76 MY DEVON YEAR 



No spectacle of such chaotic wonder as that 

 displayed in the Valley of Rocks may be met with 

 near eastern Okement, yet such special loveliness 

 as she owns in springtime I know not upon any other 

 stream of the West Country. 



On a morning while the blackthorn still blew 

 upon Halstock Hill, I looked down from heights 

 above the river and saw beneath me first a receding 

 foreground of great oak trees. No leaf had yet 

 escaped the bud-sheath, but every amber stipule was 

 near to bursting, and a warm, mellow tone hovered 

 over the forest in sharp contrast to the ashy colour of 

 the lichens on the boughs and the green moss upon 

 the trunks of the trees. Ivy shone out here and 

 there, but the crown of the foliage was still to come, 

 and through the grey mesh of branches the under- 

 woods appeared quite full of young green, awake 

 with many flowers and throbbing to the cuckoo's cry. 



In the valley Okement tumbled, while beyond the 

 river there rose up a vast hill, gentle and round- 

 bosomed, under one magnificent robe of the vernal 

 furze. Marvellous was the contrast between that 

 sheet of glory and the sky above it ; for aloft a sullen 

 grey of various tones spread far in streaks and blots 

 and washes. Great rains were flooding Northern 

 Devon, and the remote line of Exmoor stretched 

 upon the horizon like a purple wale — angry, storm- 

 foundered, scarcely to be separated from the dark- 

 ness above it. 



The liquid light of the oak-buds bursting, the gorse 



