He stood where the little Rattle leapt to Tavy, flung a last loop of light, and, laughing to the end of her short life, poured her crystal into a greater sister's bosom. Sinuously, by many falls, they glided together under the crags and battlements of the Cleeve; and the September sun beat straight into that nest of rivers, to touch each lesser rill that threaded glittering downward and hung like a silver rope over shelf of stone, or in some channel cut by ancient floods. Their ways were marked by verdure; by sphagnum, in sheets of emerald or rose, orange or palest lemon; by dark rushes, stiffly springing, and by the happiness of secret flowers. Heath and grey, granite shone together; a smooth, green coomb stretched beside water's meet, but beyond it all was confusion of steep hills and stony precipices. Over their bosoms the breath of autumn hung in misty fire, while strange, poised boulders crouched upon them threateningly and sparkled in the sun. Haze of blue brake-fern shimmered here and burnt at points to sudden gold, where death had already touched it. Light streamed down, mingling with the air, until all things were transfigured and the darkest shadows abounded in warm tones. The ling still shone, and its familiar, fleeting mantle of pale amethyst answered the brilliance of the sky with radiant flower-light that refreshed the jewels of the late furze by splendour of contrast. The unclouded firmament lent its proper glory to this vale. Even under the sun's throne air was made visible, and hung like a transparent curtain over the world--a curtain less than cloud and more than clarity. It obscured nothing, yet informed the great hills and distant, sunk horizon with its own azure magic; it transfused the far-off undulations of the earth, and so wrought upon leagues of sun-warmed ether that they washed away material details and particulars. There remained only huge generality of light aloft, and delicate, vague delineation of opal and of pearl in the valleys beneath. The rivers, spattered with rocks and wholly unshadowed, ran together in a skein of molten gold. Behind the murmuring hills they vanished westerly; and though these waters gleamed with the highest light under the sky, yet even in the dazzling force of sheer sunshine, flung direct upon their liquid mirrors, were degrees of brilliance--from the pure and steady sheen of pools, through splendour of broken waters, up to blinding flashes of foam, where the sun met a million simultaneous bubbles and stamped the tiny, blazing image of himself upon each.