rock-pools of the Seven Hunters or where the The 

 Summer Isles lie in the churn of the Atlantic Mountain 

 tides. Everything is alive in joy. The arm * 

 young broods exult. The air is vibrant with 

 the eddies of many wings, great and small. 

 The shadow-grass sways with the passage of 

 the shrewmouse or the wings-breath of the 

 darting swallow. The stillest pool quivers, 

 for among the shadows of breathless reeds the 

 phantom javelin of the dragon-fly whirls for a 

 second from silence to silence. In the morning 

 the far lamentation of the flocks on the summer 

 shielings falls like the sound of bells across 

 water. The curlew and the plover are not 

 spirits of desolation, but blithe children of the 

 wilderness. As the afternoon swims in blue 

 haze and floating gold the drowsy call of the 

 moorcock stirs the heather-sea. The snorting 

 of trampling deer may be heard. The land- 

 rail sweeps the dew from the tall grass and 

 sends her harsh but summer-sweet cry in long 

 monotonous echoes, till the air rings with the 

 resonant krek-crake. And that sudden break 

 in the silences of the dusk, when . . . beyond 

 the blossoming elder, or the tangle of wild 

 roses where the white moths rise and fall in 

 fluttering ecstasy, or, yonder, by the black- 

 green juniper on the moorland . . . the low 

 whirring note of the nightjar vibrates in a 



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