His Native Heath. 157 



the grand ravine. A hundred plants are spreading 

 bright leaves over the rubbish. Clustering ferns fill 

 with their tender foliage rifts in the shattered rock. 

 Moss grows thick about the mouldering timbers of the 

 galleries whose rough walls are draped with tapestries 

 of living green, glistening with the water that trickles 

 from the dripping roof. 



The path crosses the river by a line of ancient 

 stepping-stones, whose dark forms, worn down by cen- 

 turies of passing feet, are now hardly visible above the 

 brown waters of the swirling stream. 



A party of crows, on the watch perhaps for some 

 hapless lamb drifting down the river, fly out of the 

 alders on the bank and alight in a cluster on the 

 branches of a withered tree. 



There are few birds in the valley. There is a wag- 

 tail pacing with dainty steps along the muddy shore, 

 and a dipper leaves his perch on a boulder in mid- 

 stream as we cross the stones ; but with so few trees 

 and such little cultivation birds are scarce. 



The path leaves the river and climbs the opposite 

 slope. 



On the broad top of yonder knoll, whose steep sides 

 of rock are overshadowed with a dense crown of oak- 

 leaves, are the grey ruins of an ancient camp. Mere 

 heaps of stones they are, peering out through a wilder- 

 ness of brake fern and heather. But around them 

 lingers yet the memory of the bold chief whose altered 

 name clings to the historic hilltop. 



