6 4 MY DEVON YEAR 



wandered in the dew, and the mothers raised shining 

 muzzles from the sweet grasses ; but the noses of the 

 little ones were dry, for they had breakfasted off 

 milk alone. This waking world was full of new-born 

 things and anxious parents tending on them. Upon 

 every wall sat birds with insects in their bills for 

 fledglings ; here a wheat-ear dipped and jerked ; here 

 a yellow-hammer sang his mournful -sounding song; 

 and in the bogs, where last year's rushes stood sere 

 above silver pools, the plovers mewed like kittens, and 

 swooped and tumbled. There is a glance of black 

 and white as the bird descends, and a single spot of 

 white remains where he alights with uplifted pinions ; 

 then his dark wing comes down over the bright side- 

 feathers, and he vanishes. A curlew wheeled in 

 curves, uttering wild, bubbling protests at intrusion of 

 a human presence upon his world, and above him the 

 larks shrilled to the day; and the plovers, now uniting, 

 drove away a sinister crow from their nurseries. 



The morning wind came scented over miles of 

 the greater furze ; the rush -beds likewise yielded 

 their savour, and along a brook the river -growths 

 exhaled sweetness. Here, too, beside a tributary 

 of Dart, the broom shook out yellow spears above 

 dark green foliage ; the woodrush hung his flowers ; 

 mary-buds gleamed in a lake that reflected their 

 own gold with blue sky and rosy cloud ; and the 

 marsh-violets twinkled more humbly beneath them 

 to find their images in the river also. Upon the 

 water, procumbent grasses made a mesh to catch 



