Over the Hills and Far Away 



peat. It was rescued a quarter of an hour later, 

 none the worse, save for the loss of a few feathers. 



A dog's instinct seems to drive him to burial 

 rather than to out and out murder, and perhaps 

 our animals are too civilised to make a clean job 

 of it, for they are never wholly successful. Their 

 victims always escape, and upon the only occasion 

 when the sheepdog, Billy, succeeded in frightening 

 a rabbit into "shamming dead" — it was really 

 hypnotised by fear — his instinct so failed him that 

 he had to wait for instructions from Luath, who 

 buried it for him. 



For half a mile we go along the ride through 

 the woods until we reach the clearing known as 

 " the Heather Glen," a wide gap between two walls 

 of trees. In the summer it is like a purple river, 

 while through the rest of the year, it is brown and 

 green-blue in the distance — and at the bottom is 

 a path of silver sand that looks like a glittering 

 stream. On either side of the glen the dark pines 

 are fringed with silver birches — the lady among 

 trees, as the beech is the gentleman. Lovely mosses 

 grow among the heather, and in the autumn bright- 

 coloured toadstools which I gather from day to 

 day for my winter table garden : — a garden in 

 miniature which is laid out in a dish. Moss and 

 peat furnish the soil, and it can be made gay with 



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