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Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, The British oak with rooted grasp Her slender handful holds together; With cliffs of white and bowers of green, And Ocean narrowing to caress her, And hills and threaded streams between, Our little mother isle, God bless her!

"She wants to fatten me," said the princess. "You must keep the cottage tidy while I am out. When I come back, I must see the fire bright, the hearth swept, and the kettle boiling; no dust on the table or chairs, the windows clear, the floor clean, and the heather in blossom which last comes of sprinkling it with water three times a day.

For a mile or two the landscape was wildly sad in aspect, just a waste of sand and heather, with naked ridges and boggy hollows, one or two wind-swept hillocks that bore a ragged crest of blackened firs, and in the farthest distance massive contours of grassy down rising as a barrier to guard the fertile valleys of another county.

Now went the little brother away in his anger, and found himself a play among the heather. But the Black Earl bent above the stream and gazed long into its shallow turbulence with wonder and fear, for the words the stream said to him in its whisperings were as though spoken in the voice of his young bride. He laid his hand in the flowing waters. "Why art thou troubled, little stream?" quoth he.

He turned sharp to the right past the back of the stands, and was fortunate in finding enough clear road to render pursuit by his elderly cousin a vain thing, even if it were thought of. The Mercury had to cross the caravan zone carefully, but once Tattenham Corner was reached the way lay open to Reigate. Through a land of gorse and heather they sped until they came to the famous hill.

To find a flower in its native haunts I walked enormous distances, beside the brooklets, through the valleys, to the summit of the cliffs, across the moorland, garnering thoughts even from the heather.

It was then the turn of the Cordons to draw back, seeing which, the northern clans rallied and returned to the fight, each soldier having a sprig of heather in his cap that his comrades might recognise him. This unexpected movement determined the day: the Highlanders ran down the hillside like a torrent, dragging along with them everyone who could have wished to oppose their passage.

The rain was heavier when, early next morning, Kit went out to move some sheep from a spot where the rising water might cut them off. He came back along the meadow dyke and stopped for a few minutes when he reached its weakest place. Reeds and tufts of heather whirled down the brown flood.

What could have seemed more transparent than Medhurst, the detective, till he ran away with our notes in the very moment of triumph? What more innocent than White Heather and the little curate, till they landed us with a couple of Amelia's own gems as a splendid bargain?

Her great eyes, still dewy with the warm light of love in them, never left his till, holding his love safe in his arms, he drew her to him and upon her sweet lips took his first kiss of love. "At last!" he said, after a silence. The sun was rising over the hills of heather. League after league of the imperial colour rolled westward as the level rays of the sun touched it.