch, she found - The quiet loneliness so sure and thorough." - -It is almost more strange that here a pair of chaffinches have -made a sanctuary of this porch, and have built their nest just -over the door, within arm's reach of every passer-by. It is an -exquisite work of art, whose moss and lichen, felted with cobwebs -and fine strands of wool fitted deftly on the curve of a level -larch pole, and woven among the young shoots of the climbing rose -tree, whose leaves hang down as if to hide it, might have escaped -notice altogether were it not that the little builders are busy -all day upon the grass before the windows, now taking short -flights among the laurels or the branches of the old arbutus, or -the great bay tree that overhangs the lawn, scenting all the air -with its abundant bloom, and that now and then they fly up to -their nest over the doorway. - -A far retreat--a spot in which the lover of nature would only too -gladly settle down, content, amid this gracious scenery and these -pleasant sights and sounds, to end his days in one of the little -old-world cottages of "the sweetest village in the world," with -their tiny windows, their quaint gables, their roofs of russet -thatch. A far retreat, upon whose dreamlike quiet no ripple of -unrest could surely enter. - -We can hardly realise that it was a lord of this very manor who, -though long past his three score years and ten, held a fortress -for King Charles until the last extremity, marching out at length -with all the honours of war. - -It is stranger still that a marble tablet on the chancel wall of -the old church records how a rector of this peaceful parish left -his charge and followed his master to the war; how he raised a -troop of horse for the King's service; how four of his sons were -captains in the Royal army; and how he himself, after Worcester's -Crowning Fight, went with the second Charles across the sea, -giving up all, with a devotion worthy of a better cause, for a -prince whom the clearer vision of our time justly brands as -"immoral, dishonourable, and contemptible." - -[Illustration: THE OLD MILL: TWILIGHT.] - - - - -LUCCOMBE: TWILIGHT IN THE HOLLOW. - - -Round the old mill that stands like a drowsy sentinel at the gate -of the valley, quiet reigns. Silenced is the plash of the wheel; -hushed the low rumble of the rude machinery. Through the rich -grass of the meadow by the stream the red cattle are trooping home -in answer to the milking call. The sun, already sunk below the -fringe of woodland on the hill, shows like a fiery cloud through -the dark lattice work of branches. Light still lingers on the -steep slope across the glen, on tawny grass and golden furze, and -on points of grey rock that here and there break through the short -turf. There is sunshine still upon the dark tops of the highest -ridge of pines, and there are lines of silver on the branches of a -giant oak whose crest towers far above his fellows. But here in -the hollow the mist of evening gathers. All along the stream are -drawn grey lines of vapour that, in the far recesses of the -valley, deepen to a shadowy gloom. - -The birds, with whose notes the whole glen was ringing, grow -silent one by one. Their brief vesper hour is almost over. The -hush of night is settling on the woodland. Far up the slope there -still sounds the clear whistle of a blackbird. A thrush, too, is -singing, as if moved to rivalry. His is a song less wild and -thrilling, less powerful and passionate, yet a masterpiece of -melody. Still through the deepening shadows rings the clear treble -of the robin, and through all, like a whisper of peace, one hears -the slumbrous voices of the doves. - -Two cuckoos are still calling; one near at hand, whose loud notes, -clear and mellow, seem to linger among the trees, dying slowly, -like music in the roof of a cathedral. Another, more distant, -answers him. They keep such perfect time that the stronger voice -overpowers half the answer, and, for the most part three notes -alone are audible, the last one faint and low, and like a soft -refrain: - - Cuckoo! Cuckoo! - Cuckoo! - -The cuckoo's life is like that of no other bird that flies. There -are no household cares for him; no nest to build, no eggs to warm, -no brood to forage for. His sole business seems but to call his -own name all day among the tree tops. It is a beautiful sound. And -yet there are times when the cuckoo, as much as any bandit of the -air, any crow, or sparrow-hawk, or prowling magpie, breaks the -peace of the sylvan solitude. He may call all day if he will, -without let or hindrance, or the least attempt at interruption. -The birds pay little heed to him, save now and then in an idle -moment to mob him and jeer at and hustle him, as they love to do -to an owl, who by some mischance has sallied out into the -daylight. - -But the moment his mate is suspected of designs on the nest of -some defenceless hedge-sparrow, or robin, or wagtail, with an eye -to finding foster parents for her own discarded offspring, the -whole neighbourhood is up in arms. A few days since a cuckoo, who -had evidently set her heart on a robin's nest in the thick growth -of ivy round the chimney of one of the houses in the village, -alighted in the top of a tall aspen that overlooked the spot. She -settled on the roof of the house to reconnoitre. She even perched -on the ledge of the garret window to get a better view. And all -the while she was followed by an excited mob of redstarts, -wagtails, and robins, scolding, storming, chattering. Sometimes, -as if dismayed by their persistent clamour, the cuckoo made a half -circuit of the garden, diving in and out among the bushes, -swooping down to avoid the attack of some pursuer more importunate -than the rest, and uttering now and then a strange, inarticulate -cry, as if--which is likely enough--she were carrying in her mouth -the egg she wanted to leave in the robin's nest. She gave it up at -last, plunging down into a great bay tree, seeking in its -thick-growing foliage some respite from pursuit. - -The darkness deepens. But there is still light enough to follow -the deer-path among the trees, whose thick carpeting of brown dry -pine-needles is soft as velvet to the feet. It is not yet too dark -to see the black-cock that gets up from the bilberry jungle by the -path, or the wood pigeons that, when you pause beneath their -roosting place, go crashing out from the branches overhead. You -can still watch the two squirrels that chase each other round the -stem of a giant ash tree; can follow them, when, startled from -their frolic, they take a short cut homeward through the -larch-tops. They leap from the firm footing of one tree to the -drooping bough beyond, and when it goes down, down beneath them -like a blade of grass, they go on, without a moment's pause, -towards their nest in the heart of the wood. So few wayfarers -disturb the quiet here--or else the brown woodlanders have had -such scant experience of the ways of man, of his love of capture -and annexation--that the squirrels have not thought it worth while -to build their stronghold high among the trees. It is not twenty -feet from the ground. It is like a great wren's nest, a ball of -moss, thick and closely felted, and marvellously laced round and -round with long pliant larch twigs, and with only the least trace -of an entrance at the side. - -A flock of swifts are careering down the glen, like a troop of -noisy revellers; their wild chorus sounding shrill and clear in -the deepening hush of night. They wheel, with loud rustle of keen -wings, and dash upwards towards the moor. Again that swift career -along the grass-grown road; again that wild exultant scream, so -fierce, so beautiful. Deride it if you will. Call it hoarse, -discordant, savage. It is a victorious pæan, a song of triumph, an -exultant chorus proclaiming the empire of the air. - -The dark forms vanish; the wild notes die away. It is the last -sound of daylight. - - "Far away, some belfry chime - Breathes a prayer across the moors." - -The last sound of daylight. The children of the night are abroad. -White moths, painted boldly on the shadows, flit by like phantoms. -Ghost-like, too, is the soundless flutter of a bat that, by the -dark archway of the old bridge, chases the insects that hover on -the stream. The long, low, monotonous call of the -grasshopper-warbler among the furze bushes on the edge of the -wood, is a strange sound;--the voice of a cricket, one might -think, and not of a bird at all. Strange, too, is the droning note -of a nightjar, rising and falling as if the bird, wheeling this -way and that, were chasing moths among the trees. The bats have -voices, though their flight is soundless, and their faint shrill -cries grow in the stillness louder and more clear. At intervals an -owl hoots, startling from their half sleep the drowsy birds among -the thickets over which he passes, so that one may follow his -flight by the clamour he leaves behind him. Among the trees there -sounds at times the crash of a belated ring-dove, settling down -for the night, followed by a murmur of soft love notes, an -answering whisper, and then silence. - -Yet the air is full of faint, indistinguishable sounds, the -opening of leaves perhaps, the patter of spent petals, the fall of -pine needles, and the movements of night-wandering creatures. And -to every sound the darkness lends a touch of mystery. Fancy could -paint almost anything of strange and startling among the black -shadows of the wood. You stop, almost in terror, when a pheasant -rises, under your very feet, with a great rush of wings, and -vanishes into the gloom. A blackbird, flying over unseen, sounds -his loud alarm in passing, ringing, musical, metallic, like the -throbbing string of some wild instrument. - -There is another sound, the sound as of some large animal moving -heavily among the thickets near the stream, with now and then a -crash of branches. The noise draws nearer. Some red deer are -making their way down to the water. The light wind is blowing -straight this way. There is nothing to warn them. The leader -pauses, not five yards away, fetlock deep in the soft green morass -along one of the small streams that vein the hill. His shape is -dark and indistinct, yet there is just light enough to see that he -has antlers still. Behind him is a troop of hinds, a mingled mass -of stately, slow-moving, shadowy figures, leisurely crashing -through the thickets. One strolls idly this way, closer still, -pausing to browse on the leaves of the very willow that spreads -its long boughs overhead. Another follows, and another. There are -ten of them, at least, and not one aware of danger. Like Ajax, one -longs for daylight. Yet daylight must have revealed the ambush. -They are passing on. Another moment and they will have taken the -alarm. Stand up and shout. What headlong rush, what wild stampede, -what thunder of swift hoofs, what gallop of flying feet. Away they -go, crashing through the underwood, up the slope, into the black, -impenetrable shadows--sanctuary as safe as the very densest covert -of the forest. - -[Illustration: HORNER BRIDGE.] - - - - -HORNER WATER. - - -The man who knows Exmoor only in the pride of its summer beauty, -who has, it may be, followed the staghounds over its far-reaching -slopes through a splendour of heath and ling and blossomed furze, -who has never seen the broad shoulders of Dunkery save when they -were wrapped about with royal purple, would find the moorland now -in very different mood, would think it even now, far on towards -the summer, desolate and sad-coloured and forlorn. The gorse, -indeed, is in its prime. Its fragrant gold is as full of beauty as -when the mingled mob of horse and foot and carriages gathers, for -the first Meet of the season, on the smooth crown of Cloutsham -Ball. - -The gorse is a flower of the year. It is in bloom even in January. -There is an old saw that declares it to be, like kissing, never -out of season. But the heather that covers so much of the slopes -of Dunkery wears at this moment its very somberest of hues. -Standing on the fringe of the moorland, on the brink of one of the -deep glens that run into the heart of the hills, and looking up -the slope towards the dark summit, one might think that winter was -not over even yet. There is a touch of vivid green here and there, -round the birthplace of some mountain stream. There is colour on -the young birches that one by one are feeling their way up out of -the hollow. But in the sober brown of the heather, in the pearl -grey of the peat moss, in the dark hue of the gaunt and twisted -pines scattered at far intervals in front of the advancing forest, -there is no sign of the sweet influences of the spring. - -A lonely spot. There is not a house in sight, no farm, no -hedgerow, no sign of man's dominion anywhere, beyond faint traces -of bridle paths, like dark lines along the heath, or a broader -track whose warm red shows a moment as it climbs some rising of -the moor. A solitary skylark sings over the brown heather. At -times a buzzard wails, as on broad wings he drifts in mighty -circles overhead, a dark spot against the pale blue heaven. Sounds -like these but deepen the sense of loneliness. But there is charm -in the very solitude. There is charm in the dark heath and in the -golden furze--in the play of the cloud-shadows that each moment -change the tones of brown and green and grey. There is charm in -the sweet breath of the gorse, and above all, in the bright, fresh -air of the open moorland. And however bare and voiceless these -sombre slopes, each hollow that wanders away into the hills is -filled to overflowing with a sea of mingled foliage, all astir -with life and movement. - -The path that leads down from the highland to the hollow looks -upon a different world. The steep sides of the glen are green to -the very brim, are covered, right up to the brown fringe of -heather, with noble oaks in the pride of fresh, young foliage, -among whose golden green, all shimmering in a haze of sunlight, -shows the shadowy grey of boughs still bare, and in the open -spaces are all carpeted with the rich red of dead bracken, or the -vivid green of bilberry leaves. From far below, out of the mist of -green and grey, rises the song of a swift mountain stream, whose -pools and white cascades and brawling rapids gleam among the trees -like scattered links of silver. - -There is a sudden clatter of stones upon the farther slope. Two -stags and four attendant hinds are making their way up from Horner -Water. They pause and look this way; the head of the leader -lifted, his antlers clear against the foliage behind him. This is -Exmoor. Here the red deer are on their native heath. This is their -last stronghold south of the Border. And it is in glens like this -that they find the sanctuary they love. The noble beasts stand -long at gaze. At last the leader turns, and moves slowly up the -slope, the others falling into line behind him. They quicken the -pace as they gain more easy ground, and breaking into a canter, -wind in gallant style across the heath. They pause for a last look -as they reach the summit of the ridge, their figures darkly cut -against the sky. - -The road sinks lower, lower yet, down into the green heart of the -glen. Noble trees they are that fill the hollow. Some have long -since passed their prime. Their mighty branches are thick with -moss and lichen, and fringed with green tongues of fern. In rifts -that time and storm have carved in their huge columns, rowan and -bramble and young holly trees are rooted. Grey arms of ivy, almost -as broad and vigorous as they, are twined with fatal clasp about -their sturdy stems. Where the pathway crosses at the ford, there -stands a blasted tree: a giant oak, whose top, wrecked and -shattered though it is, rises high above its forest brothers. Its -bark has all fallen away. Its bare limbs glimmer ghost-like -through the green gloom. - -The whole glen is full of life. Solitude there may be, but not -silence. The air is musical with the ripple of the stream, and -with the songs of sweet-voiced warblers. Over the tree tops -clamorous daws are passing, and the light wings of homeward-flying -doves. Among the boulders that winter floods have heaped along the -torrent--that even now, before the patient, eternal, resistless -chafing of the water, are moving slowly down the stream--you may -startle a heron from his noonday dreaming. Or you may come -unaware upon a pair of wild ducks, paddling softly on one of the -smooth and sheltered reaches, the mallard still splendid in the -nuptial plumage he is so soon to lose. Only a few weeks longer -will he wear it. Summer will find him in a quiet-coloured garb, a -suit of brown and grey as plain and unpretending as the dress of -his sober-tinted mate. - -This, too, is the dipper's haunt. Again and again you will meet -him on his way up stream, flying swift and straight, with sharp -note of warning on spying a stranger near his fishing grounds. Or -you may watch him as he stands on some small island in the -torrent, his white breast gleaming like a patch of silver in the -water under him, bowing and calling, and now breaking off into -that sweet, wild song so dear to the soul of the fisherman. The -dipper's nest of moss and leaves and withered sedges, hidden -deftly in some old stump by the shore, is empty and deserted. His -mate and he are out all day on the river with their little mob of -dusky children. - -It is a pleasant path that winds leisurely along the glen, now -wandering with the stream, now passing it by a ford, now loitering -among the trees, now fenced on either hand with tall thickets of -gorse and briar and hawthorn, now keeping close by the grey -willows that overhang the water. It is not a wide stream to cross, -for all the rain. The deer, whose fresh footmarks are printed deep -in the moist earth all along its banks, can easily leap over it. -The squirrels on their airy highway along meeting oak boughs far -above it, have no need to think of it at all. But for the rabbits -there is no way over but through the stream itself. And here, a -few days since, a rabbit, startled from the herbage on the brink, -took to the water without a moment's hesitation; a mere baby of a -rabbit, so small and slight that it was carried along for yards by -the swift current before it could get into shallow water and -struggle up the bank. - -Suddenly two birds rise soaring from the trees, better seen when -they are clear of the valley, and sharply drawn against the sky. -One slow-winged and heavy, one quick and active, and deft in every -movement. A crow and a sparrow-hawk. They are fighting. Sounds of -battle float downwards through the air--the fierce defiance of the -hawk, the hoarse answer of his black antagonist. Round and round -they go, wheeling, sinking, soaring, now the hawk uppermost, and -now the crow. To watch the skilful man[oe]uvres of the hawk, one -might think there was little doubt about the issue. How easily he -sweeps past his lumbering enemy, how he clutches at him with -talons, how he flouts him with his strong wings. Yet the crow, for -all his awkwardness, is armed with no mean weapon. The hawk knows -well the value of that black dagger of a bill. And so they drift -over the rim of the valley to the open moorland, fighting to the -last. - -[Illustration: WHERE RED DEER HIDE.] - - - - -ON EXMOOR: WHERE RED DEER HIDE. - - -High up on the moorland, in a wilderness of dead heather--surely -beyond all power of spring-time to call back to life--with dead -gorse bushes scattered over it, gaunt and spectral, unlighted by -any touch of golden bloom, there stands an ancient grave-mound. It -is the merest flaw in the wide landscape. A roadway passes near -it. But from elsewhere, unless it chanced to cut the sky line, you -might search for it in vain. Looking across the grassy rim of the -hollow space within it, a space like the crater of some spent -volcano, you see nothing but the pale summer sky above you, and, -stretching away on every side, a waste of desolate, far-reaching -undulations, to whose wintry hues the scanty patches of grass and -the tender tone of the late bilberry plants have hardly, even yet, -lent any tinge of green. - -This is the very heart of the wilderness. There is not a house in -sight. There are no fields, no fences, no horses, no red cattle, -not a sheep even; no single moving figure, save of a bird that -flits restlessly among the gorse. This is almost as bleak and bare -a landscape as the haunt of the "Dead Drummer" upon Salisbury -Plain. - -Yet it is a beautiful landscape, still and lonely though it be. -There is no gold of blossomed gorse, no rich Tyrian of early -heather. But there is marvellous wealth of colour even in these -sheets of dead ling, whose varied greys and browns are -strengthened here to deep shades of purple, and there,--by a -carpet of withered brake fern, beaten down by wind and rain, and -with stout young fronds but just beginning to uncurl,--are fairly -kindled into red. At one point a belt of dry sedges gleams like a -grey river. At another a patch of vivid green betrays the -birthplace of some moorland stream. Round the old hawthorns, -dotted here and there over the waste, a green mist is gathering. -But the starved and stunted trees of this high upland country are -slow to answer to the sunshine, and there are hardly leaves enough -yet to hide the shaggy tufts of lichen, silver grey and golden -yellow, that hang so thickly on the boughs. In the thorny depths -of these storm-beaten trees, even carrion crows venture to build -fastnesses, fearing nothing, though with thresholds not six feet -above ground, short of an avenging volley from the keeper's gun. - -As the hours go by you grow conscious, by degrees, of companions -of your solitude. You hear notes of larks and pipits as they flit -here and there among the heather. You catch the faint far call of -a wandering cuckoo. A stone-chat settles near, on a tall, dead -furze bush, and sings over and over his brief roundelay. There are -few dwellers on the heath more smart than he, with his coal-black -head, his neat white collar, and his ruddy breast. This, too, is -the native heath of yonder curlews, wheeling idly across the sky, -sounding now and then that musical, clear call, that is one of the -most characteristic voices of the moorland. - -The black-cock, the true children of the wilderness, are lying -close among the heather. The grey dawn is the time to see them -best, when they come down to drink and bathe at favourite points -along the streams. Towards nightfall, too, you will hear on all -sides, but especially on the fringe of the wooded valleys where -they come to feed, their strange, hoarse crying, which it is hard -to credit is the note of bird at all. In the twilight each old -black-cock will take his stand on some hillock, or even on the -level ground, and spreading wide his splendid tail, drooping his -wings, and sinking his head, like a stag preparing to give battle, -will utter strange, almost weird, sounds, which, as you watch his -odd figure, and fantastic attitudes, you would hardly think were -meant as notes of challenge to his rivals, intended to be full of -defiance and contempt. - -Beyond the white cart-track, that just shows for a moment before -it sinks behind a rising in the heath, runs a deep valley--a great -hollow filled almost to the brim with oaks and beeches and tall -larch trees;--they, at least, are in the full pride of their -magnificent young beauty, with long branches thickly hung with -tufts of fragrant green. It is a valley of streams, that, drawn in -silver threads from every hill-slope near, set all along with -alder and willow, with ferns and rushes, and cool water plants, go -plunging through at last out of the narrow gateway of the glen, to -widen farther down into a broad, smooth flood, that sweeps in -silence among the worn stepping-stones of a village way. - -The valley is full of life; full as the moorland here is bare of -it. In the great bank that skirts the wood badgers have their -holt. Hard by it is a famous "earth," to which every hunted fox -for miles round flees for sanctuary. The woodmen have been busy -here. The ground is strewn with red larch chips, whose sweet, -resinous fragrance hangs heavy on the air. And from the welcome -rest of some new-felled tree, whose shorn plumes lie heaped about -it in well-ordered faggots, you may listen to the pleasant voices -of the doves, and the blithe notes of warblers in the boughs above -you. You may watch the pheasants stalking solemnly among the -underwood, may see the brown squirrels romping on the grass, or -playing follow the leader up and down the smooth-stemmed beech -trees. A charméd spot. A spot such as the poet sang of, who - - "... heard the cushies croon - Through the gowden afternoon, - And the Quhair burn singing on its way down to the Tweed." - -The red deer love this quiet glen. You may see their sharp -footprints along every woodman's path, and by the oozy marge of -every stream. Their hour is not yet. Like the fox and the badger, -they are lovers of the twilight. It is not till evening darkens -that they leave their lairs in the cool depths of the larch copse -or the shadowy heart of the oak plantation, and cross the high -dyke that parts the farm lands from the cover, and sally out to -raid the young corn and the turnips in outlying fields. This is -the Red Deer Country. Empty as the landscape is at noon, there are -times when this wild heath is all alive with moving figures, horse -and hound, and all the bravery of the shouting chase. Many a time -has the hunt swept past this solitary tumulus, the gallant stag -seen for a moment, perhaps, upon the sky line, as - - "With anxious eye he wandered o'er - Mountain and meadow, moss and moor." - -There is no hamlet for miles around but has its legends, old and -new, of a sport that is dear to all the country side. In one of -the moorland churches it is recorded how, some six hundred years -since, a villager slew one of the King's deer; how the culprit was -"not found," and how, in the end, four neighbouring parishes paid -fine to the royal foresters. It is but a mile as the crow flies to -a hamlet, lying deep in a hollow of the hills, where last year, -when the chase went thundering through the quiet street, the stag, -in his despair, sought refuge in the inn, and was pulled down by -the hounds within the doorway of the hostelry. It is the most -picturesque of inns, with its rambling buildings, its thatched -roofs, mossed and lichen stained, its tiny dormer windows, and a -sign that has puzzled many an idler on the village -green;--uncertain whether, as some would have it, the figure in -scarlet is meant for a woman seated on a stile; whether it is a -nabob mounted on an elephant; or whether, as the words that run -above it would suggest, it is a Roundhead trooper drawing rein -under the oak of Boscobel. - -[Illustration: TORR STEPS.] - - - - -TORR STEPS: A MOORLAND RIVER. - - -Down a deep valley in the West Country winds a swift moorland -stream. Mile after mile of sombre, heath-clad solitudes stretch -away on either side of it, broken with gorse and bracken, and with -here and there a few stunted and storm-beaten trees. Well-ordered -farm lands slope down to it. At far intervals it roars under the -ancient bridges of solitary hamlets. Here, in the heart of the -great hills, it runs between wooded slopes, covered with thick -growth of sturdy oak trees--leafless still, but with purple of -fast opening blossoms that, with the rich red brown of dead -leaves and withered fern about their feet, lends to the whole glen -a glow of warmth and colour. - -Here the red deer steal out after sundown over the ruinous wall -and through the untended hedgerow to the broad meadow that for a -space divides the river from the wood. Here in the twilight the -otters play, rolling over and over in the water like great grey -cats. The beautiful moorland sheep that lift their horned heads to -watch the solitary wayfarer, with half-curious, half-supercilious -gaze, seem hardly less the true creatures of the wild than the -grey rabbit that you startle from his noonday dreaming among the -long grass by the hedgerow, or than the brown squirrel, coming -down for a frolic on the soft, green turf. - -Below the wooded slope runs the river, here foaming over great -blocks of stone lying prostrate in its bed, there eddying round a -jutting bar of rock, now loitering in quiet backwaters, where dead -leaves and tufts of grass and all the smaller flotsam of the -stream spin slowly on the tranquil surface. At one point it roars -through a narrow channel between two ponderous stones, which lie -calm and unmoved in all the headlong rush; at another it pauses, -silent, in a deep, dark pool. Now it is broken all across in a -tumultuous cataract, and now again it widens to a broad sheet of -waving glass. At a bend in the river bank--a little hollow worn by -the floods of many winters--three alders overhang. And at their -feet, close