192 MY DEVON YEAR 



seeding clematis powders hedge and tree, falls over 

 the red sandstone rocks, adds a light to the limestone 

 precipices, or shines grey where it hangs on some 

 great cliff's face above the sea. In the broad, salt 

 estuaries of Exe or Teign, fields of the red earth, that 

 hold next year's corn, are reflected in perpendicular 

 gleams of ruddy light on the rivers ; and against this 

 brilliant colour, thrown up from the face of the water, 

 dead asters stretch in colonies along the mudbanks, 

 and the sedges fade. Above farm lands, outspread 

 in a patchwork of fallow and tilth above the glory 

 of the forests, and the fringes of marsh and moss 

 that dip from loftier regions, Dartmoor extends and 

 rises gently with many a wooded hill and heathery 

 ridge from the fertility beneath. The wilderness lifts 

 up her head in peaks of granite, or rolls along in 

 huge, hog-backed hills that swell to the sky-line, 

 featureless and unmarked by stone or tree. Even 

 here, on this chaos of grey granite and dead heath, 

 is autumn's colour gorgeously apparent when spread 

 in opposition to the sunset or the dawn. The dead 

 fern paints whole leagues of this expanse, and 

 against it the granite takes a pure blue colour, 

 brilliant as turquoise. The flower - stalks of the 

 grasses sink into one prevailing tawny hue a shade 

 that asks for tender evening light to make it mel- 

 low, or purity of snow to reveal its true tones ; but 

 the bilberry dons fine tints in death, and its foli- 

 age will often turn to scarlet before falling ; the 

 heather takes a rusty brightness ; reeds and rushes 



