362 Mr Hardy on Langleyford Vale and the Cheviots. 



The southern side being moory, gives origin to the heather. 

 There are a few juniper bushes near the bottom, perhaps the 

 remains of a belt of that shrub ; we find it again above Old 

 Langlee, and a solitary bnsh on Cheviot above Harthope linn. 

 Where springs scatter their moisture or flow down to a plash 

 at the foot, clumps of alders have been established. There 

 is much scantiness of earth ; many of the alders having their 

 creeping roots exposed on the surface in a labyrinthine net- 

 work ; their support being a mere causeway of stones with a 

 slight soil washed into them. Gathered into masses, these 

 trees have a stiff, sombre look. In autumn this is kindled 

 up by the yellowing green of the hazel, the scarlet bravery of 

 the mountain ash, and the feathery birches, which glow like 

 sun-pierced orange clouds on the higher and drier spots. 



To look up the heathy slope, it rises uniformly steep and 

 level ; but one has little idea of form and distance among 

 those hills. There are numerous inequalities, wrinkles, and 

 hidden recesses up there ; and one cannot comprehend the 

 extent till he has traversed the ground. Many scattered 

 British settlements lurk concealed over the heathery space, 

 even down to the edge of the woods. They are as much 

 entombed there from human knowledge, as are the fossils 

 which lie sealed up between the layers of rock. The road 

 ascending from Langlee is an old British track-way. 



The ridge on the other side rises gradually, but at length 

 aspires to such a height, that where the ascent is abrupt, as 

 for example above the fine glitter-covered bank, it appears to 

 approach nearer to the ethereal blue than many loftier emin- 

 ences ; the gossamery summer clouds, one might say, float 

 out from behind it. It. is bared to the bone, and from its 

 dryness produces grass and bent rather than heather. 



The rock that feeds the "glitters" is a hard compact grey- 

 blue porphyry, and its fissility originates from the mode in 

 which its particles are adjusted, rather than from their being 

 softened by the weather. The process of comminution and 

 slipping forward is constant; the shepherds tell me that 

 they hear the splinters trinkling down, even in the calmest 

 day of summer — the alternate heats and colds being sufficient 

 to set the particles a-pattering. In passing, I sometimes 

 imagine, how the self-same cliffs in by-gone ages of the world, 

 thus imperceptibly mouldered away amidst fierce frosts and 

 showers of snow and rain, till the accumulated spoils were 