to the margin of the stream, sheltered by a screen of -strong young branches growing upward from the base of the trees, -is a pleasant resting-place from which to watch unseen the life -and movement of this bird-haunted hollow--the warblers that throng -the thickets by the shore, the dippers that on swift wings pass -and repass along the watery highway, the graceful wagtails that -with dainty steps run up and down upon the strips of sand. - -Looking down from the edge of the slope at the far end of the -meadow, framed by the broad arms of giant trees, show the -buildings of a farm, that with its wide eaves and crested gables, -its deep-sunk dormer windows, its rows of hives, and its ruinous -sheds, is a picture in itself. Close by it one of the moorland -highways, a narrow country lane, slopes steeply down, crossing the -river by a ford. And by the road, its grey masonry clearly drawn -against the shadowy spires of thick-growing alder trees, is an old -stone bridge--so old that no clue remains, no legend even, to its -history or its builders. Two thousand years, perhaps, has the -river run beneath these ponderous slabs of stone, laid flat across -rude, unmortared piers. - -Beyond the bridge, through a purple mist of branches, show silver -glimpses of the river, then a broad stretch of meadow with dark -pine woods above it, among which the young larch foliage floats in -feathery clouds of green, and above these again, the brown and -desolate moorland. Near the bridge a little party of wanderers -have made their camp. The blue smoke of their fire drifts slowly -this way, with the pleasant scent of burning pine wood, the -pleasanter voices of girls and the shouts of children. It is a -perfect day for camping in the open; with warm air, and blue sky, -and soft white clouds sailing slowly over,--a day of clear shining -after rain. - -The air over the stream is full of insect life, of flies of many -shapes and various hues, of browns, and drakes, and duns, so dear -to the brown river trout; and, in counterfeit presentment at any -rate, almost dearer to the soul of the trout-fisher. And as you -watch the myriad wingèd things that sail along the water, that -settle on the warm stones, or on the alder boughs, or even on your -hand, you will think it small ground for wonder that the thickets -by the stream should be so full of birds. - -One might think that the roar of the river would be enough to -drown all other sounds. But, clear above it rise the notes of tits -and finches and warblers. The breezy chatter of the swallows, the -call of the dipper, the woodwren's hasty little stave of song, the -whistle of the blackbird, the mellow call of the cuckoo, are as -plain as if the great voice of the river were not heard at all. In -the next tree two finches have alighted; their restless movements -and sharp challenge of alarm betraying only too plainly what they -are so anxious to conceal, that their nest is somewhere near. Two -beautiful birds they are; one with the red flush on his breast, -the broad bar of white in either wing, the slate-blue feathers of -his lifted crest. The other, hardly less charming, with all her -colours pitched in soberer key. With anxious and persistent -iteration of their one shrill note of protest, they flit from -branch to branch; and when you rise, and peer into the tangle of -ivy-mantled boughs above you, the birds grow more clamorous still. -There is the nest, its mossy cup woven deftly among the slender -twigs, studded all over with lichen points of silver--as ever, a -miracle of beauty. - -There are many birds preparing for the great event of the year. It -is not for nothing, you may be sure, that that old blackbird has -stayed out at the same corner of the hedge every day for a week -past; there is some good reason for his stealing towards it now -across the wood, a moving shadow, quiet for once. We can read the -signs of the times in the notes of the birds no less than in the -heightened colours of their plumage. It is a love-song pure and -simple that yonder hedge sparrow, poised on a straying spray of -bramble, is singing so softly to himself. The ringing call of an -oxeye overhead never was more clear, and blithe, and musical. But -the soft notes of a flock of long-tailed tits, not yet disbanded, -have a still softer tone to-day. Their light-hearted gossip seems -subdued and low, as if they knew the days were near when every -woodlander will go about his work with all the stealth he may. -There is a gold-crest rummaging among the ivy that clings about an -old elm hard by, almost within arm's length, so near that the -touch of vivid yellow on his crown gleams like very gold. - -Smoke is still rising from the white ashes of the fire, but it is -proof enough that the little group has moved away, and that no one -is visible from the highway of the river, when a kingfisher -flashes across the bridge, straight up the stream, a swift gleam -of azure through the sunlit air. As you follow its flight to the -bend where the river vanishes behind its fringing alders, you are -aware of a moving point of light on one of the great boulders far -out from shore. Then the shape of a dipper shows clearly on the -top of the stone. A moment later it dives straight down into the -water, reappearing some yards nearer this way, pausing on another -great block of sandstone, to bow and curtsey, uttering now and -then a loud, clear note, its white gorget glowing like a star, -whiter even than the very foam of the river. Now it swims lightly -across a smooth backwater. Now it works its way sidelong across a -rapid rush of the current, stooping now and then to pick some -dainty morsel from among the stones, and all the while moving -slowly with the stream, until at last it stands on a stone in -mid-channel, not thirty yards away--a graceful, charming, dainty -little figure, the very naiad of the mountain stream. - -But alas, there is another spectator of its movements. Across the -meadow sails a dark, hawk-like figure, swift and silent, -disappearing in the oak wood on the farther shore. In a moment -every voice is hushed. Not a bird calls. Not even a wren dares to -utter an alarm. There is a sudden rush of wings. A merlin dashes -from the thicket by the shore, catches up the dipper in its cruel -claws, and, alighting on a great flat stone, in the middle of the -river, it buries its merciless bill again and again in the white -breast of its struggling captive. What a picture! The sunlight is -full on the blue back of the beautiful little falcon, as it leans -forward a little, half hiding its prey under its drooping wings. -Giving a swift glance to right and left--the sparkle of its keen -eyes plain to see--it tears out a little cloud of feathers that -flutter lightly down, and sail away upon the stream. Again the -merlin looks up. Something has startled him. He gives one glance -this way. He catches sight of a figure under the alder trees. Like -a flash he is gone. The dead dipper falls into the water, sailing -down the river, in which but a few minutes since it was playing, -full of life and happiness, the white feathers from its -blood-stained gorget floating away from it at every swirl of the -current; a sorrowful little heap of ruffled plumage, whirling with -the whirling stream. - -[Illustration: AN EXMOOR SKETCH.] - - - - -WINSFORD: VOICES THREE. - - -On the slopes of a great hollow in the heart of Exmoor, a hot sun -beats fiercely down. True that it is an April sky whose clouds and -sunshine weave their changing web of lights and shadows over the -landscape. True that the landscape, even yet, wears but little of -the guise of springtime. But to-day no touch of east is in the -air, and the smoke columns, rising slowly from the chimneys of the -village, and showing so blue against the oak plantation on a -distant shoulder of the moorland, are drifting slowly from the -southward. From this upland country, over which the snow lay deep -for two whole months, the grip of winter has been slow to loosen. -But the trees and hedgerows are answering at last to the magical -influence of the sunshine, and "the useful trouble of the rain." -The grass of these rich meadow lands--for months past all burnt -and brown, as if after a long, rainless summer--wears now its very -loveliest hue. There is a fringe of pale blue violets along the -edge of every woodland path. Stars of celandine are scattered over -every field, and among the tangle of the withered hedge-row -grasses. Marsh marigolds are gleaming in the wet earth about the -roots of the alders by the river. Even at this distance, the great -clumps of primroses show like points of light on the slope of the -orchard by the vicarage. Surely never were there such beautiful -masses of wood-sorrel as, with their vivid leaves and dainty, -purple-veined flowers, brighten now the banks of every deep-worn -lane. - -The tall chestnut by the church, but yesterday just dusted over -with fine points of gold, is now a very cloud of fresh young -foliage. Each day strengthens the green hue of the larches -crowning the bold spur beyond the village. Each day deepens the -warm purple of fast-opening blossoms round the heads of the tall -elms of the village, and the great oaks of this warm slope. Noble -trees they are, these hoary patriarchs that the woodman's axe has -spared. Their mighty branches, gnarled and twisted and -storm-beaten, towering far up against the pale blue heaven, are -shaggy with ages' growth of lichens. Moss grows thick over the -furrowed rind, not of their broad stems alone, but almost of their -topmost branches. In the crannies of the bark, fringed with -grey-green tongues of fern, woodbine and briar and slim -mountain-ash have found anchorage. Over their old arms the -nuthatches wander up and down, calling to each other with that -loud musical trill so characteristic of the springtime. - -On every side, among the broad stumps of vanished forest monarchs, -long dethroned, are springing the sturdy forms of another -generation, young pines and oaks and beeches, that are doing their -best to fill the places of the fallen, and although the giant -sycamore that overhangs the path is still all bare and leafless, -everywhere in the grass beneath its shadow, its children, tiny -double blades of tender green, are springing, thousands strong. - -It is a scene of marvellous beauty upon which the eye looks down -from the welcome rest of this fallen tree beside the woodland -path. Below, at the foot of the slope, the border line between the -wild life of the covert and the order of the well-kept farm lands, -runs a swift moorland stream, whose broad band of silver is broken -again and again by the rude stone bridges of the village streets. -Every reach of the river seems to have its several sound, that, - - "Low at times, and loud at times - And changing like a poet's rhymes," - -seems, with the rush of the wind among the rocking tops, and with -the songs and call-notes of a hundred birds, to fill the hollow. -In the pauses of the roar of the white lasher by the mill, a roar -that sinks and swells with every flaw that blows, the ear may -catch now the sound of the swift current brawling over its brown -pebbles, now the swirl of water round a bar of shingle, now the -chafing of the stream among the alder roots, and now the soft -sound of ripples on a sandy shallow. Round the broad green knoll -that rises from the river, filling all the centre of the valley, -and almost islanded by wandering streams, cluster the houses of -the hamlet, whose white walls and brown and moss-grown roofs of -thatch, whose pointed gables and quaint deep-sunk dormer windows -show plainly now among sheltering elms, that in the summer-time -will hide them in a very bower of green. - -High over the roofs of the village, high even above the topmost -trees, rises the grey tower of the church. Round its turrets a -troop of daws are fluttering. Is it only fancy, or is there really -a note of protest and impatience in their snatches of clear-cut -speech? For weeks past these bold frequenters of the church have -been piling sticks upon the turret stair, by way of foundation for -their great untidy nests. They had strewn a cartload of rubbish -over the floor of the belfry, when the sexton arose in his wrath -and blocked up all the tower windows and the loophole lights of -the stairway, so that the daws were compelled to change their -quarters to the roofs of the village. But they still linger round -their ancestral homestead, and one pair, determined not to quit -altogether the sacred precincts that have sheltered them and -theirs for generations, have established themselves in a niche -behind the iron pipe of the stove. It is a hole that might just -contain the nest, but the birds have thought it necessary to fill -up with sticks a yard or more of the space between the chimney and -the tower wall, as if by way of outworks to their fortress. - -A flood of sunshine is falling at this moment on the ancient -tower, on the brown thatch of the old houses, on the purple -lacework of the budding elms, until the whole beautiful picture -stands clear-drawn against the soft background of the far -hillside, still all in shadow. The sunlight glitters on the slate -roofs of houses lower down, and flashes on the winding river until -every reach of it is a sheet of burnished silver. Now it brightens -yet more the vivid green of the meadows, now it touches the red -slopes of distant corn-lands, and now it seems to linger on a far -shoulder of the moor, whose brown heath and dead grey gorse -bushes, and ancient thorn trees straggling up the hill, are -transfigured to a very vision of glory by the dreamy, sunlit haze. - -Dream-like, too, is the quiet that broods over this peaceful -valley--a quiet even deepened by those Voices Three, of the wind, -and the birds, and the river. No sound of toil or traffic rises -from the village, save the clink of iron in the smithy, the thud -of a woodman's axe among the young alders by the water, or, still -more rarely, the lumbering of a cart along one of the deep lanes -that slope upward to the moor, or that wander with the winding -streams. The wind that sways the oak boughs overhead has a stormy -sound. But this sheltered corner under the hill, with its screen -of thick-growing fir and holly, is full of the warm south, of soft -and gentle airs, scented with the sweet resinous fragrance of the -pines. - -And all the while, louder than the rush of the wind, clearer far -than the sound of the river, there float from tree to tree the -happy voices of the woodland singers. Everywhere among the -leafless boughs the chiff-chaffs are calling. Here and there along -the slope a tree pipit, rising high above his station upon some -yet wintry branch, sinks slowly downward through the sunny air, -singing as he sinks, till he alights again upon his windy perch. -Loud above all other sounds there strikes in now and then the -whistle of a blackbird, wild and clear, and at times the yet -sweeter carol of the blackcap. Rooks call hoarsely to each other -as they pass, on the way to their great settlement far down the -river. At times the white pigeons of the vicarage, hovering a -moment in mid-air, descend like a shower of snowflakes on their -dovecot. From the shelter of the old Scotch firs at the far end of -the wood, where the trees have long been left untouched, come now -and then the deep notes of carrion crows, low-toned, sullen, -unmirthful. They are ill neighbours for all the weaker children of -the wood. Later on in the season, the edge of the Punch Bowl, that -great hollow beyond the oak coppice, whose rim just shows against -the sky line, the hollow where the red deer are so fond of lying, -will be strewn with broken eggs of black game and pheasant, the -spoil of raids in the heather and the covert. And here, too, -scattered under the trees, are broken ringdoves' eggs, bearing -plainly the marks of those black-coated, merciless marauders. From -that corner too, out of the jungle of broom, and hazel, and -wild-briar, comes at intervals the crow of a pheasant--a strident -and far-reaching cry, different altogether from all other woodland -voices. And in every tree along the slope willow warblers are -crooning, over and over, their dainty snatches of sweet, low-toned -song. It is a sleepy tune; a leisurely cadence of soft sounds, -suggestive of sunshine and the summer, of - - "Music, that gentlier on the spirit lies, - Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes." - -[Illustration: A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.] - - - - -BREAN DOWN: FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. - - -It is a cold, grey world that lies waiting for the dawn--a misty -sky, in which one pale planet glimmers; a hazy sea, whose fretted -levels shine faintly in the moonlight; shadowy hills, along whose -winding line, here darkened with clustering woodlands, and there -whitened by still slumbering hamlets, a grey mist hangs. It hangs, -too, like a vast canopy, over the wide plain, whose sunburnt -meadows seem to melt away into an infinite distance; and along -the wandering river whose brown flood loiters idly to the sea. - -A silent world, for the most part. Even the voice of the river, -that but now was chafing loud against the shingle bar piled high -along the shore, is failing in the swift inrush of the tide. It is -a slow moving and taciturn stream that, as it wound along the -level fringes of the hills, long since forgot the sunshine and the -laughter and the crystal clearness of its youth, when, under banks -that were hung with fern and meadow-sweet, it sang over the brown -pebbles of its bed, round - - "... Many a fairy foreland, set - With willow-weed and mallow." - -But the tide, that is hushing the hoarse song of the river, swells -louder every moment the troubled roar of the sea, whose grey waves -are plunging in over the rattling shingle and the shining sand. - -And as the light of dawning strengthens over the low grey hills to -the eastward, other sounds break in upon the stillness. Far off -across the moor a curlew calls. A heron who all night long, it may -be, has been keeping his lone vigil in the marshes, and who is now -flying leisurely home-ward to the hills, lets fall a muttered -croak in passing--midnight revellers both. But the white gulls -that rise and fall and toy like butterflies above the broadening -stream calling to each other with discordant voices, are children -of the sunshine. - -Of the sunshine, too, is the music of a lark, who, high up in the -grey mist, brooding like a fate over the brown and thirsty -meadows, seems to hover at the very gates of dawn. Yet there is a -sound of the sea even on his silvery tongue. Among the sweet notes -of his familiar "babble of green fields," he brings in at times -the cry of the curlew and the whistle of the plover. - -A breath of the sea there is, too, in the chatter of the starling -on the roof above. The croak of the heron and the call of the -whimbrel are common speech with him. And now he even imitates the -creak of the cordage on the coasting smack swinging in the stream -yonder, where two men are busy setting the old brown sails. - -From the cliffs that break the round swell of the hill a line of -daws are streaming, eager, clamorous, on the wing for their -hunting ground upon the moor. One troop has wheeled aside to -alight among the boughs of a cherry-tree in a little walled-in -space of garden at some distance from the house. The farmer, who -has just appeared, with his milking-pail upon his shoulder, and -who looks up to nod a friendly greeting, pauses a moment in the -doorway to watch the marauders at their work, while the old -sheep-dog waits wondering at his side. - -Suddenly, far out on the moor, beyond the cattle that stand -motionless, expectant, all looking this way, a tall figure looms -out of the mist, and across the fields comes a strange cry: - - "Leave your meadow grasses mellow, - Mellow, mellow; - Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow." - -The old dog hears, and bounds forward to his work. But the sleek -and sober herd, never turning their heads to look behind them, -move slowly, as by common impulse, converging fanwise to the gate. -Men in white smocks, and with shining pails upon their backs, are -striding through the meadows towards the farm. And all the while -the milking call sounds at intervals across the fields:-- - - "Quit your pipes of parsley hollow, - Hollow, hollow; - Come uppe Lightfoot, rise and follow; - Lightfoot, Whitefoot, - From your clovers lift the head." - -But along the side of the green headland that, beyond the old -farm-buildings stretches a mile or more into the sea, silence -still reigns, save for the sound of the waves, for the plaintive -cry of a curlew or the clamour of a troop of gulls. - -When a gleam of sunshine breaks the grey veil of cloud, changing -the sombre hues of the mud flats to warm tones of brown and -purple, turning to gold the broad beach and the ragged sand-hills, -birds, unseen before, start swiftly into view. Here a tall curlew -stalks solemnly along, erect and watchful. There an inky crow is -picking dainty morsels from the ooze. And here a party of trim -black-headed gulls have collected round some treasure trove left -by the last tide. A troop of sandpipers sweeps along, now flashing -in a hundred points of silver in the sunlight; now, as they wheel, -all lost again in the brown hues of their haunts. As far as the -eye can reach are scattered gulls, shieldrakes, oyster-catchers, -rock-doves even, foraging by the edge of the water, falling back -before the rising tide. - -But sounds of life are faint, even now. Among the boulders pipits -flit at times with feeble cries. And a brood of young kestrels -lately fledged, sail and soar along the cliff farther on, and -scream as if in defiance of the wind, against which their keen -wings are beating. The rocky brows that overhang the shore are -thick with grasses and sweet bedstraw, with flags and mullein, and -tall evening primrose. In the crannies campion and sea-pink are -rooted. Here a yellow poppy trembles in the wind, and there a -great cluster of samphire fills a rocky cleft. There are tufts of -it quite low down, but it is a plant that always grows above -high-water mark, and many a shipwrecked sailor, thrown ashore -among the rocks, has taken heart again when, in the darkness, his -despairing grasp has tightened on those strangely smelling leaves. -It is St. Peter's plant--Saint Pierre, sampier, samphire. - -Now the shrill screaming of the kestrels rises louder still, the -fierce cry of the old birds mingling with the plaintive clamour of -their brood. Now one of them, sweeping round the headland, poises -a moment in the air, his wings motionless, his tail spread wide, -his figure dark upon the western sky. Slowly stooping, he alights -on the crown of a rocky pinnacle, a crag that stands out from the -cliff like the tower of some old stronghold; and, with feet spread -wide, clutching with his strong claws the rifted rock, his head -lowered to the wind, stands a splendid figure, as still as if he -were the living rock. Many a keen-eyed falcon has looked out over -the sea from that high watch tower, round whose base wander grey -arms of ivy, gnarled and wrinkled, centuries old. - -Nor do hawks alone find sanctuary here. So quiet is this lonely -shore, so complete its solitude, that among these cliffs even the -raven and the peregrine are safe. - -In the shelter of a long line of sand-hills that centuries have -heaped over the old sea-wall, there stands a solitary cottage. Its -brown eaves just peer over the dyke of sand. No window looks to -seaward through its massy wall. It is close above high-water mark. -Often, on wild nights of winter, - - "The startled waves leap over it; the storm - Smites it with all the scourges of the rain, - And steadily against its solid form - Press the great shoulders of the hurricane." - -Close by it runs a belt of shingle, and, beyond, there stretches -away to the brown sea a wide sweep of sand, on whose wet surface -the heron and the curlew leave their traces, where whole armies of -sandpipers weave a maze of tiny footprints. To them this barren -shore is a land of plenty. This open beach is to them the very -safest of sanctuaries. No wildfowler can get within range of them -unobserved. Their only foes are the herring-gull--the pirate of -the sea--or the keen-eyed falcon that has his hold in yonder -cliff. - -Except at times of very high tides--even then only when -accompanied by stormy weather--the sea never quite reaches to the -sand-hills; but in summer especially, a mirage is occasionally -seen on this wide beach,--a phantom sea, in whose smooth surface -are reflected the jagged line of sand-hills, the church of the -distant village, and the few houses scattered at far intervals -along the coast. - -It is a fruitful plain, whose level meadows stretch away from the -old farm, fading only on the far horizon. So low it lies that, -were it not for yonder mounds of sand, whose jagged fringes line -the coast for miles, the high October tides would often, when a -strong wind is blowing, find their way among the hamlets far -inland. Many a time has the old wall given way; never, perhaps, -with quite such dire results as in the great flood of 1607, when -the salt water was twelve feet deep in villages five miles from -the sea. Thirty hamlets were overwhelmed. Scores of unhappy -villagers perished. So swift was the rush of the water that there -was no chance of escape, and for many--in the words of a -black-letter chap-book of the time, "their last refuge was -patiently to die. Cattle were drowned in droves. Rabbits being -driven out of their burroughes by the tyde, were seene to sit for -safety on the backs of sheepe, as they swom up and downe, and at -last were drowned with them.... Deade bodies floate hourely above -water, and are continually taken uppe. It cannot yet be knowne -howe manye have fell in this Tempest of God's fearful judgement." - -Life here was not always quiet. The green slopes of the hill above -are scarred all along with old earthworks, so defaced by plough -and spade, so trampled down by men and cattle, so worn by the -storms of untold centuries, that the eye can hardly trace their -outlines in the smooth short sward. Not even a tradition survives -of the lost inhabitants whose rude pottery and flint arrow-heads -the rabbits bring up among the red earth of their burrows. -Compared with this old hill fortress, the earthworks round the -tower of the church yonder, the square lines of a Roman camp, the -last fort on the well-guarded road down which was brought metal -from the mines among the hills, are works of yesterday. - -Again and again this coast was wasted by the Danes, who plundered -not the hamlets by the shore alone, but villages twenty miles from -the sea. Victory was not always with the invaders. Athelney is not -far distant. Ethandune was on that low line of hills to the -southward. And in the very year of that crowning victory, a few -miles farther down, "the brother of Hingwar and Halfdene came with -twenty-three ships ... and he was there slain, and with him eight -hundred and forty of his army, and there was taken the war-flag -which they called the Raven." By the river that loiters seaward -under the blue hills across the bay, whose broad mouth shines like -silver in the sun, still stands the green mound of Hubbalowe, -which the vikings piled over the ashes of the dead sea-rover. On -every hill-top in the West Country - - "The brake and the tufted grass are high - On the low mounds where warriors lie." - -Each point of vantage on the hills has its time-worn lines of old -entrenchments. There is hardly a lofty crest but has had its -cluster of green grave mounds. But of the builders there remains -little but the shapes of their ruined strongholds, their rude -pottery, and still ruder weapons, from which to build up our dim -conjectures of what manner of men they were who held these hill -tops against the arms of Claudius and Vespasian. Even of the -legionaries who forced their way thus far into the West, our -knowledge has been gained by fragments. It is by accident that we -have obtained our most vivid glimpses of their arts, their arms, -their way of life. Massive ingots of lead have from time to time -been found in the fields or along the line of one or other of the -old military roads, whose stamps showed clearly how soon, after -the landing of Claudius, the conquerors took possession of the -mining country. - -Again, when the plough struck on a stone coffin in a field remote -from any sign of human occupation; and when further search -revealed the ruins of a Roman villa, with beautiful pavements -still undisturbed, it was possible to guess, from the lettering of -the coins which were strewn among broken amphoræ and scraps of -Samian, the very year in which the house was last inhabited. Many -a hoard of silver pieces has been found among these hills, buried -doubtless in some "dark hour of doubt