A MOORLAND SANCTUARY 135 



Summer came, the brief radiant summer of the 

 open upland moor, when the days are torrid and 

 the nights are cooled by a gentle breeze, and the 

 few bird- voices of spring are hushed. Its 

 approach was not indicated by the sudden 

 unfolding of the leaf -buds on the trees ; the only 

 trees on the moor were the pines near the farm, 

 and they were always green ; the grass, except 

 immediately around the marsh, was stunted and 

 parched by the fierce heats of noon. But along 

 the hills the colour of the heather had slowly 

 deepened on the lengthening sprays, and the 

 bracken had thrust up its branching fronds till 

 every trackway of the grouse and the hare 

 resembled a bowered lane through which the 

 creatures could wander unseen. And on the 

 marsh the reeds and flags were tall and thick, 

 and waved to the breath of the wind. Regularly 

 now, in the twilight, the bitterns, leading a little 

 family of three grey-brown birds, stole out from 

 the mere to the brook, and thence to the gorge 

 below the waterfall. Frogs and slugs were 

 plentiful in the undergrowth when it was wet 

 with dew, and, occasionally, a trout, in the act 

 of leaving the pool to feed down-stream, could 

 be surprised among the pebbles where the water 

 narrowed near the side-channel of a neglected 

 sheep-pond long since overgrown with weeds. 

 The gorge was a chosen school, in which, safe 



