HARVEST AND GLEANING TIME 177 



could be made by judicious management and 

 refined taste out of what was once a swamp 

 that would not bear a man. 



Next morning after breakfast we bade our 

 host and hostess good morning, after being 

 warned by him not to get off the hard track, 

 in passing through a moss that was on our 

 way, unless we travelled by the narrow up-and- 

 down cross-country road. 



I have seen mosses or moss-swamps before, 

 but this could hardly be surpassed for wild 

 beauty, although so far as size went it was 

 only a long patch, whilst others run for miles. 

 Still, before I got through it, it was more 

 than enough for me. Young flappers were 

 about, near the footway too much wet does 

 not suit even ducks and snipe were near ; 

 and that was about all the life to be seen, 

 with the exception of a rabbit or two. What 

 there may have been concealed on or in 

 those moss-bunches, ranging in size from a 

 large circular table to a flower-pot, one could 

 only guess. If one had placed one's foot on 

 one of those gaily tinted masses of moss, one 

 would have gone down through it and been 

 smothered. 



If to the natural beauties of such spots you 



M 



