tossed and tumbled rocks. But there had been a late snowfall on the
high plateau beyond, followed by heavy rain, and the swollen stream
was to-day worthy of its grand setting of cliff and moor. On such
occasions it becomes a landmark for all the country round, for the
cotton-spinning centres of New Mills and Stockport, as well as for
the grey and scattered farms which climb the long backs of moorland
lying between the Peak and the Cheshire border.

To-day, also, after the snow and rains of early April, the air was
clear again. The sun was shining; a cold, dry wind was blowing;
there were sounds of spring in the air, and signs of it on the
thorns and larches. Far away on the boundary wall of the farmland a
cuckoo was sitting, his long tail swinging behind him, his
monotonous note filling the valley; and overhead a couple of
peewits chased each other in the pale, windy blue.

The keen air, the sun after the rain, sent life and exhilaration
through the boy's young limbs. He leapt from the wall, and raced
back down the field, his dogs streaming behind him, the sheep, with
their newly dropped lambs, shrinking timidly to either side as he
passed. He made for a corner in the wall, vaulted it on to the
moor, crossed a rough dam built in the stream for sheep-washing
purposes, jumped in and out of the two grey-walled sheep-pens
beyond, and then made leisurely for a spot in the brook--not the
Downfall stream, but the Red Brook, one of its westerly
affluents--where he had left a miniature water-wheel at work the
day before. Before him and around him spread the brown bosom of
Kinder Scout; the cultivated land was left behind; here on all
sides, as far as the eye could see, was the wild home of heather
and plashing water, of grouse and peewit, of cloud and breeze.