and dread," to wait for -better times that never came. Many a time the labourer's spade has -clashed on a rusted spear-head, a broken urn, a handful of -denarii. At times even on - - "A tarnished ring, whose fiery gems, - Still on its circle set, - From the far sands of Indus brought, - Gleam through their setting, rudely wrought, - As if the sky, their hues had caught, - Flamed in their glory yet." - -Relics like these--a flint arrowhead, a fragment of pottery, a -handful of denarii, a camp, a tumulus--eke out the scanty records -of the time, the pages of Asser, the meagre outlines of the Saxon -chronicle. - -Hardly a point in all the landscape but is linked with some -stirring memory. It was on the little island lying off the point -here that Githa found refuge after Hastings. Two years later all -this shore was ravaged by the sons of Harold; and in the Domesday -record, made eighteen years afterwards, we still can trace their -handiwork in the lessened values of villages they had plundered. -Over and over again after the brief sketch of a hamlet, its list -of boors and villeins, its corn and grass land, its mill, its -fishpond--perhaps even its patch of vineyard--follow such words -as these: "it was worth 100s., now only 60"; or "it was worth four -pounds, now only 40 shillings." - -In the Armada days--for half a century, indeed, before the sailing -of "that great fleet invincible"--there stood, on the high ground -across the river, according to a quaint map of the period, "The -Coste of England uppon Seuerne," a tower, in which a gun was -mounted, as a defence against invasion. Not a stone remains of the -tower which in King Harry's time guarded the little port. But all -this coast was armed and ready, years before the sailing of the -Armada, watching for the red glow on Dawnsboro' that should call -up the bold yeomen of the moors to face the "Inquisition dogs, and -the devildoms of Spain." - -"The trewthe is," wrote the Muster-Master, in his report to the -Government--"after having vewed and trayned the nombers bothe of -foote and horse twyce since my coming into this countie--the -trewthe is, it is a most gallaunte contrey for the men, armor, and -rediness." The authorities were constantly furnished with -"Certyffycathes," showing the numbers of duly qualified pikemen -and archers. Again and again were the justices urged to keep -everything in readiness, since "the wings of man's life are plumed -with the feathers of death"; and to train their men to meet any -emergency, because "great dilatory wants are found upon all sudden -hurly-burlies." Early Orders in Council declared that any -able-bodied man between seventeen and fifty-nine who should be -found to "lacke a bowe and fower arrowes" was to be fined. - -Later, in Elizabeth's reign, more attention was paid to the use of -firearms, and most minute instructions were issued from -headquarters as to the training of marksmen. The musket was to be -fired at first with priming only, then with half a charge, and -finally, when the men were ready for it, the full amount of powder -was to be used. This was with an eye to the right training of men -who, "by reason of the churlishness of their pieces, and not being -made acquainted therewith by degrees, are ever after so -discouraged as either they wincke or pull their heades from the -piece, whereby they take no perfect level, but shoot at random, -and so never prove good shottes." - -Among the seaweed on the bank of shingle by the cottage all kinds -of strange things are found--palm wood, long bamboos, seeds from -the West Indies, sabots, children's toys. Once even a clock was -washed up on the beach. A few months since the sands were strewn -with parts of carriages from the wreck of a vessel that was -carrying railway plant to South America. As you stand in the -little garden, whose broad edges are none too good protection for -it against the wind, you will notice that everything about the -place has a touch of this sombre local colouring. Every piece of -woodwork is part of a wreck. There is not a hinge or a bolt, -hardly a nail even that did not come out of some ship's fittings. -The posts on which the garden gate is hung are pieces of a mast. -The gate itself is made of planks that have been picked up on the -sand. Mahogany panels from the saloon of some steamship have been -worked into the walling of the garden shed. No coal is ever needed -here. A little peat is all that is wanted. The sea brings an -endless store of firewood almost to the door. - -Too often, alas! the ebbing tide leaves yet sadder jetsam on the -shore--white, still figures, lying face down on the yellow sand; -to be lifted reverently, perhaps, but yet by stranger hands, and -committed with brief rites to the corner of the ancient -burial-ground on the headland yonder, where "the little grey -church on the windy hill" stands among the green graves of -centuries, roofless, dismantled, and forlorn. - -[Illustration: MOORLAND NEAR THE SEA.] - - - - -THE COUNTRY LIFE. - - -The man who can look back over thirty years of rural life, of life -spent among woods and meadows, has doubtless learnt something at -least of the ways of the wild creatures of his district, of its -beasts and birds, of its reptiles, and fish, and insects, even of -forms of life still lower in the scale. In the works of Nature, -her lovers find a never-failing charm. There is no book like hers, -as we read it in green field and country lane, in copse, and -stream, and hedge-row. There is no voice like hers, as we hear it -in the sounds of the wood, in the sounds of the sea, in the sounds -of the night. No poet ever breathed such songs. No writer of -romance has ever woven such tales of mystery and wonder. - -There are few of us probably who, looking back on the country life -of our early days, would not be ready to admit that among its -pursuits and pleasures, many and various as they were, the art and -craft of birds'-nesting stood supreme. It is a pursuit that has a -charm peculiarly its own. It may be that, in the days of our -youth, the love of having and holding was one chief motive; a love -that some of us have not shaken off yet, though perhaps, it is -lavished on more useful things. Even the lust of plunder and -destruction may have had its weight with us, as we feel sure it -has with the village children. Not every nest-robber, it is true, -is really a lover of Nature. But the birds'-nester who is a -naturalist born soon wakens, not only to the beauty, but to the -significance, of his fragile treasures. - -Perhaps few young collectors pay much conscious attention to the -construction of the nest, or notice how skilfully its materials -are made to harmonise with its surroundings, or see how -wonderfully some eggs are protected by their colouring. But his -would be a dull soul on whom these things did not, sooner or -later, make some impression. There are some birds'-nesters who are -no longer young--no longer able to climb a tree or ford a river, -to whom, year after year, the season of nests brings new delight; -to whom the exquisite workmanship of the chaffinch seems each year -more wonderful than ever, and in whose eyes the blue of a -song-thrush's egg will never lose its charm. - -These two nightjars' eggs, for example, are exquisitely beautiful, -with their soft shades of brown and grey, veined like some rare -marble. But as you look at them you think less of their beauty -than of the moment when, in the corner of the old orchard, the -bird got up, almost under your feet, and you watched it sail away -to one of the fir-trees in the hedge-row, and crouch down on a low -branch to watch your movements. Then, looking down, you saw, on -the bare earth, these eggs, so near that another step would have -crushed them. This is only a magpie's egg, but the date on it -reminds you of that stiff climb up the giant fir-tree in the -coppice, when for want of a box to carry them in, you had to bring -your spoil down in your cap held between your teeth; while the -farmer below shouted encouragingly: "Bring 'em all, sir; doän't -'ee leave none on 'em. I doän't want none o' they varmint on my -ground." - -Here is a kestrel's egg on which there is a date written, and a -name--the name of a once-familiar hill-top. As you look, the -scene of long ago comes back. It was an early morning in May. The -dew lay heavy on the bracken, whose stout young fronds joined -hands across the path. And as you paused on the hill slope and -looked back, you saw how all the upland pastures, and the broad -meadow lands below, were glistening in the light of the just risen -sun. Through the grey haze that veiled the distance showed, -faintly and more faint, range after range of low blue hills, with -white hamlets glimmering here and there. The light of sunrise had -just caught the windows of the old manor house on the slope, some -mile away, and they flashed and flamed like fire. The grey cliffs -above you had the flush of dawn upon their storm-worn steeps, and -the light air tossed the leaves of the wayfaring trees rooted in -the crannies, till they glittered like blades of silver. Among the -elms about the farmstead, on the knoll below, sounded the uneasy -chatter of a magpie. A crow was flying leisurely up to his -fastness in the clump of old Scotch firs on the low hill-top. From -a belt of coppice further down there rose at intervals, above the -low sweet notes of the warblers, the clear call of a cuckoo. -Overhead a woodlark drifted in vast circles, singing as he flew. - -When at length you gained the hill crest, you heard the challenge -of a black-cock. Over the wide pasture the lapwings were calling. -Now they wheeled across the pale blue heaven, now they swooped -swiftly almost to the ground, turning over and over in the air. -Now one flew by, so near that you saw clearly the long plume upon -his glossy head, and heard the musical throb of his strong wings -sounding loud in the quiet morning air. - -As you paused on the short turf close to the brow of the cliff, -and looking down once more, saw your shadow falling on the young -corn of the ploughed land far below, a hawk dashed out from the -cliff below you, and then, staying its swift course, hovered a -moment in mid air, while the sunshine lighted up its rich brown -plumage. As you peered over the brink of the cliff there were no -signs of a nest. But a tall sapling rooted in a ledge some ten -feet below looked safe to hold by. Cautiously you slid over the -edge, and dropped within reach of the branches, and so, from ledge -to ledge, you climbed slowly down, holding on by points of rock or -tufts of grass, or stems of ivy, until--yes, there, at your feet, -in an arched crevice of the cliff, on a little earth, with no sort -of nest, lay the four exquisite eggs, whose radiant beauty--so -much richer five-and-twenty years since--seemed to your enraptured -gaze to light up the little hollow. As you stooped to take one of -them in your hand--how warm it was--and clung there, gloating over -the beauty of your treasure, the old hawk hovered near, sounding -at times her wild cry of anger and alarm, answered far off by her -fierce mate, hurrying homeward on his swift, keen wings. - -It is not given to all alike to be able to appreciate the true -pleasure of a country walk. It is a thing that many of us prize, -and that even more of us long for. And yet there are some people, -really fond of walking, to whom it seems to make little difference -whether their road goes evenly along the Queen's highway, and is -hemmed in by straight stone walls, or loiters through winding -by-ways, under banks crowned with straggling hedge-rows, overhung -with sheltering elms. There are those who take their weekly tramp, -and who say they like it best so, on Sunday, through the -monotonous dreariness of London streets. To them a country walk, -with its possible mud, and with its certain solitude and tameness, -is, at least in fancy, flat and stale and altogether profitless. - -It is largely a matter of training. We may learn to love bricks -and mortar and the traffic of the town more than the quiet of -woods and meadows, and the companionship of the everlasting hills. -But there are others who cannot breathe amid the stir and noise -and money-grubbing fever of the city; to whom the air of the open -country is the Elixir of Life; who love its restful quietude, and -who, at each turn along the favourite path, look for some old -friend, some familiar bird, or flower, or insect. - -With those who are really fond of rural life, other things have -weight besides the mere landscape, besides the beauty of the view -or the exhilaration of the keen air of the hill-tops. The charm of -woodland walk, of river path, of quiet lanes, or of lonely places -in the hills, is increased a hundredfold by some knowledge of -rural sights and sounds. A power to recognise the songs of birds, -some acquaintance with insect life, a little plant lore, a little -knowledge of rocks and fossils--in a word, some tincture of -Natural History--combine to make a ramble in the country one of -the best things that life can offer us. - -This love of Nature is again largely a matter of training. -Schoolboys, as a race, are strangely slow at first to see plants, -or shells, or fossils. But the young birds'-nester, for instance, -whose first motive was, it may be, nothing nobler than the lust of -having and holding, the love of plunder, or even the savage -pleasure of destruction, may soon be trained to see the meaning of -the shape and tints and markings of the eggs; not only to -appreciate the beauty of the nest and the skill with which it was -put together, but to learn in time the song of the builder and to -know something of its habits. The butterfly hunter may be taught -to recognise not merely the beauty of his captives, but to see -something of those marvellous devices by which Nature hides -caterpillar and chrysalis, and even perfect insect, from prying -eyes. - -The boy who has acquired a love for Natural History has something -to be thankful for, all the days of his life, a possession that -may be the means of bringing more comfort to his soul than all the -wisdom of the ancients. Of no man can it be so truly said as of -the naturalist that he - - "Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, - Sermons in stones, and good in everything." - -It is true enough that, to most men, a knowledge of flowers or -fossils, of insect life or of the habits of birds, will bring no -return in hard cash. But there are other things in life besides a -balance at the banker's. And a love of art is not more lucrative, -or a taste for music or for books. - -There are people who, if they would, might do much to aid the -study of Natural History; people whose avocations take them much -into the open air, and who have opportunities which some of us -long for in vain. The fisherman, the keeper, the shepherd, and the -farm labourer might, if they could be won over to take interest in -such things, contribute not a little to our knowledge of the life -history of even the most familiar of animals. Fishermen along the -coast see things sometimes the description of which rouses envy in -the breasts of less fortunate listeners. Not long since a man was -rowing out to his nets in the early morning just outside the bar -of a small tidal river in the West Country, when he saw a raven -sweeping slowly along the hill-slope near by--the grassy side of a -long promontory stretching far out into the sea, muttering to -itself at times with that deep voice that, happily, is still -familiar to the long-shore dwellers on that coast. Suddenly the -bird paused, and with swift descent swooped down among the brown -heather and the stunted bushes of the hill, seizing in its strong -claws a hare that had been lying crouched among the herbage. But -the bird was too late in using its beak or else missed its stroke -altogether, for in a moment the hare and the raven, locked fast -together, rolled over and over, kicking, struggling, flapping down -the rough slope below; until the bird, dismayed by such an -unwonted experience and the buffeting of the rocks and broken -ground, let go its hold. The hare was on its feet and had vanished -like a flash, while the baffled raven, rising slowly in the air, -sailed reluctantly away. - -The naturalist is not now, even in country districts, looked upon -quite in the same light as he once was--but one degree removed -from the state of lunatic. The old order of things, the prejudice, -the bigotry, the superstition of half a century ago has to a great -degree disappeared. There are many English parishes still without -a railway; there is none probably without a newspaper. The -presence of a single naturalist, parson or village doctor, or what -not, has been known, like the little leaven that leaveneth the -whole lump, to rouse a real interest among the neighbours in birds -and beasts and even insects. A man's reputation for being fond of -strange creatures may perhaps be laughed at, at first, and -perhaps be always a little looked down on. But by degrees, very -slow it may be, the influence spreads. The keeper brings him a -strange bird, the labourer a nest of dormice found in stubbing up -a hedge-row, or a clutch of quails' eggs he has come upon among -the clover. The old mole catcher, too, is a very mine of stories -about the strange beasts he has seen in his sixty years' -experience. One of his most wonderful tales is about the great -snake--"more 'n _that_ long,"--a matter of five feet or so,--which -he killed as it was sucking the milk of a cow: "and" as he will -add triumphantly, "there were more 'n a pint of milk in him":--the -crushed eggs of the unfortunate reptile no doubt, but it is -altogether useless to suggest any such paltry explanation. - -One autumn a boy at work among the potatoes turned up with his -spade something that instantly, so he declared, became a bird and -flew away. The boy ran home in horror. His parents would not -believe a word of the story, but the boy was too big to be flogged -as a mere liar. They were greatly relieved on learning that -something of the kind was at least possible, and regarded with no -little interest a Death's Head hawkmoth, for such no doubt the -apparition was, preserved in a collection. - -[Illustration: A WEST COUNTRY MOLE CATCHER.] - -The change from egg to caterpillar is a thing with which every -rustic is probably familiar; but in remote rural districts there -are still men who cannot believe that a caterpillar can ever -become a butterfly, and who still entertain strange superstitions -about toads and snakes and slow worms. - -Perhaps in time the County Councils may do something for the -rustic enlightenment, by means of lectures and the limelight. The -rural population is, however, notoriously hard of belief; is the -most difficult of all populations to move from the faiths of their -fathers. There is many a farmer's wife even yet who will labour -with the churn from morning till night,--lamenting all the while -that the butter will not come,--rather than by the use of a -thermometer so regulate the temperature that the whole process -would be over in half-an-hour. A series of lectures lately given -in Somersetshire on the management of farm stock was, however, -well attended by the younger farmers at any rate. They were keenly -interested, and although they may, perhaps, have mostly adjourned -afterwards to discuss each discourse at the public-house, it was -not as sceptics; and the local ironmonger always found it -necessary to lay in a stock of thermometers as soon as the -lectures had begun. The older men mostly kept aloof. They had no -faith in any new-fangled ways. They are a stiff-necked generation. -As their fathers did, so do they. One burly, red-faced farmer of -the old school was lately heard to express his contempt for the -educational efforts of the County Council. "What be the use," said -he, "of wasting the public money sending round men to talk about a -dairy as don't know a cow from a elephant? And these yar cook'ry -classes. 'Tis my belief that if a man have got summat to cook, -he'll soon find out how to cook un." - -With a few popular lectures and a little practical help and -guidance the farmer and the farm labourer might render untold -service to science, with all their long hours in the open air, -summer and winter, seedtime and harvest. They see some strange -things now, or think they see them. Snakes are the theme of many -marvellous tales. "I were walking along the path through the -wheat," said an old villager, "when I heard a rustling, like a -robbut: I thought 'twere a robbut. But a gurt viper come out of -the wheat and jumped across the path so high's my head." - -A captive tortoise escaped one day into the road, and was soon the -centre of a knot of astonished villagers. After long debate they -concluded it was either "a tremendous gurt tooad, or some -wendimous warmint"; and they decided to kill it on the spot--a -task of no small difficulty, as may well be imagined. - -[Illustration: A QUIET CORNER.] - - - - -HALE WELL: A QUIET CORNER. - - -On the south slope of an old West Country orchard there is a -sheltered corner lying open to the sun. Above it rises a broad, -unkempt, straggling hedge-row--holly and hawthorn, bramble and -sweetbriar--and behind this again the green slopes of the hill. On -the left, rising at intervals through the tangled thickets that -form the eastern limit of the orchard, is a line of old Scotch -firs, and beyond them, dimly seen through the haze that broods -over the landscape, are the grey ramparts of a range of limestone -cliffs. The wind of March is in the dark foliage of the firs, -tossing their gnarled arms against the pallid sky. But here the -golden blossoms of the gorse, the brown stems of last year's -bracken, stand unmoved. The dark firs are stirring with a sound as -of the sea, but here, on this sunlit slope, is the very air of -summer, - - "... the grace, - The golden smile of June, - With bloom and sun in every place, - And all the world in tune." - -Butterflies flit idly by--dark-winged peacocks, soft brown -tortoise-shells, pale yellow brimstones like flying gleams of -sunshine. The apple boughs are fretted all over with fine points -of green, the purple mist round the heads of the great elms -deepens in the warm air, the old hedge-row wears already the -bright garb of spring. The air is full of spring time, of the -breath of primroses and violets, full of pleasant sounds of -country life, of the wakening of the world, of the happy voices of -a hundred birds, whose glad hearts are revelling in the golden -weather. - -The birds know well this sunny hollow. Here spring comes early, -and summer lingers late. While the fields without are white with -wintry rime, - - "... here the glancing sunbeams throng, - And tasselled larches droop to hear - A grace of fleeting song." - -To-day, on every side, the feathered woodlanders are stirring. -From an old Scotch fir that towers out of the hedge-row--its dark -shape showing like a shadow through the leafless boughs of the -apple-trees--falls the rich music of a blackbird's song, clear and -wild and flute-like. He is a noble singer; less great, indeed, -than the song-thrush, but yet a master of his art. And there are -those who hold that there is more beauty in the depth and -richness, in the power and passion, of his few brief bars, than in -all the magnificent anthem of his rival. Farther off, low down in -a leafless elm by the border of the orchard, is the thrush -himself, flooding the whole glade with his wonderful melody. Over -and over there sounds the polished lyric of the wren; over and -over again the metallic clink of a coaltit rings out above the -plaintive carol of the robin, the sober ditty of the -hedge-sparrow. Over all the fields the larks are singing. In the -hedges that skirt the orchard sounds the sweet cadence of the -chaffinch, the wild warble of the missel-thrush, at times the -ringing call of some light-hearted oxeye. From farther up the -hollow, from his sanctuary in the old, neglected wilderness of -unpruned, lichen-coated trees, floats down the soft laugh of a -woodpecker, a mellow sound, a note of peace and solitude, and -sylvan greenness. Is it only fancy that here, among these hills, -in this sweet country air, among these untarnished immemorial -elms, there is more melody in the skylark's song, that there is a -finer tone in the cool, clear singing of the robin, that there is -a touch of music in the chatter of the very sparrows? But hark, a -fainter note floats lightly down from the tree-tops; a note not -strong or musical, but heard through all the blended harmonies of -a score of singers. It is the call of the chiff-chaff, the first -returning wanderer from the warm south, fresh from the orange -groves of Sorrento, or the sunny slopes of the Sabine hills. When -his small figure shows presently against the dark foliage of a -Scotch fir, there is that about him which seems to suggest that he -is well content with his home-coming, even though woods are bare -and skies are cheerless. He flutters up and down among the -branches, never still for a moment. Even when he pauses,--looking -like a point of light against the sombre leaves behind him,--to -call his own name over and over, it is easy to see that his whole -small figure is trembling with the ardour of his eager little -soul. - -A tiny figure, and a simple song. But there is more of meaning in -those few faint notes than in all the rest of the great chorus -that day by day is gathering strength in the woodland. For in the -chiff-chaff's call there is the Promise of Spring. It is said that -when the Siberian exiles hear for the first time, after their long -and bitter winter, the cry of the cuckoo, the familiar voice -rouses in their weary souls a resistless longing to taste once -more, if only for a day, the sweets of freedom; that there are -always some who, at the summons, elude the vigilance of their -guards, and take to the forest, lured by the magic of that -wandering voice. And so, in our hearts, this feeble note rouses a -longing for green fields and country lanes, for flowers and -sunshine, for summer and the coming of the swallows. - -Somewhere in the elms a nuthatch sounds at intervals his -flute-like call--a wandering voice, now among the topmost -branches, whose sunlit purple holds so well against the pallid -blue, now near the ground, now in some mighty bough that leans -far out over the field. Now the bird's figure shows darkly on the -sky, and now, as he glides head foremost down, like the born -acrobat that he is, his grey plumage lights up for a moment in the -sunshine. And now he leaves the tree, still calling as he flies, -and sinks down among that grey fringe of orchard, where his mate -and he have, perhaps, already fixed on the hole in the old apple -tree in which they mean to take up their quarters for the season. - -The old hedge-rows round the orchard are but wintry still for the -most part, save for a few buds of hawthorn just breaking into -leaf, or an elder bush already tinged with green. But on the banks -of the tiny stream that wanders leisurely along the lane below, -celandine and sweet violet are in bloom; and primroses, no longer -pale and stunted, as in the rougher days of March, lend their rare -perfume to the air. Meadowsweet and brooklime are springing by the -oozy shore, and on the dark boughs of the alders that lean over it -the catkins cluster thick. - -In a blackthorn bush, whose armed sprays are lightly touched with -blossom as with new fallen snow, two wrens alight; two tiny -figures, mere balls of brown feather, so near that every line of -the wavy, shell-like marking on their backs is plain to see. Now -one of them, poised on a briar stem, breaks suddenly into song, -turning from side to side, his wings parted, his atom of a tail -expanded to the full. The brief lyric ended, he flies down to join -his mate, who waits demurely in the bush below, and for a minute -or two they flutter and play, and whisper to each other soft notes -of fond endearment--the sweetest bit of love-making imaginable. - -Farther on, in a young oak tree in the hedge-row, two blackbirds -have alighted. Not lovers, nothing like it, paying no manner of -heed to each other's presence. One of them flies down--a splendid -figure, with his new black coat, with the bright golden orange of -his bill. Instantly the other is down too, in front of him. A -moment they stand thus, motionless. Then, with loud notes of -challenge, they tilt headlong at each other, beaks down, wings and -tail spread wide, their whole dark plumage rough with rage. Again -and again they meet in the shock of battle, rushing each on the -other's weapon, rising at last into the air, fluttering and -fighting, the snapping of their bills heard plainly fifty yards -away. Five minutes only the conflict lasts. More than one -historic field has been lost and won in time as brief. It is all -over. The victor stands alone upon the grass. His beaten rival is -in full flight