160 August Heather 



island race by the loch-sides of the treeless Hebrides. 

 In the midst of a broad sweep of heather, out of 

 earshot of the light voices in the gorse, the great 

 expanse of purple blossom seems to dominate all 

 nature, like the yellow sands of the desert. It 

 subdues every voice less illimitable than the drone 

 of the bees in its own bells and the murmur of the 

 wind upon the heath. 



Most of the life of a heather country at this 

 time of year is concentrated about the moister 

 bottoms, where the bell-heather and the ling break 

 away into thinner and more varied growths. Where 

 the soil begins to grow damper and slope to the 

 bog, the cross-leaved heath emerges from its con- 

 cealment in the hollows among the roots of the 

 more vigorous species, and tinges the dry, white 

 grass with its silvered foliage and pink bells. The 

 harmless grass snake hunts among the water plants 

 for frogs ; and here and there the cast skin of an 

 adder may be found intertwined in the heather 

 roots on the lip of the hollow. Country people 

 believe a snake's slough to be infallible for drawing 

 a splinter or thorn out of a gathered finger ; and, 

 indeed, the smoothness and tenderness of the dry 

 skin may make a better protection for the gathering 

 while it heals itself than the softest glove. The 

 curlew's feathers dropped about the bog's margin 

 are signs of an earlier summer life, already almost 

 gone ; and the soft grey plume of a heron tells 

 of a wanderer which may not come again. But 

 all such tokens of the swift lapse of the seasons 

 are lost in the abounding sense of August life. The 



