Winter in the Marshes. n 



night-jar nestles in their shadows. The rabbit burrows 

 undisturbed under the crumbling brickwork ; the viper 

 basks upon their broken stones. 



The black mould of the moor is rich in memorials 

 of still earlier date. The plough has clashed upon a 

 rusted anchor of rude and primitive design ; the spade 

 has brought to light the black framework of an old 

 canoe, of the same cut as the quaint craft that still bear 

 home the hay along these ancient water-ways. Deep 

 under the peat, whose slow, resistless growth covers 

 up with broad brown mantle all the works of man, lies 

 still the Abbot's Way, along whose mortised beams of 

 oak the friars crossed the treacherous swamps on the 

 business of the monastery. Traces of them still the 

 moor men find among the ancient timbers — a signet 

 wrought in gold, or a token stamped with the abbey 

 arms. 



Beyond that blue line of hills, just where two lazy 

 rivers meet, stands the mound of Athelney. Among 

 these primitive cottages are some so bent with age 

 that, looking through the low doorway at the glimmer- 

 ing fire of peat, one may see in fancy still the Royal 

 exile by the hearth ; may hear 



The good wife scold with kindling eye 

 In good broad Somerset. And sigh 

 And wish the tale were true. 



And in the mist of that fatal summer morning eight 

 centuries later, when the Royal horse swept the wreck 

 of Monmouth's army from this very field, the trembling 



