1 86 MY DEVON YEAR 



below, or the young plover in the marsh upon the 

 hills. 



A great hush and peace brood over Wistman's Wood 

 to-day. As yet, but one pinch of Autumn has 

 transformed the leaf, reddened the briar, or powdered 

 the fern with gold. In the hollows a diamond dew 

 still sparkles though the hour is noon, and the sweet, 

 sharp breath of September whispers along the wood. 

 Still every ancient crown wears the deep green of 

 Summer, and a stray honeysuckle blossoms, though 

 its berries are turning scarlet ; but the tender, white 

 corydalis and other flowers of Summer have vanished ; 

 the wood-rush has its sharp leaves amber-pointed; the 

 heather fades ; and the wrinkled wood-sage likewise 

 wanes away. 



Below there races Dart, cherry-coloured after a 

 freshet. Her foam flashes and twinkles, her glassy 

 planes image the sun in stars and beams, and she 

 signals to the old wood above and laughs, herself 

 older than the oaks yet blessed with the eternal youth 

 of flowing waters. Far away, beyond the granite 

 mass of Crow Tor moorwards, a darkness lies upon 

 the hill and moves not. There Western Dart is born, 

 and bubbles and trickles through the sponges of 

 peat from wells deep hidden beneath them. Very 

 musical amid these echoing gorges she winds by 

 granite stairways ; and above her, on the huge hill- 

 bosoms of grey and sunlit green, acres of dead grass- 

 blades weave a veil over the livinor herbagre — a veil 

 that changes with every magic light from dawn or 



