Rogue Herries [antikvár]

over this country, when the giant Eagle flings the shadow of his wing, the land is darkened. So compact is it that the wing covers all its extent in one pause of the fiight. The sea breaks on the pale line of the shore; to the Eagle's proud glancé waves run in to the foot of the hills that are like rocks planted in green water. From Whinlatter to Black Combé the clouds are never still. The Tarns like black unwinking eyes watch their chase, and the colours are laid out in patterns on the rocks and are con-tinually changed. The Eagle can see the shadows rise from their knees at the base of Scafell and Gavel, he can see the black precipitous flanks of the Screes washed with rain and the dark purple hummocks of Borrowdale crags flash suddenly with gold. So small is the extent of this country that the sweep of the Eagle's wing caresses all of it, but there is no ground in the world more mysterious, no land at once so bare in its naked-ness and so rich in its luxury, so warm with sun and so cold in pitiless rain, so gentle and pastoral, so wild and lonely; with sea and laké and river there is always the sound of run-ning water, and its strong people have their feet in the soil and are independent of all men. During the fiight of the Eagle two hundred years are but as a day—and the life of man, as against all odds he pushes toward immortality, is eternal. . . .