SEPTEMBER 227 



top seems totally devoid of life. Not a sign of living 

 creature punctuates its emptiness; even midges cannot 

 face this cold, wet wind. But the skirts of the storm are 

 drawn swiftly aside; the sun bursts out with dramatic 

 suddenness, and in a moment earth and air are astir with 

 moving things. Black heather-flies rise to their dance ; 

 they must number a million to the acre, and tens of 

 thousands of acres are in sight around me; wan moths 

 flutter among the scant grasses, and a frog creeps 

 stealthily over the gray moss. Froggie does not seem in 

 training for mountaineering, his muscle, one would say, 

 being all too flabby for alpine work ; nevertheless you are 

 sure to meet him anywhere up to four thousand feet, 

 tempted to these high levels by the abundance of flies. 

 There is no bird of ravin aloft, except a scald crow of 

 forbidding voice, so the ptarmigan begins to croon and 

 chuckle among the rocks, and from far down the hill 

 rises the cheerful crow of our only exclusive British bird, 

 the red grouse. The sunshine has restored every creature 

 to busy life: Even I, bedraggled and discredited, assume 

 a buoyant air, and fall in with the stalker's proposal to 

 approach some deer he has spied on the opposite hill, 

 albeit this implies a descent of two thousand feet, and a 

 corresponding climb on the other side at a gradient like 

 that of the dome of St. Paul's. 



XXXIII 



Even to the man of mildest nature there arrives a 



moment when he is forced to seek relief in 



The growing 



execration. Be he alone, his curses are audible evil of coi- 

 and deep ; if he is with others, habit and ec ors 

 reverence for his company keep him silent, but not less 



