XVIII. 

 A MOORLAND FIRE. 



THE frosts of last winter that terrible, 

 pitiless winter killed down two-thirds of 

 the gorse in England ; and now that summer 

 has come again, the dry brown branches 

 stand bare and leafless in mute accusation 

 in every moor and common in the country. 

 Only an exceptionally hardy bush here and 

 there puts forth, in a straggling and tentative 

 fashion, a few timid shoots, or struggles in- 

 effectually into feeble bloom on a protected 

 bough or so. The bumble-bees wander 

 about, disconsolate, like the hungry sheep 

 in " Lycidas," and are not fed ; thousands 

 and thousands of them have died this spring 

 from so unexpected a failure of their staple 

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