106 SVLBLES OF A <DOfMINI8 



are lines of tall rushes, whose thin veil hardly hides a 

 string of teal, keeping close together, quiet and motion- 

 less as if hoping to escape unseen. Reluctantly they 

 rise at length, making sweet music with their wings. 

 They fly up the tarn to the far end, thence once back, 

 and then away into the hills to join, in some remoter 

 solitude, their sober-clad companions. 



Even in this desolate spot there are signs of man's 

 dominion. Across the swampy ground are the lines of 

 ancient fields. A few broad stones not yet swallowed up 

 in the oozy soil, are the relics of a causeway over the 

 morass to a rocky brow under the hill where stand the 

 ruins of a homestead. 



His was a dire extremity who sought to claim this 

 hopeless wilderness. Long years have passed since the 

 effort was abandoned. The walls, piled rudely of huge 

 blocks of stone, are standing in their simple strength ; 

 but the broken rafters are scattered on the floor, and 

 under the fallen tiles the lizard and the field-mouse creep 

 for shelter. Rushes and nettles, bramble and foxglove, 

 hide with their green tapestries the " chinks that time 

 has made." Some bird has built its nest in the old 

 chimney, and on the hearth, whose generous glow has 

 mocked it may be many a time the blasts that shook the 

 walls, moulder the rusty bars. 



That a wren has built within the doorway, proves how 

 completely man's presence is forgotten ; but a robin 

 singing blithely on the broken sill seems like a link with 

 forgotten tenants. Where hung the garden gate grows 

 a great elder tree, betraying by the wrinkles in its bark 



