176 MY DEVON YEAR 



their bosoms, and saw something of the inner magic 

 and meaning hidden from the vision of us common 

 men. 



Upon this September morning, from such wide 

 survey and prospect did I lower my eyes and 

 make another examination of the world spread 

 underfoot — that many - tinted garment created to 

 clothe these high places. The texture of the heath 

 is very rich ; interwoven of all blended hues and 

 primary colours ; spread with cloth-of-gold ; starred 

 and sprinkled with bright gems ; broadly, generously 

 planned in such wise that tremendous spaces of 

 flower-light glide from the interspaces of leafy gloom, 

 then fade and fret away into the fern and stone 

 again ; ordered in its far-flung planes, its heights and 

 hollows, as fitting theatre for display of storm and 

 sunshine ; as a trysting-place for the rainbows and the 

 rain ; a battlefield for the lightning and the winter 

 hurricane. 



Its warp and weft is of the ling and heather 

 mingled with bilberry — a fabric of special beauty 

 at this season, when pale sheets of blossom-light 

 sweep over it, and soften the sobriety of the 

 web. Wide green fingers of fine grass separate 

 these tapestries hung upon the bosoms of the hills ; 

 and for brooch and jewel, the granite sparkles, 

 and the lesser furze shines sun-bright over great 

 tracts or in solitary mounds and cushions. Through 

 the brown and amethyst of these heathy acres and 

 into the vesture of the waste is woven an under- 



