105 



A fringe of birches bars the way upward from the 

 valley. In the wet earth about their roots, the plants 

 of the moorland, the outposts of the higher regions 

 mingle with the children of the woo$. Yellow spikes of 

 asphodel shine in the rank grass. Sprays of dainty marsh 

 plants hang pale blue bells over the stream. In corners 

 of black bogland, the grass of Parnassus gleams star-like 

 in its peerless beauty. And here the sundew folds in its 

 deadly leaves the insects that sip its fatal sweetness. 



Higher up there is no canopy of foliage above the 

 brook, but among its alder thickets the meadow-sweet 

 grows tall and strong, and all along the shore the bog- 

 myrtle, crushed under careless footsteps, answers meekly 

 with the fragrance of its leaves. 



The channel which the stream has carved itself, deep 

 in the black earth of the moor, is marked by wander- 

 ing lines of rushes with here and there a few white 

 plumes of cotton grass, all the way up to its birthplace 

 in the mountains, a quiet lake that lies unseen behind a 

 shoulder of the hill. 



It is a bare, unsheltered tarn. No trees lean over it; 

 there is no fringe of alder even round its still dark 

 water. But over the wide hollow is a dense growth of 

 bracken, whose fronds already under the warm touch of 

 autumn "are turning yellow, or kindling into red." 

 There is a warm flush of ling upon its rocky islets, to 

 whose sovereign purple the gorse adds the crowning 

 touch of gold. Two herons fishing by the shore, rise 

 long before their still forms were seen against the grey 

 rocks, and drift silently away. In the shallows there 