far down the hedge-row. A moment later the queen of -beauty, who from her perch among the blackthorns has watched the -tournament unseen, flies down to the hero of her choice. It is the -old story; a tale far older than the days of Thais--"None but the -brave, none but the brave, none but the brave deserves the fair." - -Here in this happy valley there has not been, for weeks past, one -clouded hour. March has shown, all through, the temper of the -lamb; nor now, in his last hours, does he show signs of changing -mood. To seaward it is true the haze deepens to a cold grey fog, -and the sullen booming of the distant fog guns is sounding -faintly, at intervals, even now. On the hill the lapwings are -calling, their plaintive voices softened by the distance, and at -times their dark figures show against the pale blue sky, as they -rise and fall above the limestone cliffs that skirt the hill. - -Yonder crow, drifting up the slope, keeping low down, as if -fearing to be seen, is making for his fastness among the -fir-trees on the hill-crest higher up. He may well keep out of -sight. Only last week two lambs were found in a field near the -crow's nest, dying, with their eyes torn out. And the magpie, -chuckling now and then in doubtful tone, somewhere at the foot of -the orchard, has here a reputation almost as much blown upon. -Terrible fellows, both of them, in lambing time or in the poultry -yard. But they have been working hard and honestly enough all the -rest of the year. Some people seem to think that the destruction -of a chicken or two, or the theft of a few eggs, far outweighs a -whole year of good deeds--the slaughter of unnumbered grubs, -wire-worms, mice, and beetles. - -At regular intervals, a few seconds apart, there sounds from a -tall ash tree in the hollow the drone of a greenfinch, monotonous -and unmusical. Was there ever such a drowsy sound? And yet when he -breaks off presently in a stave of his own wild song, his voice is -one of the sweetest of sweet sounds, a light and breezy ripple of -love and sun and happiness. Pleasant, too, are the notes of the -chaffinches that flit in and out of the hedgerow. And never surely -was there sweeter blackbird's song than that wild lyric sounding -now among the trees that overhang the well. In the top of the -great elm that leans over the orchard stile there is such a chorus -of tongues, such a babel of linnet and blackbird, of sparrow and -jackdaw, with intervals of untuneful chattering, whistling, -piping, that you fancy twenty performers at the least. But it is -only a starling telling all the world in his quaint way of his joy -in this unwonted sunshine. Now he breaks off into the song of a -swallow, copied from the life. He may have heard it this very -morning. Or it may be merely that the impulse of the spring time -rouses in his heart a memory of the long absent wanderer, just as -on rough days of autumn you may hear him mock the curlew's cry -because the wind is roaring like the sea. - -A very real note of spring is the hum of that burly bumble-bee -sailing along the hedge-row in search of some convenient hollow, -some abandoned mouse-hole it may be, in which to build her nest. -Her nest, not his, or theirs. She has no mate. He died in the -autumn, and on her alone devolves the labour of rearing the new -generation. - -Among the stones that years of patient toil have heaped under this -straggling hedge-row, the long-hidden slaves of Nature are broad -awake and busy, revelling in the brightness of these delightful -days. A crowd of insects, flies, and bees, and beetles are coming -out of their long hiding to sun their stiffened limbs. Butterflies -flit lightly down the hedge-row, some newly waked from sleep, and -some that have but just broken the dry husk of their chrysalis -condition, and are spreading for the first time their beautiful -wings. - -To the lover of the sights and sounds of Nature, life has few -better things to offer than a quiet hour, some bright spring -morning, under the shadow of a green arch of blossomed boughs, in -company with gentle, beautiful, sweet-voiced poets of the air, -glad, like him, in the sunshine and the fragrance. Is it a mere -flight of fancy that the feathered architects, no less than the -ballad singers, of this out-of-the-way corner of the world are -masters of their art above the birds of less favoured regions? -Look at this chaffinch's nest, cradled in the end of an -apple-bough, so dexterously woven in among the twigs in which it -rests, so daintily touched with silvery points of lichen, so -perfect a harmony with its surroundings that one might well fancy -it had grown there, some strange product of the tree. While just -above it, an apple bough in bloom, the rich gold of clustered -stamens just showing through the white and pink of still half-open -flowers, lends the crowning touch of beauty. - -Few birds, perhaps, have employed more curious decoration than a -pair of hedge sparrows, who, this spring, attached to their nest -with strands of bass a label, bearing in large letters the legend, -"Early English." In a crevice of the old wall, just outside the -orchard, is the work of another master-builder, a wren. The dry -grass and skeleton leaves of its framework match exactly with the -weather-worn and lichen-stained masonry about it. And slender -sprays of ivy, clinging to the rough surface of the stone, spread -round it their beautiful young leaves. Another wren's nest, in an -old stump, just filling a space among great grey ivy stems, is -built wholly of moss, so fresh and green, so true a copy of the -natural growths on the dead wood, that the eye would hardly have -discovered it, had not the little architect itself betrayed it. -But there is a third wren's nest, in the old cart-shed in the -corner of the orchard, that surpasses even these. It is built of -dry grass, in the straw of the thatch, framed by the rough -rafters, and around it, and over it, there hang down as if to hide -it the threshed-out ears that have been left upon the straw. And -within the small round entrance is the builder's tiny head, her -bright eyes showing plainly in the ring of shadow. Wrens are among -the shyest and most fastidious of birds. Many a one has abandoned -her nest, and all the eggs in it, because some curious passer-by -has touched it in her absence, never so gently. But this one, as -if confiding in the honour of her visitors, sits on unmoved. There -is a ringdove's nest quite low down in a holly tree in the orchard -hedge, and not only will the bird allow you to stand beneath and -watch her, but when, a few days since, a ladder was placed against -the tree, she waited until she was within arm's reach before she -left her nest. She made a fine picture as she sat there, proudly -unconscious of the intruders, not even deigning to turn her head -to look at them, the soft lavender of her beautiful plumage -relieved by the clouding of white feathers on her neck. At length -she could bear it no longer. She went crashing off through the -holly twigs, her great wings clattering as she flew. So shallow -and insecure was the frail platform on which she had been -sitting, that her sudden start threw one of her two nestlings over -the side. It was handed up again, apparently none the worse for -its adventure; and the two youngsters crouched trembling in the -slight hollow; two blind, helpless, hideous, evil-looking little -creatures; a whole world of difference between them and the -stately, fearless bird who, a minute before, had covered them with -the shadow of her wings. - -More fearless still is a blue-tit that has her dwelling in a -crevice in the wall some fifty yards further on. It is a tiny -hole, and the nest is far in, but you can see her sitting there, -her pretty head and one of her bright eyes just showing over the -mossy rim. She is not in the least shy of being looked at. Indeed, -if you touch her nest with a straw she will spar at it and hiss, -making a noise for all the world like the spitting of an angry -kitten, even coming to the door to storm at the intruder, but -without the least idea of leaving her unprotected offspring to his -mercy. - -But other tenants of the hollow revel in the sunshine besides the -birds and the bees and the butterflies. These straggling -hedge-rows are the haunt of finch and blackbird. Crow and magpie -and squirrel hide their homes among the thick foliage of the firs. -Nightjars love this quiet corner, and the nuthatch and the wryneck -find sanctuary in the hollows of the trees. But the stony bank -along the hedge, sweet now with violets, and strewn with stars of -celandine spreading wide their golden petals to the sun, is of all -spots the viper's favourite haunt. - -All along the bank and far in among the thickets are heaped -fragments of red sandstone that by slow degrees have been cleared -from these sterile pastures. The sun is on them from dawn till -sunset. They are quite hot to the touch. Here, then, the viper -loves to lie, warming his cold heart upon the heated stone. On a -day like this he is wide awake, quick in his movements, and off -like a flash, especially if once alarmed. Slowly, silently, with -stealthy steps must you approach his haunt. - -There he is, loosely coiled against a flat slab of sandstone, his -cold, unwinking eye set in a fixed stare, looking straight this -way. The broad zigzag stripe along his back is boldly drawn on the -pale brown of his coat. Plain even at this distance is the V-like -mark upon his head. But he has begun to move. Before you can reach -him he has vanished among the stones. There is nothing for it but -to sit down a few yards away, hidden by a dwarf blackthorn bush, -and wait patiently for his re-appearing. How quiet it all is. The -hamlet on the hill-slope yonder-- - - "One of those little places that have run - Half up the hill beneath a burning sun, - And then sat down to rest, as if to say, - 'I climb no further upward, come what may'"-- - -looms faintly through the haze. The white houses scattered through -the valley melt away into the mist. But the sun is still warm. The -cones of the old firs crackle in the sunshine. Still sweeter grows -the faint perfume of the gorse, still more beautiful its radiant -gold. A bullfinch settles in a tree hard by. There is no colour in -Nature more beautiful than the exquisite flush of crimson on his -breast. Quite in keeping with his beauty is the soft sweetness of -the tender love note that now and then he whispers to his mate, -who, in colours far less bright than his, sits just below him on a -lichened apple bough. Hark! a faint sound among the dry brambles -on the bank, a long rustle, and then through the blackthorn stems -the slender shape of the viper glides softly down to the warm -stones. - -Here he comes, gliding boldly from his harbour in the bank. His -brown mail glistens in the sun, his red eyes glance swiftly right -and left, his long tongue flickers through his fast shut lips. He -coils his long body round between two stones, whose warm red seems -warmer still to-day, fitting himself comfortably in the angle of -the stones, there he lies motionless. Small beetles creep over him -unseen and unregarded. He pays no heed when a butterfly settles -close by him to sun its splendid wings. But he is broad awake. - -Now move slowly towards the spot. Some sound startles him. He -lifts his head and gives a swift glance this way. He is going. -Twitch him out on the grass with your stick, hold him down a -moment, and then, watching your opportunity, take him up by the -tail. An angry beast he is, hissing and struggling, making vain -attempts to reach his captor's hand. He can only lift his head a -few inches, and there is no fear at all of his doing any harm. -There is no doubt about the harm he can do. A viper's bite, -especially in hot weather, is painful enough, though seldom -dangerous. But the farmer who comes up at this moment eyes the -captive with grim satisfaction. Heifers, he says, are often -bitten, even horses. "Doän't 'ee let un go," he adds anxiously; "I -doän't like none o' they beasts about." - -[Illustration: THE GREENWOOD TREE.] - - - - -THE GREENWOOD TREE. - - -It is a very blaze of sunshine that fills the open spaces of the -wood. The tall ash saplings that join hands across the path, now -almost lost among the briar sprays, the trailing woodbine, and the -long arms of wandering bryony, sway slowly in the hot and heavy -air. But the stir of the leaves that flutter lightly overhead, -their green lacework all dark against the summer sky, is a -restful, soothing sound. - -It is a pleasant relief to turn aside a little from the pathway, -to wade breast high through the green jungle of the underwood to a -little place out of the sunshine, a hollow walled half way round -by a line of low grey rocks, almost hidden by thick tapestries of -ivy. Two noble trees that stand on either side, two stately -Spanish chestnuts, spread their arms over it, as if in -benediction. Overhead, their - - "... dark foliage interweaves - In one unbroken roof of leaves. - Underneath whose sloping eaves - The shadows hardly move." - -A cool and quiet spot. Like the poet who found it pleasant, -through the loopholes of retreat, "To see the tumult and not feel -the stir," we too, from the kindly shadow of these great chestnut -trees, can look out on the woodland in its pride of summer glory, -with its flowers and its fragrance and its greenness, nor feel the -heat and glare and the pitiless weight of the sunshine. - -Day after day, week after week, there has been - - "... that nameless splendour everywhere - That makes the passers in the city street - Congratulate each other as they meet." - -Yet perhaps the full beauty of such weather, its wealth of -flowers and foliage, its abundance of bird and insect life, above -all its half-tropic heat, is for the country rather than the town. -Among stone walls and pavements summer days are too often -weariness, and summer nights but stifling. In the country the -glare of noon is tempered by cool winds, softened by grass and -foliage. There, too, the hot air of night is sweetened with the -breath of honeysuckle and jasmine; and through wide open windows -the scent of the roses floats up to us - - "Like sweet thoughts in a dream." - -If the town is close and sultry, woodland and green lane are at -their best and sweetest. In the country at any rate-- - - "There is no price set on the lavish summer, - And June may be had by the poorest comer." - -Though the flowers of May have passed into a proverb, it is June -after all that gives to the fields and by ways their crowning -grace and beauty. May draped all the trees with fresh young -foliage, deepened April's mist of bluebells, and whitened the -hedge-rows with blossoming hawthorn. May was a month of broad -effects and lavish colouring. Here she silvered a whole field with -daisies, as with a light fall of snow. And here, like a cunning -alchemist, she changed with her buttercups the green of a rich -pasture-land to a blaze of living gold. But there is yet more of -beauty in the fields of June. Even in the Tropics, travellers tell -us, there is nothing so superbly beautiful as an English midsummer -meadow--whether an upland pasture, with its hawkweed and lotus, -its scented grasses and sweet clover blooms; or a low-lying field -along some loitering stream, where, in the swampy soil, among the -tasselled sedges, spring fiery spikes of orchis, foamy -meadow-sweet, and tall flower-de-luce. - -If June is the most flowery of months, May is certainly the most -musical. The days are drawing near when there will settle on the -green world of woods and lanes and meadows the silence of the -summer. The grey dawn is still almost as full as ever of sweet -sounds. The songs of thrush and blackbird are still glorious in -the evening twilight. Wren and robin still sing to us at intervals -from dawn to sunset. But through the long hours of daylight we -miss already the notes of many a wandering singer, for whom June -is the limit of the season. Already the cuckoo's voice is -breaking. We have but another week, at the farthest, of the -nightingale's song. His is a superb and matchless melody. Many a -time, it is true, have the notes of thrush or blackcap, or even of -sedge-warbler, been mistaken for it. Sweet singers, all of them. -Yet it is strange that anyone who has ever fairly listened to the -chief of song could confuse with his magnificent strains the note -of the most musical of thrushes. - -But it is to singers less skilled and less famous than the -nightingale that the woodland owes its greatest charm: light -wingèd dryads of the trees, without whose songs and call notes, -and mere life and movement, the lover of Nature thinks that -"summer is not summer, nor can be." The willow-warbler's song, a -little careless cadence of soft notes that at intervals seems to -filter lightly down among the branches, is the very soul of -sunshine and sweet air. The wood wren's call is like no other -sylvan sound. Its plaintive, long-drawn, monotonous notes, often -growing louder towards the close, are sometimes so sonorous and -far-reaching that it is hard to credit they can come from so -diminutive a singer. His actual song is a little gush of simple -notes again and again repeated, from his perch on the end of some -leafless bough high up among the trees. It is not remarkable for -melody, though now and then there is a very real touch of -sweetness in it, and after the first rather deliberate beginning -it is so hurried as to give the listener the impression that the -bird is trying to crowd twenty notes into a single beat. - -The whitethroat is another hasty singer, but he has a greater gift -of music, and his manner of singing--sometimes taking short -flights into the air the while, and then diving back into the -thicket--his quick movements, the almost luminous whiteness of his -swelling throat, rank him among the most charming of woodlanders. -Yet his haunt is rather on the skirts of the wood than in the -heart of it. He is still more a roadside singer, and greatly given -to building his frail nest of grass in the thorny depths of some -old hedge-row, or even among the nettles on the bank. - -But of all the sylvan minstrels the blackcap has, after the -nightingale, the most silvery tongue, and we hear so much more of -him in the country generally--not only is he more widely -distributed, but he sings again when his brood are fledged and -flown, which the nightingale never does--that to most of us he is -much the more familiar, perhaps we might even say he is more -highly prized than the acknowledged chief of song himself. Watch -him now, before household cares have for the time taken up all his -care and attention. See him balanced, with his breast of tender -grey, his black crest slightly lifted, on a spray of briar that, -swaying underneath his weight, trembles with the energy of his -wild and mellow notes--now clear and loud, and reaching, it may -be, far beyond the limits of the wood; now tender and soft and -low, and low and lower yet, until at a yard's distance hardly -heard. A beautiful song. A song that to White of Selborne, as -doubtless to many a Nature lover since his day, always brought -back with its wild sweetness the lines of Amien's song: - - "Under the greenwood tree, - Who loves to lie with me - And turn his merry note - Unto the sweet bird's throat: - Come hither, come hither, come hither." - -A bird flies into the tree near by. A blue-tit, smartest of his -race. He stands a moment on the edge of a hole in the level bough, -looks round twice, then dives in and disappears. And out of that -stronghold of his, snugly lined with moss, and hair, and -feathers, he will not stir for you or any man. But yonder is a -figure, in a tree some twenty yards away, from which perhaps even -the bold blue-tit would fly in terror. A lithe brown creature is -climbing leisurely out of a hole high up in the trunk--a weasel, -searching for eggs, no doubt. Up the tree he goes, more lightly -even than a squirrel, right to the very topmost branches. Now down -he comes again, head first, and makes his way to another tree. As -he canters lightly through the long grass he pauses now and then -to rear on his hind legs and peer sharply round over the green -jungle, looking for the moment, quite bird-like. Two more trees he -climbs, searching every likely spot among the boughs, prying into -every hole and cranny--clearly a birds'-nester born. A master of -woodcraft, too, for when you move nearer for a better view, he -vanishes. He is there all right, lying close behind some branch, -no doubt; but he is as completely screened from sight as if he -wore the magic cap of Perseus. He is a tiny figure at the most. -The birds take no notice of him. The yellow-hammer goes on with -his sleepy tune, and the greenfinch in the elm above him with his -yet sleepier drawl, while a linnet in the tree near by sings -undisturbed his sweet and dainty song, that in itself is like a -gleam of sunshine. - -The whole woodland is astir with life and movement and sweet -sounds of song. Look at that bullfinch yonder, balanced on a spray -of woodbine, that swings lightly beneath his weight. Leaning -forward a little, with his black head turned slightly on one side, -he picks off, as if in pure mischief, the dainty tufts that -cluster on the branches near him, while the ruined leaves fall in -a very shower. A beautiful figure. There is not in Nature a hue -more lovely than the exquisite flush of crimson on his breast. -Close by him, as if by way of foil to his perfect beauty, sit two -sober-clad companions, dull and grey and colourless, yet to the -full as mischievous as he. - -Sunny spaces in the wood are filled with hovering insects, whose -tiny figures rise and fall like motes in the warm air; beetles for -the most part, not flies; small, black, long-bodied beetles, the -very same that give us such annoyance by getting in our eyes in -the twilight. - -Butterflies cross and recross the clearing--some so brilliant in -their whiteness that they almost suggest yet brighter gleams of -sunshine. Some, again, are dark and sombre, and like patches of -moving shadow. Now one brave in black and scarlet flashes past. -Now one on wings of golden brown sails leisurely along. And some -there are, small, sylph-like figures, that float lightly by, as -blue as the unclouded heaven overhead. Some moths, too, are -abroad, even at this hour and in this fierce sunshine--moths clad -in the very softest tints, the most ethereal tones of fawn and -grey, of brown and yellow. Some are without a mark on their pure -colouring, and some are daintily pencilled with shell-like lines -and bars. To and fro in the sunbeams, whose misty shafts slant -through the thickets, hover a crowd of winged things--of great -bees, black or yellow or tipped with fiery red, flies of many -hues, beetles light and dark--and the sound of their multitudinous -wings seems to fill the hot summer air. Insects make up no small -part, perhaps even the larger part, of the life of the woodland. - -The woods just now are swarming with caterpillars, many of which, -perhaps even the majority, belong to the class called geometers, -from the curious way in which they move along, arching their -bodies in a fashion that reminds the observer of a man measuring -a distance by "spanning" it with his hand. A much more curious -point about them is their wonderful mimicry of the twigs of the -tree on which they live: a fact which has earned for them the name -of "stick" caterpillars. Their skins are the colour of the bark, -their bodies have knots and markings exactly like twigs. And when -one of them waits motionless, standing erect on its hinder set of -feet--an attitude it can preserve for hours together, it looks so -like a piece of stick that even a naturalist has related how he -was about to prune a twig from one of his fruit trees, and had -even touched it with his knife before he saw that it was not -vegetable at all, but one of these "stick" caterpillars. One -cannot help wondering if birds are taken in too. - -The curious movements of these geometers are due to their -comparatively scant supply of legs. There is an amusing ballad -called "The Bishop and the Caterpillar," which describes, after -the manner of "Ingoldsby," how a great dignitary of the Church -inspected a village school. The children acquitted themselves -well:-- - - "For the Bishop, to his great pleasure, found - That they knew the date when our Queen was crowned. - And the number of pence which make up a pound; - - And the oceans and seas which our island bound; - That the earth is nearly, but not quite, round; - Their orthography, also, was equally sound." - -The gratified examiner, declaring that it was only fair for the -scholars to have their turn, proposed they should question him. A -small boy in the audience, unawed even by a Bishop, instantly - - "... raised his head - And abruptly said: - How many legs has a caterpillar got?" - -Here was a poser indeed. Kings of Israel, now, his lordship might -have known; very likely the date of the Second Punic War; perhaps -even some of the counties of England. But caterpillars were beyond -his ken. It was to no purpose that he privately invoked, under -cover of making a speech, the aid of the rector, of the curates, -of the schoolmaster. Not one of them knew. In vain was the beadle -sent out in hot haste to interrogate passers-by. He returned -disconsolate, and whispered to the anxious Bishop "Nobody knows." -In the end the questioner himself supplied the information, and - - "... with a countenance gay, - Said 'Six, for I counted 'em yesterday.'" - -It rather spoils the point of the story that, although -caterpillars have indeed, on one-half of the body, the six legs of -the perfect or winged condition, most of them have ten more, very -substantial ones too, on the other half, making not six, but -sixteen. Some, indeed, have only fourteen; while these geometers -are driven to adopt the attitudes they do because they have to -shuffle along as best they can, on no more than ten legs -altogether. - -There are few points of brighter colour among the world of green. -Not many brilliant flowers grow well in the very heart of the -woods. Along the paths there is a fringe of hawkweed and crowfoot -and yellow cistus. And where the sunlight is less broken by the -trees there are patches of red lychnis and tall crowns of white -cow parsley. In the clearings strawberries run riot, in flower -still, but with scantier harvest than usual of the small sweet -fruit, in whose pleasant flavour is a dash of woodland wildness. -There is honeysuckle everywhere, trailing on the ground, creeping -among the bushes, and climbing up out of the green tangle, laying -hold of trees and saplings to help it to the light. And as it -climbs it twines with fatal clasp about the friendly stems, slowly -tightening its embrace, sometimes cutting deep into the wood, -sometimes even killing the branch outright, and going up until at -times a green canopy of it crowns boughs thirty feet above the -ground, while its flowery clusters scent the woodland. And as -evening darkens, "What time the blackbird pipes to vespers from -his perch," when the heat of the long summer day gives place to -the cooler, sweeter air of night, the fragrance grows until the -whole glade is conscious of its subtle charm. Briar bushes there -are in plenty, and some of them are lightly set with delicate -blossoms. But the dog-roses are at their best, not here, but on -the skirts of the wood, where the long, swaying sprays are crowded -with those sweetest flowers of June. - -But the glory of the woodland is in its trees; in its sturdy oaks, -and stately beeches, its old Scotch firs and graceful larch trees. -There is no season when the larch is without some charm. It is -beautiful in the springtime, when its sprays are set with -exquisite red blossoms, like fairy jewel-work. It is beautiful -when among soft tufts of green the brown cones harden in the -pleasant sun of May. It is beautiful now, when the flowing, -feathery plumes wear the soberer hue of summer. Nor is the beauty -greatly less when, in the chill autumn days, that hue changes -slowly into yellow. Nor is it wholly lost, even in the dead of -winter, when, in the frosty sunshine, the bare boughs seem to glow -like gold against the pale blue sky. - -The mist of bluebells, that lingered here so late, has vanished. -The fiery spikes of early orchis are all spent and faded. The -'lords and ladies' have given place to little clusters of green -berries, that these sunny days will swiftly ripen to red beads of -coral. Yet there are other flowers, with even more of beauty, that -love the greater heat of summer. Few are more lovely than the -white butterfly orchis; fewer still more fragrant. It has allies -that mimic with marvellous faithfulness the forms of bees and -flies and spiders. They are plants of the heath, of the sunny -meadow, and the open hill. But here is one, perhaps the least -striking of the clan, that will flourish