To-day autumn rainbows burnt low on the ferny hills and set their russet flashing. Then hailstorms churned the river into a flurry and swept seaward under a grey cowl. They came with a rush of wind, that brought scarlet leaves from the wild cherry and gold dust from the larch; but soon the air cleared and the sun returned, while the silver fret of the river’s face grew calm again to mirror far-off things. Easterly the red earth arched low on the blue sky; west spread cobweb-grey orchards, their leaves fallen, their last of apples still twinkling—topaz and ruby—among the lichens of their ancient boughs. Then broad, oaken hangers met the beech scrub and the pale oak foliage was as a flame dancing above the red-hot fire of the beeches. Their conflagrations blazed along the tideway and their reflected colour poured down over the woods into the water. Then elm trees rolled out along the river, and above them, in billows mightier than they, sailed the light-laden clouds, that seemed to lift another forest, bossed and rounded as the elm trees, and carry up their image into the sky. But the cloud glory was pale, its sun touched summits faint against the ardour of the earthborn elms. At water’s brink, above Stoke Gabriel’s little pier and gleam of white and rose-washed cots, black swine were rooting for acorns; while westerly an arm of Dart extended up Bow Creek through such sunlight as made the eyes throb and turn to the cool shadows. Another silver loop and Duncannon cuddled in an elbow of the river; then, higher yet, the hills heaved along Sharpham’s hanging woods turned from the sun. The immense curtain of trees faced north in tapestry of temperate tones painted with purple and grey and the twilight colours of autumn foliage seen through shadows. The ash was already naked—a clean skeleton against the dun mass of dying foliage—and other trees were casting down their garments; but the firs and spruce made rich contrast of blue and green upon the sere. Beyond Sharpham, long river flats rolled out, where plover and gulls sat on tussocks of reed, or rush, and curlew wheeled and mewed overhead. Then opened a point, where, robbed of colour, all mist-laden, amid gentle passages of receding banks and trees, there lifted the church tower of Totnes, with Dartmoor flung in a dim arc beyond. So Dart came, beside old, fern-clad wharves, through sedge-beds and reed ronds to the end of her estuary under the glittering apron of a weir. Then the pulse of the sea ceased to beat; the tide bade farewell, and the salmon leapt from salt to fresh. Worthy of worship in all her times and seasons; by her subtleties and sleights, her sun and shadow; by her laughter and coy approaches; by her curves and colours; her green hills and delight of woods and valleys; by her many voices; her changing moods and little lovelinesses, Dart is all Devon and so incomparably England.