Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/317

 the white vapours of a wintry dawn as amidst the gold of the pond-marigolds in midsummer; and over all the land, all seasons through, the red-legged partridges ran under the cistus and rosemary they best Jove, and the cushats, though their voices were mute, stayed at home and braved the autumn rains and winter sea-fogs that stretched to the mountain's foot.

All these innocent and most lovely creatures had cruel foes; cruellest foe of all the pitiless snarer or sportsman who had no better aim in his own miserable life than to slaughter these lives that were so much lovelier than his own.

But the moors are vast, and vast the meadows virgin of the scythe, and vast the labyrinths of forests and of undergrowth stretching at the mountain's foot. There was many a lagoon, where never other voices than the birds' were heard; there was many a league of woodland, where the thorns of the firebush and the sloe and the tangle of matted vegetation made impenetrable barriers to the greed of trappers.

When the boats came at night with the lanterns to daze and bewilder the roosting wild ducks, and the cowardly showers of