l, yielding
grass and the stubborn wiry heather; while mingled with it came
snatches of a little song from the brown peat-stream in the combe
below him. He could not make out much of it except these words, which
came over and over again:

_Mother and child come here, come here,_
_I am the friend of the Wild Red-Deer_

For some time they moved but little distant from the place where he
was born, for his legs could not yet carry him very far; but as he
grew stronger they wandered farther, till at last one day he found
himself on high ground, and saw the world that he was to live in, his
heritage of Exmoor. You know it, for you have seen it, fold upon fold
of grass and heather, slashed by deep combes and merry babbling
streams, and bounded on the one hand by the blue sky and on the other
by the blue sea. It was all his own, for he was a wild Red-Deer. And
he looked upon it with his great round eyes, and pricked his ears and
tossed his little head; for the sun was shining warm above him, and
the soft west wind blew fresh and untainted over the sea and flew
across the moor, catching up all that was sweetest on its way from
grass and gorse and heather, and bearing it straight to his nostrils.
And he threw his little nose into the air and snuffed up the full,
rich breeze; for no creature has a finer scent than a deer; and he
felt that this was life indeed.

Then they went down, leaving the song of the wind ever fainter behind
them; and in its stead rose the song of the peat-stream bidding them
come down to it. So they went; and there it was trickling down as
clear as crystal, though as yellow as amber. There was but little
water in it that fine midsummer, but it hastened on none the less over
the stones in a desperate hurry, as are all Exmoor streams, to get to
the sea. And it whispered its song as it went, but so low that they
heard no words. They passed by a little shallow, and there the Calf
saw dozens of little fry, scurrying about from stone to stone; and
just below the shallow they came to a little brown, oily pool in a
basin of rock. The Calf looked into it, and there he saw his own
little form, and behind it his mother's sweet eyes watching over him.
And then for the first time he noticed that his own coat was spotted
while his mother's was red. But while he was staring at the water a
fly suddenly came, and began to dance a reel over it to show what a
fine fellow he was, when all of a sudden a neat little b