108 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



the spirit of rest seem to wrap them round ! On 

 their distant slopes it is never common day, never 

 more than dawn, for the shadows always sleep 

 among their hollows, and a haze of changing 

 blues, their own peculiar beauty, hangs, even at 

 high noon, like a veil upon them, shrouding them 

 with largeness and mystery. 



A rustle in the dead leaves down the slope re- 

 called me. I reached instinctively for the gun, 

 but stayed my hand. Slowly nosing his way up 

 the ridge, came a full-grown skunk, his tail a-drag, 

 his head swinging close to the ground. He was 

 coming home to the den, coming leisurely, con- 

 tentedly, carelessly, as if he had a right to live. 

 I sat very still. On he came, scarcely checking 

 himself as he winded me. How like the dawn 

 he seemed ! — the black of night with the white 

 of day — the furtive dawn slipping into its den ! 

 He sniffed at the gun and cannon-cracker, made 

 his way over them, brushed past me, and calmly 

 disappeared beneath the stump. 



The chewink still sang from the top of the 

 sapling, but the tame broad day had come. I 

 stayed a little while, looking off still at the dis- 

 tant hills. We had sat thus, my six-year-old and 



