10 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



I'd passed Mountain Gate, so I went down the dry bed of the stream, with 



along the rough path by the bog, his family in the rear. He crooded 



where the furze was tall, and up the (crouched) down close by a small 



bed of the stream in the dingle to the heather bush. I couldn't see what 



foot of the earn. Half-way from the was happening to his mate and the 



furze I came across a sure fox-sign, poults, but I judged they were putting 



as I thought half-a-dozen white fea- up for the night close by. Thinks I, 



thers from the breast of a duckling. ' One or two of that family '11 be miss- 



' Aben's ducks don't come so far up ing afore dawn ; if there's a vixen 



the dingle of their own accord,' says with cubs hereabouts she's certain to 



I to myself ; ' it seems to me a vixen's use the path down to the brook, and 



busy with a family in the earn.' she'll come plump on 'em in their sleep.' 



" Well, I climbed the White Stones "I watched and watched, but 



near to the top, and settled down nothing like a fox came out of the 



comfortable in the fern, so's I could earn, though about midnight I heard 



view a likely opening or two below a pebble rolling down to the edge of 



me. By-and-by, old Aben passed up the little stream the water's only a 



the opposite hill, holding his sides, and trickle now, the weather's been so 



coughing now and then, on his way dry and I fancied, a minute after, 



for his drop of beer in the Farmer's that a fern moved, as if some animal 



Arms at the cross-roads. 'Twas brushed under it. But I couldn't 



wonderful how well I could hear 'n well see the ground between this spot 



the air was so still. When he was and the lowest of the big stones in the 



far on the edge of the moor, up jumped earn, so I crawled to the other side, 



a covey of grouse, not two hundred and lay where I could get a better 



yards from the Stones, and came fly- view. I tried my best to keep awake, 



ing straight to the place where I was but the mountain air was too strong 



hiding, two old birds and a lot of for me, and made me go to sleep. I 



little poults as seemed proud they woke just afore dawning, after a 



could fly. They lit on the ground couple of hours rest, and felt as fresh 



about twenty or thirty yards from as a lark. I thought I'd surely see 



the Stones, in a big clump of heather the vixen afore long, or not at all, so I 



and fern. I kept my eye on the spot, settled to watch once more. The 



and soon the cock grouse walked sky grew brighter and brighter above 