in the shadow, and that -grows well even here in the half twilight of the trees. The -quiet-coloured petals of the tway-blade are not like fly or bee or -any insect. Each floweret on its plain, unscented spike is the -little green figure of a man, a man with outstretched arms. One -might almost fancy that the plant was copying shapes long lost to -our dulled vision; that this quiet nook was not alone - - "... for pretty cares - With mate and nest, - A lurking-place of tender airs - From south and west;" - -but that it was peopled still by the green-clad gnomes of old -belief; that these woodland aisles were even now a place - - "Where elves hold midnight revel, - And fairies linger still." - -[Illustration: THE HARVEST MOON.] - - - - -CHILL OCTOBER. - - -It is the heavy rain no less than the chilly air, the wet days as -well as the frosty nights, which have earned for October its added -name, and which mark this month so clearly as the real end of a -season. We often get a long spell of warm weather in September; it -may linger even over the opening of October; but it is October -that sets for good and all its fiery seal upon the ruins of the -summer. Yet October has been a delightful month; a month of golden -dawns, bright days, and fiery sunsets. And it is closing with -quiet moonlight nights under whose gauzy veil the landscape lies -transfigured, and far hills show faintly as through mists of -dreamland. This is St. Martin's Summer: - - "The summer and the winter here - Midway a truce are holding. - A soft, consenting atmosphere - Their tents of peace enfolding." - -The colours of the leaves, that so long seemed cold and sullen, -are swiftly changing in the sharpening air of night. Among the -tattered foliage there broaden, day after day, gleams of that -fiery splendour that in a few weeks will flare through the length -and breadth of the woodland, like the afterglow of summer. The few -last leaves of the wild cherry shine like fire in the coppice, and -the horse chestnuts in the meadow are all gold from base to crown. -Dead leaves lie thick upon the rustling pathway, where brown of -oakleaf, crimson of beech, russet of maple, and gold of elm, lends -each its own particular note of colour to the splendid carpet; -while the foliage of the sycamore, still clinging to its brilliant -stalks, is painted with such varied tints, such greens and browns, -such inky blacks and flaming yellows, that one might almost fancy -some young dryad had been wandering through the woodland with her -brush and had tried her colours on the leaves. - -So bright the days have been, so warm is the lingering sunshine, -that even the thrush has been trying over his old sweet songs, yet -to airs so quiet and subdued that they seemed but a reverie of -springtime. All day the robin sings. He is the minstrel of the -autumn. Now when other birds are silent his voice rings clear -through the deserted woods, and we realise more fully how passing -sweet are his familiar melodies. - -There are few signs of life among the autumn trees. The jays -wrangle as they gather the acorns, and at times a troop of -fieldfares chatter as they pass. But the sounds of the October -woodland are the patter of falling leaves--now filling the air -like rain, and now whirled along the path in fiery eddy; the rush -of the wind among the rocking tops; and now and then the creak of -branches interlocked, that chafe and fret almost with a cry of -pain, such as in old days, ere Pan was dead, startled the -woodcutter on the slopes of Apennine. - -We wander in the woods, however, with senses unattuned to sights -and sounds about us. Had we but eyes we could not fail to see some -life stirring even now. Were our ears but trained aright we should -be aware of ceaseless sounds of movement. The birds are here, had -we but the gift to see them. If no ringdove coos in the shadow of -the pines, we may hear as our footsteps rustle on the leafy ways, -the crash of wings among distant branches. If no woodpecker's -shout breaks in upon the stillness, we may watch the silent figure -of the forester in green close crouched against the giant elm. If -no magpie chatters in the tree-tops we may at least catch a -glimpse of black and white plumage as the wary old campaigner -dives into the thickets. This old fir just off the pathway, with -its close growing foliage and its canopies of ivy and woodbine, is -a screen at once from the wind and the keen eyes of the -woodlanders. In its shadow we may stand aside and watch the life -of the woods go by, perhaps even overhear some of the secrets of -the - - "Light wingèd dryads of the trees." - -Jays, that just now were busy over the acorns, are moving -leisurely down the slope, absorbed in gossip, wholly unconscious -of any spectator of their movements. There is a wide difference -between the quick, impetuous actions of a startled jay, on the -look-out for danger, and his lazy, loitering manner when he is -quite at his ease, and thinks no one is watching him. Now, as -they come nearer, they break into a chorus of loud, harsh notes, -mingling with their own wild sylvan speech scraps borrowed from -magpie and missel-thrush. Now one mimics the hoarse cry of a crow -just sailing over. Now they all join in a babel of odd, -inarticulate, indescribable sounds. Still nearer they come. -Suddenly one alights close by, three yards off at farthest. He is -off again in a moment, too scared to speak. Here comes another. -He, too, settles near, but notices nothing. What a handsome fellow -he is! What a splendid touch of blue there is in his wing--a blue -such as no sapphire or lapis or turquoise could really rival for a -moment. His crest is slightly lifted; the sunlight glistens on his -polished bill. Easily he sways on a tall ash sapling, looking idly -round. Suddenly he starts--is gone. One by one his comrades reach -the tree. One after one the startled birds take wing again and -vanish in the thickets. The rustle of their quick movements dies -away. Their clamorous cries grow fainter, and then cease. Silence -settles down once more--the silence of a sleep. - -The sharp touch of winter in October has changed the whole face of -things. Cold and wind and wet have set their mark alike on -woodland and on garden border. Everywhere there is change. The -birds of summer have all left us. No bee or wasp is stirring. In -this pallid sunshine are no gnats to poise in cloudy column. No -moths hover on quivering wings among the ruined flowers. Of the -shy four-footed creatures of whose lives we know so little, some -are still broad awake and busy, caring nothing for the cold; but -some have already entered on their winter sleep. The dormouse is -rolled in his snug ball of moss, the hedgehog is buried in his bed -of leaves. Grass-snake and viper have crawled away into warm -hiding places in banks or among the roots of trees. The frog has -buried himself in his cold bed of mud at the bottom of the pond. -The toad has squeezed his burly figure into a hole in a tree -stump, or under some sheltering stone. It is the fondness of the -toad for hiding in holes and corners--not only in winter, but to -some extent all the year--which has given rise to so many -marvellous tales of the discovery of toads in the heart of trees -or in solid blocks of marble. Toads may often be found in holes. -But never yet was one found living in any cavity whatsoever where -there was no communication with the outer world, no chink through -which insects might make their way after the manner of the fly -into the parlour of the spider. - -Long before the frosts of October, and while the weather was still -warm and sunny, snails were to be seen collected in hundreds on -the fences of fields and lanes--on their way, no doubt, to winter -quarters. Though whether they expected to find suitable lodgings -up there at the tops of the palings, or whether they were only -sunning themselves for the last time before crawling down to earth -to bury themselves in the holes into which the posts were driven, -is perhaps less clear. - -Some few snails are provided already with close-fitting doors. -Others will seal up their gates with a temporary barricade, behind -which they will sleep until the trumpet-call of spring shall break -on their dull senses. Do they dream, these snails? Do visions of -plump cabbages and brilliant dahlias flit through their molluscous -minds? Do they in slumber enjoy again the midnight raid upon the -marrow-bed, or cry havoc on the choicest lilies of the garden? - -There is a strange stillness in the woods these autumn days; a -mournful silence, as of regret for the lost summer. The birds are -quiet; the insects, whose life and beauty lent so much to the -brightness of the summer, are dying in the sharpening air, or are -creeping away to hide themselves for the winter. October is a -fatal month for the lower forms of life. The different species of -our native insects are numbered by tens of thousands, and of the -myriads of these with which the air of August, and even of -September, teemed, only a few, a very few, will survive the -chillier dawns and sunsets of this month, which marks the limit of -their lives. At the best their lives are brief. The lives of -insects, in their perfect condition, are more often numbered only -by months, or even weeks: while the little sad-coloured -stone-flies that haunt the banks of streams, entering on their -last stage without mouths, spend only a few days of strange -existence; and there are other flies which, born after sunset and -dying before sunrise, never see the full light of day at all. - -Those insects which survive the winter do so as a rule by retiring -into the shelter of buildings, into crevices in walls, or into -hollow trees, and there remaining, motionless and apparently -lifeless, all through the cold season, coming out again at the -return of spring. Some butterflies are especially fond of taking -up their quarters for the winter in the roofs of houses; and the -cornices of unoccupied rooms seem particularly favourite -resting-places. There is a case on record in which a Small -Tortoiseshell butterfly, having entered a church during -service-time one Sunday in August, settled calmly on a rafter over -the heads of the congregation, closed its wings, and then and -there took up its quarters for the season. It was happily beyond -the reach of the verger's broom, though under the eyes of the -clergyman,--himself a naturalist, and there it hung, week after -week, all the winter through. At length, on a warm Sunday in May, -after a sleep of just nine months' duration, the little creature -opened its wings again and fluttered down from its perch, -"apparently as fresh in colour and condition as if just out of the -chrysalis". - -In the same way another of the race flew into a sitting-room in a -little country town, one day during the hot weather of September, -and finally established itself in the cornice, where for six long -months it hung motionless. One fine morning in the following March -it was fluttering at the window. The sash was lifted. The little -creature dashed out into the sunshine, almost with the speed of a -swallow. - -A striking feature of the autumn garden some years is the -multitude of sober-coloured moths hovering among the flower-beds, -morning, noon, and night. The moths themselves not only do no harm -in the garden, but are of no small service to the gardener by -carrying pollen on their tufted heads from flower to flower, and -thus unconsciously fertilising many a blossom that might otherwise -have borne no seed at all. But it is quite otherwise with the -caterpillars, insignificant but noxious little grubs, which, in -some seasons, appear in such hosts as to devastate whole fields. -In Germany it has been found necessary to use a machine, drawn by -horses, to sweep up these caterpillars, which are collected from -it in sacks and then destroyed. - -The perfect insect, the commonest perhaps of all the moths, is a -beautiful little creature, though there is nothing striking in its -colouring. It is known as the "Silver Y," from a conspicuous mark -on each of its front wings. Its scientific name of "Gamma" has -been given to it from another and more learned reading of the -letter. - -It has been found very difficult to bestow a rational English -"popular name" on each of the two thousand species of moths that -inhabit these islands. Some of the names, indeed, appear almost, -if not quite, meaningless, while some, on the other hand, are -highly appropriate. The Humming-bird Hawk moth is marvellously -like the bird whose name it bears, as every one must admit who -watches it poise with outstretched trunk before a flower, on wings -that move so swiftly that they show like a halo round it. Two -other Hawk moths are called Elephants, but this is because of the -strange-looking head of the caterpillar, which can be extended -like a sort of dwarf proboscis. Another moth, the Death's Head, -bears a skull and cross-bones on its back. - -The moths of the large class known as Geometers are so called -because the caterpillars, as they loop themselves along, have the -air of measuring the space they traverse, as a man might span it -with his hand. The Tiger is a moth of brilliant colouring. The -Widow and the Old Lady are clad in sombre hues. The Quakers are -mostly dressed in soft shades of sober brown, while the sixteen -varieties of Footmen wear among them almost as many varieties of -livery. - -Such names might, indeed, give rise to misconception. We can well -understand the feelings of the old market-woman who, toiling up -the steep path through the wood with her eggs and butter, -overheard a party of schoolboys talking over their captures of the -day. We can picture her dismay as she heard one youngster describe -how he had chased a small Elephant through the wood, and just -missed capturing a Tiger. We can imagine her alarm at hearing -another boy boast of having killed two Quakers and a Footman. And -how, at a distant shout from another member of the party that he -had just knocked down an Old Lady, she dropped her basket and fled -for her life. - -But of all the signs in Nature's calendar that mark, like figures -on a dial, the movement of the seasons, there is none more -certain, none more full of mournful augury, than the passing of -the birds. - -Their going is secret, silent; they vanish unseen and unheard. We -have learnt much in recent years with regard to migration. With -one single exception, we know where every one of the summer -migrants goes to rear its brood. The haunt of one only--the -curlew-sandpiper--still defies discovery. But there is as much -cause for wonder as ever that the stork and the swallow observe -the time of their coming. And how some birds contrive to find -their way over vast stretches of unbroken sea is as great a -mystery as when Anacreon saw the - - "Cranes from hoary winter fly, - To flutter in a kinder sky;" - -or when the Hebrew watched the wandering hawk stretch her wings -toward the south. - -Among the few sounds that break the stillness of the autumn night -is a faint and hurried cry, that at times may be heard out of the -darkness--the note of some bird passing over unseen. It is the cry -of the redwing--a feeble note, and yet the very trumpet-call of -coming winter. In the spring the sight of the first swallow raises -hopes of better times, of sunshine and warm weather. In autumn -this voice calling out of the dark is a warning that cold and -hunger are driving the redwing from its Northern home, that the -Arctic night is settling down among the Norway hills. - -Vast indeed is the array of these feathered fugitives. And if most -of us see but little of plover or wild duck, of goose or swan or -sandpiper, we may perhaps hear them as they pass. Often in the -silence of these autumn nights, or even when the wind is blowing, -we may hear the swift flight of the mallard overhead, or the -musical voices of plovers; perhaps at times the trumpet-notes of -geese, or even the whistling of the whooper's wings. Now and then, -too, there floats down out of the starlit stillness the wild call -of some unknown bird, the voice of some nameless stranger crying -in the dark: - - "And with no language but a cry." - -[Illustration: ON SEDGMOOR.] - - - - -TURF MOOR: A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND. - - -The traveller who at this season of the year is whirled along the -iron highway of the northern part of Somersetshire will perhaps be -led to form but a poor opinion of West Country scenery, for he -sees little from the rail of the heath-covered heights of Exmoor, -of the wooded glens of Quantock, or of the green heart of Mendip. -The line is laid for many miles across a wide stretch of low-lying -moorland--so low that it would be flooded each high tide were it -not for the old sea wall by the shore. There are parts of the -monotonous expanse that may well remind the wayfarer of the -opening lines of one of Ingoldsby's ballads: - - "O, Salisbury Plain is bleak and bare, - At least so I've heard many people declare, - For I fairly confess that I never was there. - Not a shrub nor a tree, nor a bush can you see, - No hedges, no ditches, no gates, no stiles, - Much less a house or a cottage for miles." - -There are indeed parts of this great plain that are almost -absolutely bare of timber save for a few scanty rows of pollard -willow trees. There are hardly any hedge-rows, there are few -gates, and fewer stiles. The cottages are far apart, built only on -the low risings--once islands in the Severn sea, which the -moorfolk fondly call "hills," because they are not "drownded out" -in flood time. - -Yet there is one striking difference. The Somersetshire -marshes--far more level than the green waves of the great -Wiltshire Down--are cut up by a network of innumerable ditches, -narrow indeed, yet not always easily passed, as the little army of -King Monmouth proved only too well. These "rhines," as they are -called in the West Country, take the place of hedge-rows, and -serve also to drain away into the sluggish moorland stream the -water which in rainy seasons would collect on the low ground. Turf -Moor is a strange looking country, with its interminable stacks of -black peat, its great hollows from which turf has been taken, its -miles of straight-cut dykes by which the water is drained away -into the rivers. The sombre hue of the great plain is relieved by -picturesque groups of turf-cutters, by dense masses of noble -Scotch firs--trees that flourish well in the peaty soil--and by an -occasional belt of coppice that runs in among the peat workings--a -jungle of reeds and bulrushes, of bracken and tall royal fern, a -sort of No-Man's Land, a very paradise for beast and bird. - -The moormen happen on strange things sometimes when they are -digging in the peat. It is no very rare thing for the -turf-cutter's tool to clash on pottery or rude weapons far below -the present level of the moor. Some years since a bow was thus -discovered, whose once heavy yew wood was so altered by its long -soaking that it was as light as cork. At one place an iron anchor -was found, at another the paddle of an old canoe. - -There is a tradition in the marshes that, years ago, whenever -after a dry summer the water was low in one of the great rhines, a -boat became visible, embedded in the bank. "Squire Phippen's Big -Ship," as it was called, has long been lost sight of, but in more -recent times another canoe has been found on the moor, which -happily has met with the attention it deserves. - -Some labourers who had been employed every autumn to clear out the -rhines on Cranhill Moor, near Glastonbury, had often been -inconvenienced at one point by what they thought was the trunk of -an old tree--such as are frequently found buried in the peat. The -place was pointed out to a local archæologist, Mr. Arthur Bulleid, -of Glastonbury, and he saw at once that the supposed tree-trunk -was an old British canoe, in splendid preservation, most skilfully -worked out of a single log. The end which had projected from the -bank is damaged by the spades with which the labourers had -repeatedly in past years tried to cut it away, but the rest is -uninjured. This curious old craft is flat-bottomed, and pointed at -each end, just as are the boats that still navigate the rhines of -the district. It measures about seventeen feet in length, is -perhaps thirty inches broad, and ten or eleven inches deep. - -This canoe might have continued for years a mere obstacle to the -clearing of the rhine--now a small ditch, but once a navigable -water-way--were it not that the whole district was interested in -the recent discovery of an ancient British village, of which it is -safe to say that few things of more importance have rewarded -recent archæological research in this country. - -The ancient Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and Northern Italy, -though our knowledge of them is not yet half-a-century old, are -familiar wherever Archæology is studied. In the forty years which -have elapsed since they were first examined, it has been found -that there are many places, even now, where huts, constructed on -the same plan, are still in use. Such dwellings exist in the -shallows along the Amazon and the Orinoco. Travellers have -described them, as they are at this moment, in Borneo and New -Guinea. Cameron found them in the heart of the Dark Continent. To -this very day Roumelian fishermen inhabit huts built on piles over -the water, in the same spot where, twenty-five centuries ago, the -children of the Paeonian Lake Dwellers were, according to -Herodotus, tied by the leg to prevent them falling into the water. - -But, long before the discovery of the Swiss Lake Villages in 1853, -another somewhat similar form of primitive habitation was known, -confined, as far as can be at present ascertained, to countries -inhabited by Celtic races. This was the Crannog, or Marsh Village, -from the Celtic word _crann_, a tree--not built on piles in the -water, but on platforms of timber laid over brushwood arranged on -the soft soil of a morass. The existence of such dwellings had -long been known, but little attention was paid to them before the -famous researches of Keller, in Switzerland. Modern Archæologists -have, however, explored at least a hundred of these Villages in -Ireland, and about half that number in Scotland; and many most -interesting remains have been recovered from them. - -The Scotch and Irish Crannogs appear to belong to the Iron Age. -Implements of the more primitive materials have, it is true, been -found in them, but they were not such as were in use in the Bronze -or Stone Ages. They differ both in shape and in the style of their -ornamentation. A few stone celts have been found in Irish -Crannogs, but no object belonging to a time earlier than the Age -of Iron has yet been met with in the Marsh Villages of Scotland. -The metal objects are, as a rule, characteristic of the period -between the 9th and the 12th centuries, though we have evidence -that some of the Irish Crannogs were in use long after that time. -Allusions to them frequently occur in the old writers. We learn -from "The Annals of the Four Masters" that the historic Crannog of -Lough Gabhor--the first that was examined in Ireland--was burnt -A.D. 848, and again, by the Danes, in 933. An account, written at -the time, of the expedition sent by Queen Elizabeth to put down -the rebel Earl of Tyrone, describes a Crannog in County Down, -which "was seated in the midst of a great bog, and no way -accessible but through thick woods, hardly passable. It had about -it two deep ditches, both encompassed with strong pallisadoes, a -very high and thick rampart of timber, and well flanked with -bulwarks. For defence of the place, forty-two musqueteers and some -twenty swordsmen were lodged in it." This was in 1602. Later -still, Sir Felim O'Neill, who had headed the rebellion of 1641, -was captured in a Crannog, in 1642. - -Until recent years no Crannog had been found in this country. The -discovery of a very extensive Settlement of this kind, in the turf -moor near Glastonbury, is thus an event of great Archæological -interest, which is much increased by the fact that, whereas the -remains found in the Scotch and Irish Crannogs point to a period -so recent as from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries, the -Marsh Village discovered in Somersetshire has yielded, so far, no -object which appears to be so late even as the Roman occupation. - -But these broad flats on Turf Moor, their patches of coppice, the -edges of the green "droves," the waste lands where turf has been -cut, and which have been left to recover themselves by the rest -and growth of perhaps half a century, even the very ditches of the -moor, are in summer-time a happy hunting-ground for the -naturalist. - -The plants of these monotonous marshes, the birds, the beasts, the -insects, have a character of their own. In summer-time the meadows -that stretch from rhine to rhine are crimson with orchis and -clover, with sheep sorrel and ragged robin, are golden with -flower-de-luce, whitened with tall oxeye daisies and soft tufts of -cotton grass. Now the whole moorland is sobered to a dull, -monotonous hue of mingled browns and greys tinged with a -sad-coloured note of green. The rhines that to-day are but -straight-cut belts of water, with no beauty and hardly more of -interest, were filled then to the very brim with sedges and iris -and tall stems of flowering rush. Along their hedges grew teazels -and skullcap and comfrey, and down their steep banks the moneywort -poured its lavish streams of gold. Few plants of any sort are -to-day visible in the water. But the still depths were covered -then with a green film of weed, crossed and re-crossed with a very -labyrinth of tracks, where rat or moorhen or water-rail had cut -its devious way. Here grew the arrow-head, with its beautiful -white flowers. Here floated the star-like blossoms of the frogbit. -And here the bladderwort, that now rests unseen on the mud at the -bottom, buoyed up by multitudinous little floats of air, lifted -its exquisite spike above the surface. - -The busy life that in the summer filled these interminable ditches -has ebbed away. The green jungle of flags and water plants where -the sedge warbler sang--not from dawn till nightfall only, but -from sundown till the east was grey--is gone. The reeds among -whose slender stems the warbler wove her exquisite nest are -beaten down. The peewits who reared their scanty broods among -these open meadows are here still. Even the quails that hid their -beautiful eggs among the summer clover may still be couching in -the withered grass; and water-rails find shelter still among the -brown and broken reeds. - -The banks are honeycombed with the burrows of water-rats--as most -people call them. Beautiful creatures, not really rats at all, and -having little in common with their evil-minded, mischievous, -objectionable namesakes. Their habit of burrowing is perhaps their -one fault, and has more than once helped to break down the bank of -a river here, and so deluge the moors with miles of tawny water. -Water-rats are out at all times, all the year, except in the very -coldest weather. But twilight is their favourite hour. Then as you -steal quietly along by the bank you may watch the soft brown balls -of fur crouched on the narrow fringe of shore; may envy their -incomparable feats of diving; may follow their course by a slight -ripple on the surface as they swim to some secret hiding place. -The owls know their habits well. This very month a barn owl was -seen in the twilight, flying over the moor on its soft and -soundless wings. Suddenly it swooped below the bank of a rhine, -reappearing a moment later with a water-rat in its claws. Scared -by a shout, it dropped its prey, but the rat, though warm, was -stone dead. - -Much less often seen are the water-shrews, whose frolics you may -watch in broad daylight if you are so very fortunate as to come -upon a party of them at play, swimming round and round like the -tiny beetles that spin in mazy circles on the surface. The water -itself is, in the summer-time, crowded with life. Over the surface -skim rowing-flies and water-spiders. Under it a countless crowd of -creatures live out their little day--beetles and water-scorpions, -active little boatmen that paddle up and down with dexterous oars, -caddis larvæ carrying about with them their houses built of grains -of sand, or scraps of reed, or of a multitude of tiny shells. -Shells there are everywhere, small some of them, but even the very -smallest revealing under the microscope forms as marvellous as -that of the nautilus itself. Slender newts, too, swarm in the -still water, and great black tritons, the terror of the moorfolk, -in whose eyes even the viper is hardly more venomous. - -Not to every one is it given to appreciate the beauty and the -wonder of the inhabitants of this happy hunting-ground. In such a -paradise two naturalists had been hard at