THE PHEASANT-HEN It all seems to end in leagues of purple heather.

But the person who speaks of "lurid flames," or "untiring efforts," or "specimens of humanity"who "views with alarm," or has a "native heath," or is "to the manner born"does more than advertise the scantness of his verbal resources.

According to a tradition current in Friesland, no woman is to be found at home on a Friday, because on that day they hold their meetings and have dances on a barren heath.

On the window-sill in his mother's kitchen had stood always a pot of pink heather.

O'er the watery ford, Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hill, 330 O'er beaten paths, with men and beasts distained, Unerring he pursues; till at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff' vile, redeems the captive prey: So exquisitely delicate his sense!

Mike prevailed with him so far that he consentedreluctantlyto be left alone on the blasted heath, while his friend went back to reconnoiter.

What joy it must be, like a living breeze, To flutter about 'mid the flowering trees; Lightly to soar, and to see beneath, The wastes of the blossoming purple heath, And the yellow furze, like fields of gold, That gladdened some fairy region old!

For a thousand feet it ranges up, in rude sheets of brown heather, and grey cairns and screes of granite, all sharp and black-edged against the pale blue sky; and all suddenly cut off above by one long horizontal line of dark grey cloud, which seems to hang there motionless, and yet is growing to windward, and dying to leeward, for ever rushing out of the invisible into sight, and into the invisible again, at railroad speed.

The barest heath and sky have lovelinesses infinitely beyond the most gorgeous of such phantasmagoric idealization of her beauties; and the most wretched condition of humanity struggling for existence contains elements of worth and future development inappreciable by the philanthropy that would elevate them by cultivating their self-love.

The strangeness of the thing clutched at my heart, for here was the voice which had never been out of my ears singing again in a land far from the wet heather and the driving mists of home.

A thicket planted by a lonely heath, O'ergrown with brambles and unwholesome weeds, That clasping trees around with witch-like arms, Poison'd their life out, and still held them dead.

It had been an evening of cloud, but now the sky was clear and the moon shone bright and round as they reached that desolate, wind-swept heath that went by the name of Hangstone Waste, a solitary place at all times but more especially wild and awful 'neath the ghostly moon; wherefore Roger went wide-eyed and fearful, and kept fast hold of Beltane's stirrup.

Adelheid and her female attendants were already lashed to the principal masts, and ropes were given to the others around her, as indispensable precautions; for the deck of the bark, now cleared of every particle of its freight, was as exposed and as defenceless against the power of the wind, as a naked heath.

Compelled to halt twice, we saw some deplorable scenes of cottage misery, almost enough to put us out of conceit of rusticity, till after crossing a bleak, dreary heath, we espied the distant light of Newport.

It afforded a perfect screen from the road, and on the other side there was only untrodden heath, no path or track being visible near it.

On its broad summit you'll find woods and grain fields, and one and another heather-heath.

But, in the beginning of April when the snow finally melts away in Sonnerbo, it is apparent that that which lies hidden under it is only dry, sandy heaths, bare rocks, and big, marshy swamps.

Still, we are near the end of the season, and these hills are high and bleak, and those that follow are delicate flowers for a stormy heath.

Here Beltane laid him down, watching a little cataract that rippled o'er the rocky bank near by, where ferns and lichens grew; what time Sir Fidelis came and went, and, having set fire a-going whereby to cook their supper, brought an armful of fragrant heather to set 'neath Beltane's weary head.

It is a grand and impressive sightone of those dark- browed hills of the Border-land, bearded to its rock-ridged forehead with such bush-bristles and haired with matted heather.

Their panniered train a group of potters goad, Winding from side to side up the steep road; 130 The peasant, from yon cliff of fearful edge Shot, down the headlong path darts with his sledge; Bright beams the lonely mountain-horse illume Feeding 'mid purple heath, "green rings," [K] and broom; While the sharp slope the slackened team confounds, 135 Downward

My heart to meet the summons leaps At limit of its straining tether, Where the fresh western sunlight steeps In golden flame the prairie heather.

The hills were bare of trees, covered with scraggy bushes and rough heath, which in some places was so thick we could scarcely drag our feet through.

At other moments they crossed rude, stony, mountain heaths, if such a word can be applied to spots without the symbol or hope of vegetation.

The prince who awoke the slumbering heath was a captain of engineers, Enrico Dalgas by name.