120 <fAMBLES OF A <DOfMlNlS 



the wide hollow where the Dart goes whirling down, 

 ranks high among the fairest spots of Devon, and it is 

 no idle boast to say that there is little finer river scenery 

 in England. 



Dartmoor weather has a reputation somewhat doubt- 

 ful. The very name is held suggestive of the realm of 

 rain and mist. Even Devon folk have an ill word 

 for it : 



" West wind always brings wet weather j 



East wind wet and cool together. 



South wind surely brings the rain, 



North wind blows it back again." 



But there is no corner on the Dart like those God-for- 

 saken wastes on Exmoor where the year is made of 

 nine months' winter and three months' rain ; where the 

 hay is dried by steam power, and where three 'fine days 

 in a fortnight make an epoch to be talked of all the 

 season. But even when the east blows keen across the 

 moor the sun is warm along the river. The wooded 

 winding shores are peopled by a different race from the 

 moorland wilderness above. 



In a clearing among the bushes, a sort of no-man's 

 land, at a corner of a covert, stood the keeper and his 

 men. The ground before them was broken up with the 

 mounds and burrows of a colony of badgers, and the im- 

 plements carried by the men a pickaxe and a spade, a 

 portentous pair of tongs, and a sack suggested that an 

 assault was contemplated on the holt. 



The keeper was not in a mood to listen to any argu- 

 ments as to the harmlessness of badgers. He was 



