222 AUGUST ON THE MOORS 



read before ; such light popular literature, in short, as is 

 suitable to men determined beforehand on being idle. 

 It is wearisome, there is no doubt ; and if desperation 

 drive you beyond the watery walls of your prison, you 

 are washed back again in spite of yourself. But with 

 firm faith, even then, in the doctrine of compensations, 

 you feel all your ennui will be repaid you, in the 

 burst of joy with which your bounding heart greets 

 the first outbreak of the returning sun. He has to 

 make a hard fight of it, it is true ; and before the 

 weather settles back to serenity, you have one or two 

 off-days, when you know it to be idle to risk your 

 gun-locks in the chase through plashing water and 

 pools, over sloppy, slippery mountain-sides after birds 

 as wild as hawks. But toujours grouse might become 

 as tiresome as toujours partridge, and not the least 

 pleasant of your recollections link themselves to these 

 off-days when venturing abroad in water-proofing you 

 shake off the sense of confinement as you inhale the 

 freshened air. You turn out to drag the lake for 

 trout and pike. What lights on loch and fresh-washed 

 mountain, as the suns falls on the glistening patches 

 of green ; on the red seams where a yard or two of 

 landslip has just descended into the water, on the 

 hundreds of rain-rills throwing themselves from cliff 

 to cliff in tiny cascades, till taking the final plunge 

 they waste themselves in " dustfalls," like the Staubach, 

 on the driving breeze. The men, glad to find them- 

 selves again on the element that comes so natural to 

 them, stretch their sinews and brawny arms to the oar 



