BY
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
AUTHOR OF "THE SECRET WOMAN," "THE AMERICAN
PRISONER," "CHILDREN OF THE MIST," ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1909,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1909.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO
MY BROTHER
HERBERT MACDONALD PHILLPOTTS
A SMALL TRIBUTE OF
GREAT AFFECTION
THE THREE BROTHERS
From Great Trowlesworthy's crown of rosy granitethe world extended to the moor-edge, and thence,by mighty, dim, air-drenched passages of earthand sky, to the horizons of the sea. A clear May noonilluminated the waste, and Dartmoor, soaking her fill ofsunshine, ran over with it, so that Devon's self spreadlittle darker of bosom than the grey and silver of highclouds lifted above her, mountainous under the sun.
Hills and plains were still mottled with the winter coatof the heather, and the verdure of the spearing grassessuffered diminution under a far-flung pallor of deadblades above breaking green; but the face of Dartmoorbegan to glow and the spring gorse leapt like a runningflame along it. At water's brink was starry silver of crow-foot,and the heath, still darkling, sheltered sky-blue milk-wortand violet and the budding gold of the tormentil.
One white road ran due north-east and south-westacross the desert, and round about it, like the tents ofthe Anakim, rose huge snowy hillocks and ridges silver-brightin the sun. Here the venerable Archæan granitesof Dartmoor, that on Trowlesworthy blush to a ruddysplendour, and elsewhere break beautifully in fair colourand fine grain through the coarser porphyritic stone, suffera change, and out of their perishing constituents emergeskaolin, or china clay.
A river met this naked road, and at their junction thegrey bridge of Cadworthy saddled Plym. Beyond, likethe hogged back of a brown bear, Wigford Down rolledabove the gorges of Dewerstone, and further yet,retreated fields and forests, great uplifted plains, andsudden elevations that glimmered along their crests with thetender green of distant larch and beech.
The atmosphere was opalescent, milky, sweet, asthough earth's sap, leaping to the last tree-tip andbursting bud, exuded upon air the very visible incenseand savour of life. Running water and lifting larkmade the music of this hour; and at one spot on thedesert a girl's voice mingled with them and enlargedthe melody, for it was gentle and musical and belongedto the springtime.
She sat high on Trowlesworthy, where the rusheschatter and where, to their eternal treble, the wind strikesdeep organ music from the forehead of the tor. Fromthe clefts of the rocks around her, where foxes homedsometimes and the hawk made her nest, there hung nowrusset tassels and tufts of dead lady-fern; and abovethis rack of the old year sprang dark green aigrettesof the new.
Stonecrops and pennyworts also flourished amid theuncurling fronds; aloft, the heath and whortle madecurls for the great tor's brow; below, to the girl's feet,there sloped up boulders that shone with fabric ofgolden-brown mosses and dappled lichens, jade-green and grey.The woodsorrel had climbed hither, and its frail bellsand sparkl