work through a hot -summer afternoon. They were stretched contentedly by the roadside, -when a burly, red-faced farmer driving by drew rein, and seeing -their nets upon the grass asked them what sport they had had, and -if it was eels or flounders they had been catching. They proceeded -to explain. "Oh, bitles," said the farmer, somewhat -contemptuously. "And what be they vur, then?" This was a more -difficult point. It was not at all easy to make him see that there -could be any use in hoarding up such "common ornery rubbish" as -that. Butterflies, now, he could understand, or "bird eggs." He -himself had collected "bird eggs" when he was a boy. But "bitles! -Well," said he at last, "good day. I must be gwine"; and he drove -slowly off. He had not got more than fifty yards along the road, -however, when he pulled up again, and turning half round in his -seat, called out, "Hi! but I can't think what ee can want they -bitles vur!" - -[Illustration: WINTER IN THE MARSHES.] - - - - -TURF MOOR: THE FROZEN MARSHES. - - -It is now some years since, through the giving way of the bank of -one of the moorland rivers, a large part of the low-lying land in -the heart of Somersetshire was under water all through the autumn. -Many tenants of cottages on the moor were, as they would put it, -"drownded out," and there were outlying villages that for a long -while could only be reached by means of boats. During a recent -autumn another wide area in the same county was flooded. Frost -set in while a vast tract of land was still inundated. Miles of -flooded marshland were entirely frozen over, and many cottages, -after standing in the water for months past, were surrounded by -the ice. So sharp was the cold that, on the second day of the -frost, the fortunate few who were able to avail themselves of the -opportunity had a perfect skating-ground, which must have measured -thousands of acres. - -A heavy snowfall, however, has changed the face of things -altogether. Some of the moor men, whose ordinary avocations have -long been at a standstill, have cleared a pretty fair piece of -ice. But the rest is covered with snow. Much of it has sunk and -broken, owing to the draining away of the water from beneath it; -so that, vast as is still the frozen area, comparatively little of -it is good enough to satisfy a fastidious performer. - -But it is a wonderful landscape that, on every side of the little -house which skaters on this part of the marshes use as their -headquarters, lies glistening in the sunshine. A few old alder -trees and storm-beaten Scotch firs shelter the cottage a little -from the wind. And its all too scanty stacks and its picturesque -sheds and outbuildings, whose roof of tiles are weathered to -every imaginable shade of red and brown, help to give an air of -warmth and comfort. A primitive place. A place such as might have -given shelter to King Alfred before that desperate fight yonder on -the hills of Ethandune. The master of the house is a neatherd too, -as it happens, and his heifers are at this moment all huddled in -the byres about the cottage, only too glad to make the -acquaintance of a sympathetic stranger. There is no entrance at -the front. The frozen ground has "lifted" and has jammed the door. -You must make your way in through the hospitable-looking -brick-floored kitchen at the back. - -Before the frost began the water was over the garden, and even on -the cottage floor. And now, though the house is clear, the ice -stretches away almost from the threshold, as far as the eye can -see over the level country. It would be hard to picture a scene -more absolutely desolate. On the skyline to the southward, just -seen through the wintry haze, is a long line of low bluehills, -with patches of snow on them dimly showing. Over a dark belt of -fir trees to the eastward rises the Tor of Glastonbury, snow -covered, too, for once. And right to the bases of the hills, over -field after field, stretches for miles the great white plain, -broken only by lines of pollard willows, by tall aspens and clumps -of alder; with patches of furze that look strangely out of place -rising up through the ice, with here and there a gate, -half-hidden, with haystacks standing forlorn upon the wintry -level, and, sadder still, with cottages that, long since rendered -uninhabitable by the water, are now completely surrounded by the -ice. - -In that cottage, some hundred yards farther on, whose walls have -settled so much in the soft peat that there is not a straight line -in all its primitive architecture, the water is still nine inches -deep in all the rooms. The tenant of it is that moor man standing -yonder, lending a helping hand to the skaters preparing for the -ice. A picturesque figure, whose old brown coat, with its endless -varieties of shade would delight the soul of an artist. You can -understand why he wears boots up to his knees when you learn that -every day, from the beginning of December until a fortnight since, -he waded to his door through more than a foot of water. He is -better off since the frost, for now he can slide in. - -A characteristic touch about these cottages is the store of winter -fuel, the stacks of peat heaped against the wall. Almost more -characteristic still is the quaintly-shaped boat, flat-bottomed, -sharp at both ends, that you see in so many gardens; for not only -are floods here far too common, but the innumerable ditches make -convenient waterways for bringing home grass or peat. - -A strange silence broods over the landscape. No birds are visible -save the few that hang about the outbuildings. The flocks of gulls -and the few ducks that were here before the floods were frozen -have all disappeared. Multitudes of skylarks, too, passed over -when the snow set in, but they soon vanished. This was once a -great country for wild-duck. Twenty years ago there were four -decoys almost in sight from this cottage. Now they are all -drained--"let off" as the moor folk put it. The only sound besides -the low lament of the wind among the alders, the plaintive -protests of the heifers in the byres, and the laughter and voices -and occasional clink of steel where the skaters are preparing for -work, is a strange, hollow, booming sound under the ice, or the -sharper crash when it gives way because the water has gone from -under it. It is strange to see great sheets of ice caught in the -bushes or among the alder stems, feet above the general level. - -It is a wintry wind that sweeps over the frozen marshes. But here, -in this sunny corner, with a heap of dry peats to sit on, in the -shelter of a stable on whose door is nailed a lucky horseshoe, -there is the warmth of very summer. - -But hark, the ring of skates upon the ice! And see, the skaters -are leaving their little camping ground just outside the garden. -Already there are moving figures far out on the frozen meadows. As -you watch them start, some bold and fearless, as to the manner -born, some doubtful and hesitating, and hardly venturing to lift -their feet, you might almost read something of their story in -their very movements. - -That tall figure yonder, so absolutely at home upon his skates, -had more time in one long Canadian winter to learn the art he -practises so well than most of us get in a lifetime. And to one -who, in a forced march across the Dominion in the dead of winter, -has tried in vain to sleep on the snow with the thermometer forty -degrees below zero, and who has put down his boiling can of grog -to take it up next minute frozen solid, cold like this is -nothing. And you might have known that the stalwart skater further -out, whose wife is the most graceful among many graceful figures -in the moving throng, gained his first experiences on skates in -latitudes where the frost sometimes holds unbroken for twelve long -dreary weeks. - -The frozen-out moor men are ready enough to volunteer assistance. -And as the day wears on it is really marvellous to see with what -dexterity they carry cups of tea to the skaters; while their dogs, -with an eye to biscuits, make friends with each little group in -turn. A kindly race, these Somerset folks, sunny of face, and -pleasant of speech, in spite of the hard times, and the enforced -idleness and the bitter weather. But they hold strong views as to -the incapacity of engineers who fail to guard against such floods -as this. "What be the use," said one, "of they Drainage -Commissioners, what charges we two and eightpence poundage for -keeping the water off of we? This here flood have lasted since -before Christmas. Here be the rent going on all the time, and the -land won't be no use till May." - -Pleasant it is to watch from this sheltered corner the evolutions -of the skaters. The wind that blows so keen over the miles of -frozen marshland, and that lends a heightened colour to their -glowing faces, cannot reach you here. Pleasant, too, is the scent -of the hay and the breath of cattle from the byres. But pleasanter -still is the ingle nook within the cottage, in a tiny room, so low -that the beam across its ceiling is a trap for even the shortest -of the group on the old settle, by the fragrant fire of peat. By -such a fire it was that Alfred sat. Yet there is a long gap -between the half-shaped bow of the old story and the gun, ancient -as it is, hanging yonder on the wall; and if there are cakes about -this hearth, you will not hear the tall, blue-eyed, winsome damsel -who dispenses them - - "... scold with kindling eye, - In good broad Somerset," - -as the neatherd's wife, a thousand years since, scolded the Royal -fugitive in these very marshes. - -[Illustration: WINSCOMBE--THE CHURCH PORCH.] - - - - -WINSCOMBE: A CAMP OF REFUGE - - -On the edge of a broad valley in the Mendips, on the gentle slope -of a line of low green hills, there stands a quiet hamlet, almost -hidden now among its clustering trees. At the foot of the slope, -standing some way back from the village street, is a white-walled -cottage, whose lawns and garden grounds only a slender fence -divides from the fields that fringe the village. - -On one side of the garden runs a narrow lane, losing itself -presently in the meadows, a quieter backwater of the quiet village -life, in whose old walls and deep-browed hedgerows many birds find -lodging. On the other side, beyond a row of picturesque old sheds -and ruinous old buildings, with brown roofs of thatch and crowns -of thick-growing ivy, stretch the bird-haunted aisles of an -orchard. The nuthatches love its cavernous trees. Its shades are -musical, long before the dawn, with the songs of thrush and -blackbird, of redstart and willow-wren. Among the old buildings -tits and wagtails and robins hide their nests in crannies of the -crumbling masonry. - -But to the garden itself, islanded by lanes and meadows, with its -trees and shrubs, its broad thickets of laurel and rhododendron -and arbutus, the birds come as to a Camp of Refuge. In the tall -evergreen above the gate, wreathed in a great bower of ivy, -blackbirds even now are feeding their young. There are nests in -the lilacs, in the laurels, in the hedges, in the trellis on the -wall. - -Through the open windows the warm air brings all pleasant scents -and sounds. The low of cattle, on distant farms, the mellow -chiming of the old church bells, the rich strains of thrush and -blackbird, the sweet song of the swallow, clink of oxeye, call of -cuckoo, jay's harsh cry, and wood-pecker's light-hearted laughter, -mingle with the perfume of the roses and the woodruff. The -swallows that sing on the brown gable of the barn beyond the -precincts may have their nests plundered by prowling schoolboys. -The hollow trees in the orchard, the chinks in the old wall of the -lane, are not wholly safe from the village birds'-nester. But here -is sanctuary inviolate, from which no bird was ever driven. - -Year after year the fly-catchers repair their nest in the plum -tree trained against the wall. No hand disturbs the martins that -build under the broad eaves. No sweet singer ever here paid with -his life the penalty of his taste for cherries. - -Here no blackbird ever suffered for his raids upon the strawberry -beds. This garden is to him the garden of the laureate: - - "The espaliers and the standards tall - Are thine; the range of lawn and park; - The un-netted black-hearts ripen dark, - All thine, against the garden wall." - -Here the bullfinch may pillage at his will. The only unpardonable -crime that even the house-sparrow can commit is to take wrongful -possession of a martin's nest. Even then the culprit has never -suffered anything but reproaches. Even when, with its own untidy -heap of hay and feathers, it has blocked up a rain-water pipe, the -disaster that it caused was not held warrant for eviction. And -never surely were there sparrows quite so bright of plumage--so -glossy their sleek heads, so rich their chestnut feathers, so -stainless the white bars across their wings. - -Here, too, in the hard winter weather, the birds have learnt by -long experience to come as for corn in Egypt. The missel-thrush -and the nuthatch, the marsh-tit and the oxeye, know well the -brilliant berries they may plunder at their will from the tall -Irish yew before the window. In the very bearing of the birds that -haunt the garden, of the robin and the sparrow and the -song-thrush, that in hard times come to the very window to be fed, -with firm faith in their gentle almoners, you may read the -confidence born of long experience, the result of years of welcome -and protection. - -The fly-catcher brooding on her nest, her glossy head just -showing over the rim of the little cradle she has slung between -the plum-tree and the wall, watches your approach without the -least alarm. And as you stroll between the borders, bright with -thickets of peonies, covered with great rose-like blooms, with -their flags and pansies and pale yellow poppies, and with all -their hundred flowers, she will flicker lightly by to her -favourite resting-place on the rose-hung arch over the garden -path, or to the handle of the walking-stick set upright in the -grass for her sovereign pleasure, or to the leafless laurel bough -that, while shears and pruning-knife are merciless to every other -dead wood in the garden, is spared for her sake alone. - -Watch her for a moment. See how she turns her head this way and -that, keeping a sharp look-out for passing fly or beetle. See how -suddenly she darts from her watch tower, how she hovers for a -moment in the air, with faint click of her sharp bill, flying -lightly back, perhaps beating her prey against the bough a time or -two before she swallows it. There is a saying here that fortune -hangs on giving shelter to the flycatcher: - - "If you scare the flycatcher away, - No good luck will with you stay." - -[Illustration: A MENDIP VILLAGE: WINSCOMBE.] - -But there is no thought of fortune, good or ill, mingled with the -kindly care that has made for so many years a sanctuary of this -quiet spot. The very cat seems to have learnt that--under the eyes -of the family at least--there is close time here, all the year -round, for every bird that flies. - -When Jock is lying at the door, stretched out at length in the -sunshine, you may see a thrush alight within a yard of him, the -picture of righteous indignation, feathers ruffled, wings adroop, -and storm and scold and flutter and gesticulate; while he, his -conscience pricked perhaps--who knows?--by the remembrance of an -early breakfast some fine morning among the lilac bushes, when -that brood of young thrushes disappeared so strangely, blinks with -affected sleepiness at his fierce little accuser. She has even -been seen to perch upon his back, when he, as if remembering some -previous engagement, stretched himself, and yawned, and meekly -walked away. - -At the far end of the lawn, in a nook between the meeting lines of -hedge-row, stand four sheltering elms, joining their heads in a -green canopy, cool and restful. From the seat beneath them you -look out over a broad meadow to the misty hills. The long grass -is bright with myriad flowers, with lotus and hawkweed, and with -yellow crowns of dandelion, whose silvery parachutes now and then -sail over, sinking slowly down the summer air. Somewhere in the -grass, that in a few short weeks will fill the house with the -sweet incense of the hay, a corncrake is calling. It is a strange -note, harsh and unmusical always; heard at night, sometimes -irritating beyond words to paint; yet here, and now, a pleasant -country sound. - -You may watch the shrike yonder, perched motionless on his -favourite hawthorn, in whose shadow his mate is doubtless already -brooding on her eggs. You may listen to the goldfinch singing in -the green mist of meeting branches overhead; see the grey cuckoo -alight on the topmost crest of the great elm that towers above the -meadow; watch the busy starlings as they pass and repass with -hurried flight. And, as through the great masses of lilac, now -beginning to abate their rare perfume, you catch glimpses of hills -and meadows, of the white houses of the village, with its orchards -and its elms, and, crowning these, the grey tower of the church, -looking down like a watchful sentinel on the hamlet lying at its -feet, you feel it was to no fairer spot than this that the poet -called his friend, when he sang: - - "Or if thou tarry, come with the summer. - That welcome comer - Welcome as he. - When noontide sunshine beats on the meadow - A seat in shadow, - We'll keep for thee." - -[Illustration: THE MOWERS.] - - - - -WINSCOMBE: A MIDSUMMER MEADOW. - - -The whirr of the iron mower has ceased at length. Hour after hour -the clashing blades swept in still narrowing circles round and -round the spacious meadow. Now the last swath has fallen. Now in -the centre of the field the machine stands silent; the tired -horses taking toll of the sweet grass that is strewn about their -feet. - -The men lie motionless, their sunburned faces buried in the -fragrant coolness. A few short hours ago this broad field was a -sea of nodding grasses, whose tasselled points lent soft and -changing tints of purple to the long waves that betrayed the light -movements of the air. Sheets of great moon-daisies whitened it. -Here it was golden with dyer's weed and lingering buttercups; and -there it was crimson with fiery touches of red sorrel. Under the -hot noonday sun each waft of air that stirred across it was -fragrant with mingled perfumes, of the scent of hawkweed and lotus -and sweet clover blooms. Its cool depths were stirred by -honey-hunting bees. Wandering butterflies floated over it. Burnet -moths in black and crimson sailed across it on their silken wings. -Now the close shaven sward is strewn with drying grass and fading -flowers. Bee nor butterfly will visit it more. To-morrow night not -a touch of colour will remain of all its mingled beauty, ruined -now past all hope; not a petal of its oxeye daisies, not a -hawkweed unwithered, not a lingering clover bloom. - -The hour is late. Along the low hills that bound the valley hangs -the haze of sunset. There is a faint flush of rose colour on the -soft clouds that drift slowly overhead. The air is still filled -with fragrance. Instead of the sweet incense of the clover, there -is the scent of new-mown hay. - -For the breath of the lost flowers of the meadow there are all the -perfumes of the one garden that gives upon the field--of roses all -in bloom on arch and trellis, of clumps of tall sweet peas, white -and red and rich imperial purple, of the delicate wild pinks, -rooted at will in the old garden wall. And, although the last -blossom has faded from the hawthorns round the meadow, slowly, and -as with reluctance, delicate dog-roses are scattered broadcast all -along the hedge-rows, and the woodbine sprays are rich already -with pale sweet clusters. - -This is a flowery haytime. Surely there was never more lavish -wealth of roses on the hedges, nor can one even fancy broader -sheets of oxeye daisies in the mowing grass. - -Along the hedges the machine has left a fringe of tall grasses -still unmown. And this green jungle, and the broad thickets behind -it, are all astir with birds, some of them gaining now their first -experiences of the great green world--a world of warmth and -beauty, such as rarely, even in the noon of summer, greets the -young children of the air. Linnets and finches, thrushes and -blackbirds, and a host of other wingèd toilers of the field, are -busy among the fallen swaths--not plundering the seeds, but -seeking treasure-trove of slugs and wire-worms, and all the myriad -creatures whose haunts the fall of the grass forest has laid bare. - -Here forages a troop of starlings; the old birds in dark and -glossy plumage, the young brood in sober, unpretending brown. Now -a little cloud of martins wheel over the meadow, fluttering down -to hover above the grass with soft, sweet notes. Now a singing -swallow floats along. And now on dark wings a troop of swifts sail -swarming down the field--labourers in man's service one and all. - -On the end of a dead ivy branch that stands out of the garden -hedge sits a solitary flycatcher; a small grey figure that, in her -shape and attitude, is like no other bird that haunts the -precincts. She is silent for the most part, only uttering now and -then a weak, half querulous note, that is answered by notes weaker -and more querulous from the heart of the thick laurel near. Again -and again she takes short flights into the air across the garden, -and even a dozen yards or more out over the grass, fluttering in -the air a moment, and then lightly flitting back to her perch on -the dead ivy stem, or to the rail that parts the garden from the -meadow. - -In a plum tree on the cottage wall, half hidden among clustering -roses, is the empty nest from which the grey youngsters hiding now -among the bushes have but just spread wings to fly. For once they -tried their powers too soon. They ventured over the edge of their -small nursery on wings not yet strong enough for flight, and they -were found one morning on the ground among the stocks and poppies -and sweet-williams underneath the nest, while the anxious parents, -with plaintive cries, fluttered over them with vain attempts at -rescue. - -The fall had been fatal to one of the little aeronauts, but three -were rescued, and, in a small basket filled with hay, were slung -close up under the deserted nest. They made no effort to get back -to their old quarters, but sat content on the edge of the basket, -three little odd owl-like figures; while the old birds, their -minds at rest again, foraged for them all day, from dawn till -dark, chasing moths and flies along the garden paths, in vain -attempts to satisfy their insatiable needs. - -Under the eaves above the flycatcher's tree there is a martin's -nest. At least, martins built it, but there was a dispute this -year about the tenancy. It is not a new nest. It is in fact a -tenement of many years' standing. And while two rival couples of -martins were still discussing the question of proprietorship, a -pair of prowling house sparrows stepped in and took possession. -Perhaps they were the arbitrators--who knows? - -And now these house sparrows, bent on fitting a warmer lining to -their stolen habitation, cast covetous glances on the young -flycatchers' basket, and when the parent birds were -away--sometimes even under their very eyes--the unscrupulous -brigands carried off the hay by handsful. - -Fine fellows, these country sparrows: so very different from their -grimy, scurrilous, soot-stained cousins of the city streets, with -even a note of music on their ready tongues, and with plumage of -such pure white and velvety black, of such rich warm tones of -chestnut, that you would say they were among the handsomest of -birds, might perhaps even go the length of wondering what strange -species they might be. - -And now the men, rising reluctantly from their lair among the -grass, unship the long blades of the machine. It goes slowly -jingling up the field, and through the gate at the far end, ready -for more mowing on the morrow. - -The sun low down in the west, showing for a brief space through -the trees his face of fiery gold barred with the dark branches, -throws far across the grass the shadows of a group of tall elms -out in the meadow, whose green heads tower a hundred feet into the -clear, pale blue. Motionless they stand, or seem to stand. The -light wafts of scented air may flutter the leaves upon their lofty -crests, but have no power to sway their giant branches. From far -up among their green crown of foliage floats a goldfinch's song--a -pleasant sound, a note of summer and green fields and open -country. Pleasant, too, is the slow clink of a whetted scythe, -sounding faintly from a distant meadow, where some tired haymaker, -perhaps for the last time in the long summer day, is putting a -better edge upon his worn old blade. - -Along the hedge yonder a man is finishing off the ragged edges -the machine has left, and the swish, swish of the grass that falls -before his sweeping strokes has almost as sweet a sound to-night -as the vesper of the song-thrush over there, high up among the -branches of a hedgerow elm. - -The gentle nurse of the foundling flycatchers is moving slowly -across the meadow, the light of sunset on her white dress, sweet -face, and graceful figure. She is carrying a great handful of -oxeye daisies, gleaned from the new-mown hay--adding now a tall -spray of quaking grass, now a leaf of bright red sorrel, and -looking now and then with wistful eyes at the flowers for whose -brief life she thus provides a little longer span. The sun is -down. The long day's work is ended. In the combe yonder, the -little sleepy hollow that dies away among the quiet hills, the -purple shadows deepen, and the last faint lingering glow fades -slowly from the cliffs along its southern verge. - -No clink of scythe-blade now, no sound of toil. The last note of -labour and of daylight is the shouting from some distant farm, -where the last load is being cheered into the stack-yard. A -restless corncrake cries among the long grass of the next meadow -that stands waiting for the scythe. Far off among the elms beyond -the church an owl hoots. It is the hour of rest; the hour when, -over the blue vault above, - - "... The brooding twilight - Unfolds her starry wings, - And warm hearts bless with tenderness - The peace that evetide brings:" - ---the peace of God, for this broad hollow in the hills. Slowly on -the quiet landscape falls the restful stillness of the summer -night. - -[Illustration: A WEST COUNTRY REAPER.] - - - - -WINSCOMBE: HARVEST HOME. - - -It is strange to sit, this bright September morning, under the -shadow of a noble row of limes, and listen to the whirr of the -iron mower as it rattles round and round the wide meadow yonder. -It is late for haymaking. Among the branches overhead are the red -and gold of autumn, and the grass at the feet of the old trees is -strewn with withered leaves. These fly-catchers that flit across -the lawn and sail back to their stations along the fence will soon -be leaving us. It cannot be long before the chiff-chaffs, now -calling so blithely in the limes, are silent. The clear, sweet -singing of the robins is far more in keeping with the spirit of -autumn, than the sound of the machine. But the rain and the sun -between them have brought a noble aftermath to gladden the hearts -of the farmers, whose case will, after all, not be quite so evil -as they feared. - -It is a strange experience to hear, in the pauses of the iron -reaper, the mellow sound of bells that are ringing for the Harvest -Home. Strange to cheer the last load into the stack-yard, and to -assemble for a Harvest Festival, while fresh-cut hay is still -lying in the fields. Towards the grand old tower on the hill-slope -yonder, that for so many ages has kept watch and ward over the -parish, the village folk, in all their holiday attire, are -trooping across this pleasantest of Mendip valleys. As we make our -way with them along the green country lanes, we can see how the -hedge-rows are beginning already to wear the hues of autumn. The -Old Man's Beard is all grey with its feathery seeds. Dogwood and -Guelder Rose are bright with wayside fruit. The banks are gay with -St. John's wort and Golden Rod and tall Canterbury Bells. - -Pausing a minute under the old churchyard yew, that for unknown -centuries has spread its dark arms over the dust of the -forefathers of the hamlet, the little knots of villagers file into -the church. The porch is hung with oat sheaves and red apples; and -over the door are hung boughs of wild hedge-row plums, bullace, -not sloes, so thickly clustered and with so rare a bloom that they -might pass easily for grapes. - -There are but few farmers in the congregation. The hay is "down" -in the meadows; that is one reason. Some farmers, too, have no -mind for thanksgiving--forgetful that half a loaf is, at any rate, -better than no bread at all. But some at least of the villagers -have agreed to carry out the injunction expressed in the wheaten -letters that lie on a green fringe of ferns all along under the -south wall--"Honour the Lord with thy first "fruits"--for the -windows are heaped with fruit and vegetables, with apples and -'taters, and huge marrows--the best of each man's field or garden. -The pulpit is draped with heather and brown bracken, hung with -grapes and apples, and long trails of bryony; while the font, with -which generations of parishioners have made early and perhaps not -altogether agreeable acquaintance, is lost in a great pile of -ferns and flowers. The chancel is a very bower of green. Lectern -and reading-desk are wreathed with creepers and corn sheaves and -trophies of the harvest. - -The hour of service is drawing near. The chimes, that just now -were swinging softly overhead, break off into the homing-bell. The -rest of the congregation troop slowly in. Young village beauties, -conscious of admiring glances, are scattered here and -there--bright reliefs of light and colour among the darker -costumes of the men. The choir-boys, conscious too, but more -sheepish as they run the gauntlet of less sympathetic eyes, muster -under the tower, where presently the tall curate joins them, and -the curtain is drawn across like a sort of gigantic conjuring-box. -Young folks they are, for the most part, that fill up the benches. -Yet there is a good sprinkling of the older generation. That is a -fine sample of a West Country farmer yonder, that burly red-faced -figure, glancing idly at the tablets on the wall in "memory" of -long-forgotten yeomen, "late of this parish," or the stony -figures weeping silently into colossal urns--that doubtless are as -great a wonder to him now as when he was a boy. - -The bell stops. The whispers cease. A solemn hush falls on the -gathered worshippers. And now the Vicar, from his station under -the tower, calls on his flock to join in the thanksgiving hymn-- - - "Come, ye thankful people, come; - Raise the song of Harvest Home." - -Two and two the choir-boys pass, singing, up the aisle, their -clear tones mingling with the deeper voices of their elders. The -old men, no longer strong enough to swing a scythe or turn a -furrow, sit silent. The lines on their reverent faces seem like -records of hard times and bitter weather. Their working days are -done. In the words the choir are singing, they are waiting to - - "... be gathered in, - Free from sorrow, free from sin: - All upon the Golden Floor, - Praising Thee for evermore" - -The sweet notes of the anthem, "I will lift up mine eyes to the -hills," roll among the dark rafters overhead. The preacher -exhorts us to thankfulness, even for what we may look on as -adversity. Should we be so ungracious, he asks, as to return no -thanks at all because a gift turned out to be smaller than we -expected? Farmers as a rule certainly have, rightly or wrongly, a -reputation for, let us say, not always being so thankful as they -might be. It was a yeoman of this very parish who, when -congratulated once upon the extraordinary crops, all good alike, -replied--"That's where 'tis; 'tis all so good we shan't have -nothing to give to the _poor_ stock!" A good discourse, -straightforward and hard-hitting, true and telling. - -We file out under the ancient doorway, and pass in procession -under the flags and streamers and mottoes that the villagers have -hung at intervals across the green lanes, to the place where, in -less serious fashion, the people of the hamlet, of all sorts and -conditions, are to meet on equal terms--Vicar and Lady Bountiful -and dames of high degree on the one side, and farmers and -labourers on the other--for a frolic in the spacious meadow. It is -an ideal day for it; the air is warm, the grass is dry. Tea in the -tent is the first business; a tent brave with festoons and flags -and decorations. There is a hint in one of the mottoes at the -shortcomings of the season-- - - "May the year '93 - Be the worst we shall see." - -Follows then a game of rounders, in which the Vicar, after much -persuasion, agrees to play, if another somewhat elderly pillar of -the Church will take a hand too. It were long to tell the varying -fortunes of the game; how the portly figure of the wheelwright was -hampered by the unwonted dignity--as to workadays, that is--of a -long frock coat; how the village butcher, glorious in a white -waistcoat, forgets it in the heat of battle; how a tall young lady -in grey makes the most brilliant of catches; and how the pillar of -the Church was thrown out by the long curate. And if the Vicar -plays no very conspicuous part in the game, his boys are the life -of it; and it is his daughter too, who, in a far corner of the -field, leads a dance of village children, to the old-world ditty, -"As we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May," their -sweet young voices sounding clear above the shouts of the players. - -But the game is ended. The next move is to the tent, hung now -with clusters of lamps, and with everything cleared ready for a -dance. The band on a daïs in the centre, an uncommonly good band -too, strikes up a lively air. There is a little shyness at first -starting--not more than fifty couples, perhaps, to begin with; a -little awkwardness, and a few collisions; but the company is -pervaded with such imperturbable good humour that no one cares for -any mishap. As the evening wears on the gaps on the seats against -the canvas walls grow wider. And when the first square dance is -about to begin there is a good deal of active searching for -partners. "Have you got a 'vizzyvizze'?" says a young farmer to a -village belle. The Vicar pleads that his dancing days are over; -but it is clear that no one takes more delight than he in the -innocent merry-making of his flock. A hundred pairs of dancers are -footing merrily on the short, dry turf. "Warm, b'aint it?" says -one sturdy young farmer to another, who stands mopping his brow at -the end of the set. - -But as the summer night wears on, and the revellers settle to -their work in earnest, it is a warmer business still. Hats are -tilted further and further back; waistcoats are loosened; and at -length, in the closing reel, hats are tossed aside and coats even -are discarded. It is an orderly company, quiet and well-behaved to -the very last, breaking off their revels on the stroke of -midnight, trooping out of the tent that, with its multitudinous -lamps, is bright against the moonless sky, its festoons of flags -and creepers showing clearly through the canvas walls. They go -their several ways across the wide parish, along the dim, -unlighted lanes, to meet no more, under such conditions at any -rate, until next year brings round another Harvest Home. - -[Illustration: COUNTRY LIFE.] - - - - -WINTERHEAD: AFTERMATH. - - -There are many symbols on the dial of Nature to mark the changing -of the year. Such signs are the brightening colours of the -meadows, and the growing hosts of insect life. Such a sign is the -strange, noonday silence of the woodland; and such, too, is the -change in the cuckoo's cry--faltering, even before the longest -day. Such signs are the gathering of the swallows, the purple mist -on the plumed reeds by the river, the blackberry clusters ripening -fast along the hedge-row, the butterflies that flutter in through -the open windows, seeking already some dark nook in which to hide -themselves in good time before the setting in of winter. - -But plainer even than these, for most of us at any rate, is the -altered tone of the hedge-rows--ever ready to answer to the -influence of the sunshine. It is under the hedge-row that spring -leaves her fairest traces--violets white and blue, and primroses, -with their soft, delicate perfume. May crowns the thickets with -the foamy fragrance of the hawthorn. June studs the long briar -sprays with sweet wild roses, fairest of all flowers of summer. -And now, again, these hot summer days are lending new beauty to -the country lanes; not of flowers or of fresh young foliage, but -of mellow leaves and gleaming berries. - -There is a special charm about these old West Country lanes, worn, -sometimes, by the clumsy wheels and toiling feet of many -centuries, deep down below the fields on either hand; lanes that -lead perhaps to nowhere, or that lose themselves in the meadows; -lanes that in our fathers' time were, it may be, King's highways, -and that now grass-grown and neglected, with deep ruts and -broadening hollows, where water lies in winter, are known only to -the birds'-nester, or to village children in quest of nuts or -blackberries. For most of us these quests are but memories of -childhood. Most of us can but echo the lament of the poet: - - "And blackberries, so mawkish now, - Were finely flavoured then; - And nuts, such reddening clusters ripe, - I ne'er shall pull again." - -And yet, perhaps, though the feast of to-day is for the eye rather -than the palate, we welcome as keenly as we ever did, nutting -time, or days of blackberry harvest. We think less of the rich, -ripe clusters, no doubt, but we are more alive to the beauty of -the leaves, of the red stems that show so well among the green -shadows, of the withering foliage, torn and ragged, yet touched in -the autumn with gold and russet and fiery crimson. - -The old yew yonder, by the church on the hillside, under whose -broad shadow so many centuries of village folk have gathered week -by week, when service was over, to talk of the haying, and the -weather, and even, it may be, of the business of their neighbours, -stands out a dark, funereal mass against the grey masonry behind -it. A nearer view would show that its heavy green is relieved by a -thousand points of gold, not yet wholly tarnished, but at this -distance they are lost in the surrounding gloom. The copper -beeches by the manor house, that of late gleamed like metal in the -brilliant sunshine, are darkening into black. The larch -plantations, marshalled in well-ordered phalanx along the old road -half up the hill, have long since lost their freshness, and the -leaves of this great pollard oak, whose maimed boughs throw a -shadow none too wide, are bright no longer. - -For centuries has the old tree cooled its knotted roots in the -black earth of this swampy hollow. Signs of age are only too plain -to read. The furrowed bark has been split away in patches, -revealing underneath the galleries of wood-boring creatures; and -the old trunk is scarred with pits that the wood-peckers have been -digging, searching for fat white beetle grubs, or for the -evil-smelling caterpillar of the goat-moth. And just below the -pollarded branches there is a woodpecker's hole, whose well-worn -threshold suggests years of occupation. - -Round the broad base of the tree marsh plants are -growing--spearwort and water-plantain, broad blades of iris, and -cool green plumes of marestail. In the long grass of the field -that stretches far on either hand, there are crimson spikes of -orchis, pale marsh valerian, and bright ragged robin, and here and -there nods a white plume of early cotton grass. It is a mere -thread of water that, loitering slowly through the meadow, seems -to pause round the roots of this old tree; the very slenderest of -streams. Even the reedy hollow where it steals along, a broken -line of silver, lost at times among sedges and brooklime and -strong meadow grasses, is hardly noticed as it wanders idly -through the field. Yet the birds know it well. Here the snipe lie -in the hard weather. Here, too, in winter, you may watch the -water-rail stealing in and out among the leafless thickets, -through the jungle of dead stems of fig-wort, and hemlock, and -tall hemp agrimony. On the black mud of the shore you may trace -to-day the light footprints of the wagtails that have their -lodging in a cranny of the ruined mill in the next meadow, the -broad sign manual of the moorhens whose nest is nearer still, and -the tracks of many a water-loving bird beside. - -And, though the listening ear can but just catch the faint tinkle -of the tiny ripples that fret among the hemlock stems, there is as -much life along this little streamlet as by the mill pool yonder, -though the rumble of the old wheel and the plash of the mill-race -seem louder, even at this distance, than the low murmur of these -tiny waves. There, among the rafters of the boat-house, the -swallows build, and white-breasted martins have their nests under -the broad eaves of the mill. But it is here, by this oozy margin, -that they find the clay to frame their dwellings. - -The moorhen rides in company with the little fleet of ducks upon -the pool, though she draws hastily away when the miller lounges -through the door to open the sluice, her nodding head keeping time -to the quick beating of her paddles. But it is here that she hides -her nest. It is behind the stems of that hazel bush, close down by -the stream. Last night, when the old bird went off with a splash -like a water-rat, there was just light enough to count the seven -eggs. But now, when you steal quietly up, there is no old bird on -guard. No eggs are in the nest. It is filled to the very brim with -something dark, like a black shadow. All at once, as you stand -peering down at it from the farther shore, hardly a yard away, the -shadow breaks into fragments that struggle over the edge and -plunge down into the water--seven fluffy little balls of sable -down, each with a touch of scarlet for a beak; seven bold young -moorhens, making their first venture into the great world; -argonauts born, paddling along the diminutive reaches of their -tiny river, and scrambling away into the green jungle on the shore -with a skill and readiness that is the heir-loom of untold -generations. - -The sedge-warbler, too, loves the reedy fringe of the mill pond, -and he never shows to more advantage than when he balances on one -of those tall spears of bulrush. But his nest is here, in yonder -bush, whose foliage the cows have cropped so close. A strange song -is his, copied now from the skylark, and now from the swallow; and -now again you might think that a party of house-sparrows were -having a real good gossip down by the water. - -Sparrow-like, too, is the note of a bird that sits motionless on -the topmost twig of a maple tree that leans over the brook. His -shape and his smart plumage, the flatness of his head and the rich -red brown of his back, mark him for a shrike, a butcher-bird. He, -too, is fond of this quiet corner. Year after year his mate and he -come back to the hawthorn bush below the maple, to repair the -great nest in which so many families have been reared. On a broad -flat stone that serves for a bridge over the meadow ditch near by -are strewn some broken snail shells and a half-eaten cockchafer. -But that was not his doing. If you look closely at the bush below -his perch, the bush that shelters his well-hidden nest, you may -discover the butcher-bird's "larder;" may see spitted on the long -thorns that help to guard his dwelling, beetles, or bees, or even -a young bird, or, it may be, a dragon-fly, who surely must have -been taken unaware, since with those strong gauzy wings it is said -he can distance even the swallow in his swift career. - -A man with a pail slung on his shoulder, and with a milking stool -in his hand, comes slowly out from the farm buildings, a dog -following at his heels; a dog grey and shabby and unkempt, of -breed altogether past description. But he is a master of his art, -mongrel though he be. The man points to a group of cattle in the -far corner of the field. At once the dog goes off to bring them -in, heading and turning, and then urging them gently homeward, -with marvellous skill and patience, encouraged now and again by -his master's strange and inarticulate shouts. A troop of goslings -is grazing in the middle of the field, goose and gander standing -sentinel at either end of the extended line. The old birds sound a -challenge as the dog goes by, and lower their silly heads, and -hiss and charge at him; while he, his mind set wholly on the -business of the moment, canters past unmoved. An angry gander is -by no means an antagonist to be despised. There is something -particularly irritating, too, in the style of the attack. We can -hardly wonder at the village urchin who, having been sorely -harassed as to his unprotected legs by vicious digs of the old -bird's beak, tried to soothe his wounded feelings by stoning at -long range the unoffending goslings, blubbering out in mingled -pain and rage to the indignant farmer who presently seized on him -red-handed: "What for they goschicks' fayther bite I, then?" - -Round the old farm yonder, whose weather-stained roofs and walls -half ruinous just show among its clustering trees, there is a -picture of quiet autumn life. In the spacious stack-yard a party -of labourers, whose sunburnt faces glow against the green -background of the trees like so many round red autumn suns, are -standing about a great waggon, tossing hay to men at work on the -fast-growing ricks of new, sweet-smelling aftermath. It is an -ancient homestead. A thousand summers, it may be, has hay been -cleared from these broad meadows. A thousand times, at the season -of mists and mellow fruitfulness, have the sheaves been piled in -this old stack-yard. The hamlet of three houses is little changed, -either in name or character, since the days of Edward the -Confessor, when Brictric held it, paying geld for one hide of -land; when two villeins, with as many boors and serfs, made up all -its scanty population. A pleasant place, this warm autumn -afternoon, is the hollow at the back of the farm; a broad space of -level grass land, once an orchard, and with a few forlorn old -apple trees still standing in it; bordered on one side by a green -lane, and on the other by a broken line of hedge-row, through -whose wide gaps the thistles and brake-fern are marching down like -caterans from the hills, bent on reconquering the pasture-land and -turning it once more into a wilderness. All round it rise the -hills, robbing it of some hours of sunshine indeed, yet sheltering -it from every wind that blows. Just showing over a steep brow -above are the white houses of a hill-side village, once in the -heart of a great mining field--the very place Macaulay had in -view when he described how - - "The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's sunless caves." - -The mines have long been deserted. But here and there among the -villages you still may happen on some son of the soil, some -time-worn and bent and wrinkled patriarch, who, in his young days, -dug for ore among these hills; who remembers the time when a -miner, working here for his own hand, could earn a sovereign a -day. But although the miners have been gone these fifty years, the -whole country side is seamed and scarred with traces of their old -workings. There are fields on this farm where the ground is so -broken with heaps of rubbish from the pits, and so full of -barely-covered shafts, that the land is almost valueless. But -there are no buildings to spoil the landscape. There was no -machinery but the windlass and the bucket. And here, as ever, -Nature has done her best to hide the traces of man's ravages. The -heaps of stone and earth she has changed to grassy knolls, covered -them with lotus and burnet and scented clusters of the thyme, and -scattered over them little clumps of dark campanula. Under her -kindly touch the stony shafts are turned to bowery hollows, -green with moss and stone-crop, and long plumes of fern. - -[Illustration: WINTERHEAD: AN UPLAND PASTURE.] - -A bird-haunted spot is this little hollow in the hills. The clump -of old Scotch firs looking down from the hill-slope yonder is the -harbour of crow and magpie, ever the hangers-on of a West Country -farm. The straggling hedge-rows that part these broad fields are -full of empty nests. Here, among the red fruit of rowan and -whitebeam, the ring-ousel lingers on his southward journey. In -this old apple tree, whose withered arms are hung for once with -fruit, like little golden balls, is a woodpecker's hole, with -marks of the maker's tool about it yet. That stately oak tree, -springing straight and tall in the line of the old -hedge-row--touched above with a hundred points of light where the -pale green acorns hang, and laced below, across its drooping -branches, with silver lines of gossamer--is a resting place for -all the birds of the air. In the spring the cuckoo alights upon -its topmost crown and calls his name to all the neighbourhood. -From its leafy crest the magpie looks down, meditating another -raid upon the hencoop. The brown squirrels too, love to frolic in -its dim green shadows, playing hide and seek among the branches, -and racing headlong down its wrinkled bark to scamper over the -short turf of the meadow. At this moment two linnets on its -topmost spray are filling the air with such a chorus of sweet -notes and breezy chattering that you might think a score of birds -were in the tree. - -The sun is sinking low. The shadows of the hedge-row elms are -stealing far down the grassy slope. Sparrows that have been -gleaning in outlying stubble-fields are flying home to roost in -the ivy on the old barn wall, or in the sides of the stacks, or in -snug tunnels that they have made for themselves in the thatched -roof of their thankless lord and suzerain:--quarters infinitely -cleaner and sweeter and more wholesome altogether than those of -their smoke-blackened cousins in the city. The sun is down. A soft -blue mist is gathering in the red heart of the pines. And now - - "The shadows veil the meadows, - And the sunset's golden ladders - Sink from twilight's walls of grey." - -[Illustration: A GREY OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA.] - - - - -WOODSPRING: A GREY OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA. - - -The heat-glimmer is still quivering on the sand, and over the vast -mud-flats, bared by the retreating tide, a soft haze hangs. Yet -the sun, sinking slowly through a cloudless sky, reddens as it -nears the low horizon, and the grey grass of the old sea wall is -brightening in the glow of sunset. Over the long curve of the -sand-hills shows a wide sweep of plain, whose level meadows, -freshened by the welcome rain, are still a very blaze of gold. -Against the sky, where, at the far limit of the bay, the ragged -hillocks die away into the shore, stands the white shaft of a -lighthouse. Farther still, across the hazy mud-flats, rise the -faint shapes of shadowy hills. The tide is out. A sea of boulders, -shaggy with dark weed, look like a herd of strange monsters come -ashore to bask upon the sand. There is no sign of human presence -anywhere, save a house roof just showing here and there above the -sand-hills, the distant hamlets scattered at far intervals over -the moor, and the black stakes of fishing nets that stand out on -the grey mud like webs of giant spiders. There is no figure on the -shore, no stranded boat, no idle sail. Nor is there sound, save -the low monotonous murmur of the sea. But here and there over the -desolate expanse dark shapes of birds are moving. Now and then a -troop of dunlins careers along the sand. Surely they are soon back -after their brief northern summer. One can hardly think that they -and the brown whimbrels whose musical trill at times falls softly -on the ear can have been away at all. Now a party of gulls get up -with wild stormy crying, and wheel and eddy in the air, now light, -now dark on the grey sky of the horizon. All the while to the -cliff ledges overhead clamorous daws are drifting, passing to -their nests, or settling on storm-worn pinnacles of rock. That -shrill pipe was the cry of a kestrel. Two rock doves hurrying -homeward, cliff-dwellers like the rest, pay no heed. They know him -well, too well to fear at any time his beak or claw. Here he -comes, wheeling round the headland. With wings and tail spread -wide, he pauses a moment to hover in the air; then sails slowly -by. No shrill clamour from the cliff answers his challenge. No -fierce young eyases yet are on the watch for his return. He -alights on a ledge far overhead, where his mate no doubt is -brooding on her rich brown eggs. Over the sea, trembling in the -sinking sun, lies a gleam as of frosted silver. Suddenly, far out -on the grey level, breaks a line of light. A faint sound falls on -the ear--the low roar of the returning sea, the first wave of the -rising tide. Now troops of daws, rising from the fields along the -shore, fly homeward--a gathering cloud of dusky figures sweeping -towards the cliff, that echoes with their musical clamour. - -Right overhead they go, clustering like bees on ledges and -pinnacles and grassy slopes, and settle down to gossip over the -experiences of the day. Again they rise into the air, and wheel -over the sea, and again turn homeward, darkening the cliff as with -innumerable points of shadow. Once more they rise in eddying -crowd. The troop divides. With sharp chorus of farewell one party -flies straight over the hill. Their resting-place is farther on. -They are not dwellers in the cliff. They are making for the low -hills to the northward, a ridge of limestone dwindling into such -another rocky headland. There, in the shelter of the hills, stand -the ruins of a priory, in the niches of whose crumbling tower, or -on the dusty floor of its neglected belfry, their sires and they -have built for generations their untidy nests. It is an ancient -pile. Founded now nearly seven centuries ago, its grey walls -harboured for three hundred years a handful of monks, -black-stoled, black-hooded, darker even than these daws. It has -long been an article of faith in the countryside that the old -tower was - - "... built - To purge de Traci's soul from guilt, - Of Becket foully slain." - -But in the original letter, still to be read in the Cottonian -library, in which William de Curtenai, grandson of Traci, made -known to the Bishop of the diocese his intention of founding a -"monastic house of the order of monks of St. Augustine," there is -no hint at all of expiation. Nor, indeed, have we any evidence -that the guilt of murder ever did lie heavy on de Traci's soul: -though there is an old tradition that, after a brief reappearance -at Court, he spent the remainder of his stormy life in seclusion -on his manor near Morthoe, where in the old churchyard by the sea - - "Lie all the Tracies, with the wind in their faces." - -The founder of the priory seems to have had no other object in -view than "the welfare of the soul of Robert de Curtenai, my -father, ... and of my mother and myself; also of my wife, my -ancestors and descendants." For rather more than three centuries -the "Worspryng" canons, never probably more than ten in number, -lived and died in this grey old house by the sea. We know little -of their story; but the document is still in existence to which -the last of their priors set his name in acknowledgment that the -Pope was a usurper, and that King Henry alone was true head of the -Church. Two years later all the minor monasteries were forfeited -to the Crown--"forasmoche as manifest synne, vicious, carnall and -abomynable lyving is dayly used and comitted amonges the lytell -Abbeys and Pryories." This was one of the "lytell Pryories." Its -revenues from all sources, whether from rents that were reckoned -in horseshoes, or from "arable at iv_d._," or from "wode and waste -at j_d._ the acre," amounted to rather under a hundred a year. - -When the little party of friars turned their backs upon their -home, they appear to have carried with them what was probably the -most sacred of their relics: one of those small wooden cups which, -filled with "Canterbury Water"--that is, with water containing a -minute quantity of the martyr's blood--were sold to visitors at -Becket's shrine. Marvellous are the tales related by the -chroniclers of the time as to the virtue of this wonderful water. -By its use sight, hearing, speech, reason, and even life were -restored. - -The pavement was in fact still sprinkled with his blood when those -supernatural manifestations began, which were to make the martyr's -shrine the richest in the world. On the very day of the murder, a -blind man on his way to seek aid at the church of St. Nicholas, -was accosted by "an appearance in the form of a man, who warned -him to betake himself to the new martyr of Christ." He groped his -way to Becket's body. He touched his own sightless eyes with the -sacred blood, and his vision was immediately restored. This was -the first of many miracles. The pious chroniclers record how men, -women, and children flocked to the shrine from every corner of the -Kingdom, some to ask aid, others to return thanks for favours -granted: as Chaucer puts it: - - "The holy, blisful martyr for to seke, - That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke." - -Captives, who had been taken by the Saracens, travelled all the -way from Damascus, to return thanks at the shrine of