AUTUMN LIGHTS AND SHADES. 209 



growth, begin to line the stream, mixed with flags 

 and sword-grass. Alders also begin to show as the 

 moor widens, and the vegetation is swampy in char- 

 acter, but it is peculiar to the district. The alders 

 are old, and, like the thorns that we have left be- 

 hind us, grey with moss and lichens. Some of them 

 have fallen through sheer old age, others have been 

 caught in falling by those still flourishing. The 

 living and the dead alders are coated alike with the 

 same grey moss. On the knolls that rise here and 

 there above the course of the stream are clumps 

 of firs, self-sown ; fine trees, many of them, with 

 clean stems for some distance up, then a few limbs 

 run out, and there is a thick crown of foliage above, 

 No moss grows on their trunks, or " stams," as 

 they are generally called in woodland dialect. 



We have passed through quite half the moor, 

 when the hills above us, we find, are silently sending 

 water down in great quantities ; in fact, the road 

 here is covered with the purest spring-water, and 

 we are very cautiously wading through. It is two 

 and three inches deep on the road, but if we stepped 

 off for one moment we might find two or three feet 

 of the same pure water under that golden-green 



o 



