ery runnel of water that fretted
its channel through the peat; he could mark down the merlin's nest among
the heather and the falcon's eyrie in the cleft of the scar. If he
started a brooding grouse and the young birds scattered themselves in
all directions, he could gather them all around him by imitating the
mother's call-note. The moor had for him few secrets and no terrors. He
could find his way through driving mist or snowstorm, knowing exactly
where the sheep would take shelter from the blast, and rescuing them
from the danger of falling over rocks or becoming buried in snowdrifts.
The sun by day and the stars by night were for him both clock and
compass, and if these failed him he directed his homeward course by
observing how the cotton-grass or withered sedge swayed in the wind.

Except when wrapped in snow, the high moors of the Pennine range present
for eight months of the year a harmony of sober colours, in which the
grey of the rocks, the bleached purple of the heather blossom and the
faded yellows and browns of bent and bracken overpower the patches of
green herbage. But twice in the course of the short summer the moors
burst into flower and array themselves with a bravery with which no
lowland meadow can compare. The first season of bloom is in early June,
when the chalices or the cloud-berry and the nodding plumes of the
cottongrass spring from an emerald carpet of bilberry and ling. These
two flowers are pure white, and the raiment of the moors is that of a
bride prepared to meet her bridegroom, the sun. By July the white has
passed, and the moors have assumed once more a sombre hue. But August
follows, and once again they burst into flower. No longer is their
vesture white and virginal; now they bloom as a matron and a queen,
gloriously arrayed in a seamless robe of purple heather.

Such were the surroundings amid which Peregrine Ibbotson had spent three
quarters of a century, and he asked for nothing better than that he
should end his days as a Yorkshire shepherd. But now a rumour arose that
there was a project on foot to enclose the moors. The meadows and
pastures in the valley below had been enclosed for more than
half-a-century, and this had been brought about without having recourse
to Act of Parliament. The fields had been enclosed by private
commission; the farmers had agreed to refer the matter to expert
arbitrators and their decisions had been accepted without much
grumbling. The dalesmen were