Canterbury, -because St. Thomas had appeared to them in the visions of the -night and helped them to escape. - -Five writers of the time did their best to record for the benefit -of future ages the miracles of the blessed martyr. These were -Benedict, sometime Prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, and -afterwards Abbot of Peterborough; William of Canterbury, who, -perhaps, held office at the shrine after Benedict; Alan, Abbot of -Tewkesbury; John of Salisbury, who witnessed the murder, and whom -de Traci thought was the man he had wounded; and Grim of -Cambridge,--not a monk, in all probability, nor really connected -in any way with Becket, but his great admirer. It was Grim, it -will be remembered, who was wounded in the vain attempt to save -the Archbishop. The minutest particulars are given in these -chronicles. The names and professions, the counties, the native -towns of many of the pilgrims are recorded. - -There are exceptions. In the case of a man who came from "the -province of Surrey," Benedict says "the barbarous name of the town -has not stuck in my memory." The miracles were of every imaginable -description. A sick monk, near Sedan, too ill to leave his cell, -was touched with a mere list of the Saint's achievements, and in a -short time he was able to resume his duties. A monk of Byland was -dying. He had already received the _Viaticum_, when the Abbot, -having made the sign of the Cross in water upon a piece of -Becket's hair-shirt, caused the dying man's mouth to be opened, -and the water administered. Instantly, we are told, the sick man -recovered speech and appetite. It was a common thing to promise a -candle to the Saint. There were men who were too ill to go in -person to Canterbury, and who dated their recovery from the -instant that the candle was lighted for them at the shrine. - -There is a description of five widows who tried in vain to restore -life to a child who had been three hours under water. They held -him up by the feet; they repeated nine Paternosters over him in -the name of the blessed St. Thomas, but all with no effect. Then -one of them said to the child's mother: "Run and fetch a piece of -string and measure the child, and promise to the martyr a candle -of the same length." It was done, and the boy at once recovered. - -The smallest offerings were not disdained. A Flemish bird-catcher, -having tried in vain for some days to trap a certain falcon, cried -out, "O Blessed Thomas, glorious martyr, I will give thee a penny -if thou wilt give me the falcon." Benedict tells us that "it came -instantly to the bird-catcher, as if used to his hand. We both saw -the falcon," he goes on, "and received the money." - -Even more marvellous still are the legends that passed current as -to the wonders wrought by the martyr's blood, which in quantities -about the bulk of a hazel nut, and largely diluted, were sold to -pilgrims under the name of Canterbury Water. A man, journeying -home after visiting the shrine, was belated at Rochester. In vain -he sought shelter for the night. At door after door he was refused -admittance. At last, "for the sake of the blessed martyr," he was -taken in. In the night the town caught fire. When the citizens -were fleeing, panic-stricken, "the pilgrim, whose faith was more -fervent than the material flame, remaining boldly on the roof, -called for a spear, or something long. A fork (hayfork, perhaps) -was handed up to him. Then, taking the reliquary (containing -Canterbury Water) from his neck ... he fastened it to the fork, -held it out towards the fire," and thus kept the flames at bay. -For "the fire, as if fearing a contrary element, turned aside." -Finally the whole town was burnt, with the single exception of its -one hospitable house. - -A few drops of Canterbury Water swallowed or administered -externally sufficed to cure the most desperate diseases, and were -quite as efficacious as the pilgrimage itself. By its use the -blind, the deaf, the lame, the palsied, were cured, and even the -dead brought back to life. - -The precious liquid was sold at first in small wooden vessels, -fitted with lids, in which mirrors were sometimes fixed, "_specula -mulierum_," as the monkish writer puts it. But as the wood was apt -to split, flasks of lead or earthenware were used instead. These -were hung from the neck, and came to be regarded, like the palm -branch of Jerusalem or the escalop shell of Compostella, as an -emblem of the pilgrimage. It was not an uncommon practice, in old -days, to place in a martyr's tomb a small vessel filled with his -blood. Many such have been discovered in the Catacombs. In the -Kircher Museum at Rome there is an agate cup, containing the -remains of blood, which was found in the Catacombs of St. -Callixtus. - -A special point of interest attaches to these legends in that -there is reason to think that one of these very reliquaries, one -of the earliest and most primitive form and still actually -containing traces of blood, has been preserved to the present day. -Forty years ago, or rather more--the actual date was 1849--some -workmen, while repairing the interior of a little West Country -church, at Kewstoke in Somersetshire, had occasion to remove an -old carved stone, which had been built into the masonry. It was -apparently the head of a column, worked in Caen stone, a material -not used elsewhere in the building, and the style was earlier than -anything else in the church. - -In front of this capital is a niche enclosing a battered effigy, -apparently the half length figure of a veiled woman. At the back, -where it was embedded in the wall, is an arched cavity, about -eight inches high, closed by an oaken panel, and containing a -small cylindrical wooden vessel, three inches in diameter, and but -slightly more in height, broken and decayed, and containing at the -bottom a layer of some dark substance, pronounced, after careful -examination, to be the remains of blood. It is a bold guess, but -still a guess that has much to support it, that this cup was one -of the very reliquaries dispersed through the country after -Becket's martyrdom; that it once held no less precious a relic -than "Canterbury Water"; in short, that the dark layer at the -bottom is what passed, seven centuries ago, for the blood of the -blessed St. Thomas himself. - -The monastery is now a dwelling-house. The windows of a modern -farm look out through the walled-up arches of the priory. Quaint -gargoyles peer through the mantling creepers of the ruined -cloister. Grey stems of ivy have sapped right through the -crumbling masonry. Wallflowers bloom on the worn crowns of the -turrets. It is a quiet spot, "here, at the farthest limit of the -world." Yet it is not strange that a corner so remote should have -been chosen for the site of a monastery dedicated "to God, the -blessed Mary, and the blessed Martyr Thomas." All four of Becket's -murderers were men of the West Country. - -De Brito and Fitzurse were landowners of this district; De Traci -and De Morville belonged, at farthest, to the neighbouring county. -This crumbling relic is to us but an item on the shelf of a -museum. The great churchman himself is to most of us nothing but a -name, a mere figure in a page of history. And although poet and -player, past and present masters of their art, have done their -best to bring him again before the world; although his counterfeit -presentment stands to-day before us as full of fire, of valour, of -resolute determination as on that fatal Tuesday more than seven -centuries ago--yet the Becket of the players is but "a fable, a -phantom, a show." When the curtain falls upon that last sad -scene, we are conscious of no sinking of heart at the remembrance -of an awful figure lying white and still upon the bloodstained -pavement. The curtain down, our Becket is alive again. The actor -lives, the martyr is forgotten. - -There is another figure in the play whose memory lingers in this -far-off spot. At the foot of the low blue hills yonder lies the -village which was the ancient home of the Cliffords. - -Rosamund herself,--the fair girl over whose tomb at Godstow her -royal lover wrote-- - - "Hic jacet in tumba Rosa mundi non Rosa munda," - -was born almost within sight of Curtenai's tower. When the fair -fugitive pleaded, in excuse for wandering out unguarded, that - - "... there stole into the city a breath - Full of the meadows," - -she was, it may be, thinking of the hamlet where, in quiet -cloisters, long since gone to ruin, she passed her girlish days. -There by the - - "... river, widening through the meadows green, - To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen," - -there may have come to her in vision some glimmer of the coming -time, some forerunning shadow of the - - "Love that is born of the deep, coming up with the sun from - the sea." - -[Illustration: THE MONK'S RETREAT.] - - - - -KEWSTOKE: THE MONK'S STEPS. - - -A grey November day, with sad-coloured clouds hanging low over a -grey and sullen sea. At intervals there rolls across the water the -dull boom of distant fog-guns, echoing like thunder under the -heavy veil of mist. From the shore below comes the ceaseless fret -of waves sweeping swiftly in across the sand. Along the edge of -the tide and over the wide mud-flats are scattered the white -figures of gulls; and at times there comes faintly up the low -musical call of a whimbrel, or the plaintive wail of a curlew. At -times, too, there rises in the air a great flock of sandpipers, -like a thin smoke-cloud drifting down the shore, until, as they -wheel, their snowy breasts and upturned wings gleam for a moment -silver white on the grey sky behind them. - -It is a grey world altogether; grey sea, grey shore, grey shingle. -Grey, too, are the ragged sand hills, whose shifting ramparts the -gales of many winters have piled so high over the old sea wall. -Below this hollow--a narrow gorge worn deep into the hill--there -lies a little hamlet, still half-hidden by the trees, thinned and -tattered though they are, and nestling close under the shelter of -the hill;--a score or so of white-walled houses, with roofs of red -tiles weathered to soft shades of brown and russet, with plumes of -blue smoke all trailing seawards, and with a fringe of orchards -round it, where the mellow fruit is still glowing on the boughs. -High over the roofs of the village rises the grey tower of the -church, its turrets just clear above the clustering elms, in whose -shadow lies the crowded graveyard, - - "Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap." - -A wide stretch of pasture-land divides the village from the sea. -Yet, in old days--before the coming of the friars to the priory -yonder, whose tower shows faintly against the low green hill that -dies in a rocky headland by the sea, perhaps even before the -legionaries stormed the great stronghold whose ruins crown this -breezy hill-top--the little hamlet, now so far above the tide -line, was, if antiquaries read its name aright, a place of boats. -The fields about it are still below high-water mark. A high spring -tide, before a gale from the westward, would even now reach right -up to the village, were it not for the sea wall and the sand -hills. - -The sand hills are mere desert now. Yet they are pleasant enough -in the summer time, when their short turf is bright with -rest-harrow and crowfoot, when the great bells of the -sea-convolvulus open wide on the hot sand, when tufts of pale -thrift blossom in the shingle, and clumps of white campion, and -frail flowers of yellow poppy. Pleasant then is the sweet breath -of thyme and clover. Pleasanter still the smell of the sea, blown -by soft summer airs over the wide mud-flats and the trampled sand. - -The little hamlet, high and dry this many a day, is a port no -longer. The only harvest of the sea that the villagers can glean -in our time is that which wind and wave bring ashore upon this -sandy beach. In the broken spars, the splintered timbers, the -nameless waifs and strays of wreckage which the storm brings to -their doors, the dwellers in the cottages that seem to crouch for -shelter behind the old sea wall, find all their winter fuel. - -There are traditions that many a cargo of spirits was run ashore -here in smuggling days. Tales are still current of the hiding -places where the goods were stored. It is said that even the -church tower has in its time afforded sanctuary to bales of lace -and kegs of liquor that never paid the King his due. This narrow -pass may well have served the "free-traders" as a secret way into -the hills. - -But the long flight of rude stone steps that leads down it towards -the village dates from an earlier time. To its use and history no -clue remains. It is likely enough that it was the pathway to the -camp from the long-vanished port below. - -There is a legend in the country-side that it led up to the cell -of an anchorite, a solitary who inhabited this ravine, and who, -with his own hands, hewed and fitted the stones of the old -stairway, now worn smooth by the feet of many centuries. Half-way -up the pass, under the shelter of the limestone cliff, is his -traditional dwelling place, a chamber hollowed in the living rock -and roughly faced with masonry. - -Who was he? A monk from the old priory yonder,--an outlaw with -blood upon his soul? - - "Had you, Father, hid away - In your heart, some load to bury, - That you chose so long to stay, - World-forgot and solitary?" - -It is a quiet spot. The crumbling walls look down through the -rocky gateway of the gorge to the village at its foot; over the -grey curve of shingle to the wet sands that, as the cloud veil -lifts and scatters, are beginning now to shine like silver in the -sunlight; to the grey sea, with sails showing ghost-like here and -there; to the far shore, whose rugged outline looms faintly -through the haze. - -The brown elms of the village redden in the sunshine. There is a -flush of colour on the belfry walls, on the limestone battlements -above the pass, on the worn steps of the old stairway winding -downward to the sea. - -Yes, a quiet spot. There is no sound but the slumbrous music of -the waves, at times the bark of a sheep-dog, a cattle-call from -distant meadows, or the chatter of linnets on the hill. - -On such a scene the old monk looked down. Such sounds were in his -ears. Such rest and calm brooded over his rude dwelling--beast and -bird his sole companions, the busy world shut out. - -Was he the Father of the village, summoned from his cell to -shrieve the dying, bless the dead? Was he a surly recluse, fond of -solitude and silence? - - "Tell, when all the boughs were bare, - Did you dread each dreary waking? - Hewing out your stony stair, - Were you glad at thorn-buds breaking? - - Did you mark the flashing white - On the breast of earliest swallows, - Or the wavering, yellow light - On the cowslips in the hollows? - - As day grew 'twixt dawn and dark - Did the shy birds learn to love you? - Sang the silver-throated lark - Out of sight in skies above you? - - When the burning noontide sun - Made the gorge grow hot and hazy - Did you wish your work were done? - Were you ever tired--or lazy? - - When you sat beside your door - In the dusk, you ancient man, you, - Did the broad-leaved sycamore - Wave and rustle low to fan you? - - Did you sometimes, in the night, - Rise and quit your quiet shieling, - Climbing up the grassy height - With a still, expectant feeling? - - Where the wind went whispering by - Underneath pale stars that glisten, - From the open, upper sky - Did God speak, and did you listen?" - -From the rocky brow above the hermit's chamber the eye looks out -over a wider world. A world no longer cold and colourless. The -clouds have lifted from the sea; the sky has cleared; a flood of -sunshine covers the whole landscape. It kindles on the red roofs -of the village, it gilds the sombre leafage of the elms, it -brightens the green meadows, turning all their straight-cut -waterways to lines of silver. A tall beech that lifts its stately -head above its fellows in the wood yonder reddens in the sunset. -And the bright foliage of a row of Spanish chestnuts along the -path that winds upwards from the shore flames like a river of -light among the quiet-coloured elms and larches. A passing sail -gleams white upon an opal sea. Over the wide west is spread a soft -and golden glow; while far hills, range beyond range, are wrought -in amethyst upon the lighted sky. - -[Illustration: TINTAGEL.] - - - - -BY COACH TO TINTAGEL. - - -The traveller from Clovelly, making his way by coach towards the -northern coast of Cornwall, pays no slight penalty, in the early -stages of his ride at any rate, for the ease and comfort of his -journey. It is but a dull and featureless road that crosses the -miles of windswept moorland which fill so wide a stretch of the -Devonshire marches. We have to leave unseen some of the grandest -coast scenery in the county. We miss altogether the pleasant Vale -of Hartland and the precipitous rocks of Black Mouth; and, above -all, we see nothing of the world-forgotten nook of Hartland Quay, -nestling close under its mighty wall of cliff. - -It is a pleasant mode of travelling. There is a much greater charm -about the box-seat of a coach than there is in the cosiest corner -of a railway carriage. There is the charm of freshness and the -open air, of hills and meadows and deep country lanes. But a man -on a coach is not entirely his own master. The coach-ride gives no -opportunity for anything like a leisurely survey. There is little -time for exploring church or manor-house or abbey ruin. The old -encampment, the cluster of grave-mounds, or the ancient cross of -which perhaps the traveller may have caught a glimpse in passing, -appeals to him in vain. - -Morwenstow is among the spots we have to pass unseen. Yet it is -well worth a pilgrimage. No picture, either of pen or pencil, can -give a fair idea of that grey old tower by the sea, among its -gnarled and storm-beaten trees, and set round with old -figure-heads,--the sorrowful memorials of lost ships and of -drowned mariners. And as at Clovelly, Kingsley is the central -figure of all legends, old or new, so Morwenstow is haunted by -memories of Hawker, for forty years the Vicar of the parish. He -left his mark there in many ways. He built the vicarage, and above -the vicarage door he traced these lines:-- - - "A house, a glebe, a pound a day, - A pleasant place to watch and pray. - Be true to Church, be kind to poor - O minister for evermore." - -Morwenstow we have to take on trust. But the coach goes through -Kilkhampton, and here again it is the Church that is the centre of -interest. Outside the old grey walls we are reminded of Hervey, -sometime curate in Bideford, who in this quiet churchyard wrote -his once famous _Meditations_. Within the building lie the ashes -of a line of Grenvilles;--the greatest of them, indeed, rests not -here, but somewhere in the Spanish Main. One monument is in memory -of Sir Beville Grenville, who, after routing on Stamford Hill a -Roundhead army twice as numerous as his own, was killed, a few -weeks later, in the fight on Lansdowne. The field of battle is -only four miles to the southward; and there, on the wall of the -village inn, may still be seen this inscription, from the -monument,--long since destroyed,--which was set up on the scene of -conflict:-- - - "In this Place - Ye Army of ye Rebells under ye command of - ye Earl of Stamford - Received a signal Overthrow by the Valor - Of Sir Bevill Grenville and ye Cornish Army, - On Tuesday, ye 16th of May, 1643." - -As we drove out of Kilkhampton a brilliant sunset was flaming in -the west, and the shadow of the coast was strangely lengthened on -the grassy fringes of the road. By the time we had entered on the -last league of the journey, the air, that all day long had been -sweetened by the breath of wide sheets of gorse and heather, was -blowing cool across the moors. And as we slowly descended the long -hill to Bude, darkness was fairly settling down over the -landscape. - -Morning broke almost without a cloud. It was still summer, but -there was a sign of coming change in the great flights of swallows -that had assembled in the village street, clustering in thousands -on roofs and telegraph wires, as if pausing for rest, or waiting -until some coming storm should be overpast. - -The sea was in quiet mood as we stood on the grassy brow of the -cliff that skirts the shore; and they were the very gentlest of -waves that rolled lazily in across the shining sand. But on every -side there were tokens, only too plain to read, that this is among -the most perilous of shores. Here a party of men were breaking up -the iron frame-work of a wreck. There the life-boat crew, cleaning -and painting and overhauling, stood ready by their gear. In many -of the gardens by the canal are the battered figure-heads of -ships, half hidden among shrubs and flowers. And in the churchyard -above the village the white effigy of a turbaned warrior that once -looked proudly down from the bows of the _Bencoolen_, now guards -the grave of thirteen of her crew, lost when she came ashore here -on these smooth sands some five-and-thirty years ago. In one of -the houses of the village are preserved some arms--cutlases and -muskets--that have been recovered from the wreck, so corroded and -so encrusted with sand that their original shapes are hardly -recognizable. - -The sun went down behind an ominous-looking bank of cloud. That -night the wind roared in the chimneys of the inn, and clouds of -driving sand rattled like shot against the windows. Next morning -found the sea in another temper altogether. Great green rollers -were thundering up the beach, and leaping over the break-water in -sheets of spray. Heavy clouds were rolling up from the southward, -and altogether it was sufficiently clear that the swallows were -well advised to put in for calmer weather. - -The day's ride began under no pleasant conditions. Cold squalls of -pitiless rain drove fiercely in our faces as we sat huddled -together on the coach, glad to make use of every wrap and rug we -had, and forcibly reminded of the old fisherman, who surveying the -prostrate forms of his party of holiday makers, lying helpless in -the boat, overcome by dire extremity of sickness, muttered softly -to himself: "And they calls this goin' a-pleasurin!" - -But the sun came out again as we went down the long slope into -Boscastle; and, at length, when we drew up before the inn, the sky -was clear. But the wind was blowing harder than ever as we made -our way along the strange little harbour; and by the look-out -station on the cliff it was as much as we could do to hold our -own against the gale. A tremendous sea was breaking on the reefs -outside, and thundering against the rocky wall below. Before us, -far as eye could reach, stretched away the sunlit levels of the -Atlantic, touched with a thousand twinkling points of light, and -shot with changing tones of green and blue and amethyst. - -Boscastle Minster lies in an ideal setting in its quiet woodland -valley. But some travellers, at any rate, will look with less -interest on its massive walls, on the decorated timbers of its -noble roof, or on the time-blackened carvings of its beautiful -bench-ends, than on the other church of Boscastle, at Forrabury, a -mile or so to the westward. For this is the Silent Tower of -Bottreaux, whose bells lie at the bottom of the sea, just outside -the harbour. - -All the world knows the story. How, when the church was first -built, the village folk petitioned the Lord of Bottreaux for a -peal of bells to hang in the new tower. How the bells were cast, -and were on their way by sea from London. How, as the ship drew -near Boscastle harbour, the pilot, a Tintagel man, heard the -chimes of his own village ringing, and thanked God for fine -weather and a prosperous voyage. How the captain scoffed: "Thank -your own skill," said he, "and our stout craft and able -seamanship." How the words were hardly uttered, when a sudden -storm caught the vessel and dashed her to pieces on the rocks. How -only the pilot reached land alive. And how, on wild nights of -winter, when a storm is coming up from the Atlantic, the fisherman -on the shore still hears the muffled tones of the long-lost -Bottreaux bells, as the unquiet surges swing them in their ocean -rest. - -But the glory of the whole coast is Tintagel,--the birth-place of -Arthur, the palace of King Marc of Cornwall. Though the village of -Tintagel is half a mile or more inland, the ruins of the ancient -stronghold stand partly on the brink of a cliff that overhangs the -sea, but mainly on a bold headland almost surrounded by the waves. -Some of the masonry is older even than the days of the Round -Table, for in St. Juliet's Chapel there are, it is said, traces of -Roman workmanship. Tintagel was still inhabited, either as a -fortress or a prison until early Tudor times; but Leland describes -it as having wholly gone to ruin. "It hath bene," he says in his -gossiping _Itinerary_, "a marvelus strong and notable forteres, -and almost _situ loci inexpugnabile_, especially for the donjon -that is on the great high terrible cragge. But the residue of the -buildinges of the castel be sore wether-beten an yn mine." - -Standing on the brink of the tremendous cliff, with the waves and -the wave-girt rock before, with the wind-swept downs behind, where -the lonely church seems to crouch upon the short turf like a -storm-driven sea-bird, and with the whole air full of the fretful -murmur of the sea, we look down upon a page of old romance. - -His must be a dull soul who, when the stern lines of the headland -are dark against the glowing west, cannot people the old halls -with shadowy figures, with the shapes of Arthur and his Knights, -who, more than all other heroes, have been so - - "Magnified by the purple mist - The dusk of centuries and of song." - -As we look over the perilous verge we have no eyes for the dark -hues of the rock, for the whiteness of the leaping foam-cloud, or -for the beauty of the blue levels of "the unquiet, bright Atlantic -main." We have no ears for the croak of the raven, or the wail of -the herring-gull, or even for the thunder of the sea. Our souls -are with the past. As we climb the steep pathway to the summit of -the headland, we think of Uther Pendragon and of Merlin. We see -Sir Bedivere stooping beneath his burden. We hear the clink of - - "... harness in the icy caves - And barren chasms," - -when - - "... all to left and right - The bare, black cliff clanged round him, as he based - His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang - Sharp-smitten with the dint of armèd heels." - -We see in fancy the prostrate figure of the guilty queen. We see - - "Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights, - The Dragon of the great Pendragonship - Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire." - -We hear the shock of that last battle in the west when - - "... friend and foe were shadows in the mist, - And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; - And some had visions out of golden youth, - And some beheld the faces of old ghosts - Look in upon the battle." - -And when at length we stand within the windswept ruin we remember -that it was here King Marc of Cornwall kept his court. It was to -this sea-girt rock that Tristram of Lyonesse, the peerless -hunter, harper, knight, brought home his master's bride, Iseult of -Ireland. Within these very walls stood the two helpless, hapless -lovers, caught all unaware in the fatal mesh of the enchanter. For -among the treasures on board the ship that brought them to -Tintagel was a golden cup, with a love-potion in it, prepared by -the bride's mother, for Iseult and King Marc to drink upon their -marriage day, "and for ever love each other." - -But, alas, Iseult and Sir Tristram, in all innocence, drained the -magic cup. The subtle potion fired their veins; - - "... their hands - Tremble, and their cheeks are flame - As they feel the fatal bands - Of a love they dare not name." - -In fancy we see that other chamber, far off upon the coast of -Brittany, where, after long years the Knight lay dying. We see him - - "... weak and pale, - Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head, - Propt on pillows on his bed, - Gazing sea-ward for the light - Of some ship that fights the gale - On this wild December night." - -We see Iseult standing in the moonlight, the spray of the -sea-voyage on her cloak and hair. We hear her singing, in sweet -voice and low, the promised - - "... tales of true, long-parted lovers, - Joined at evening of their days again." - -We catch the last low murmur of the dying Knight:-- - - "Now to sail the seas of Death I leave thee-- - One last kiss upon the living shore." - - - - -_Printed at the Office of the Publisher, St. Stephen Street, -Bristol._ - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's In the West Country, by Francis A. 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