1.  Back behind of her there’s steeples settin’ beside churches, an’ wise women settin’ beside their doors, an’ the sea settin’ above the land, an’ ducks herdin’ wild in the diks’ (he meant ditches). ‘The Marsh is justabout riddled with diks an’ sluices, an’ tidegates an’ water-lets. You can hear ’em bubblin’ an’ grummelin’ when the tide works in ’em, an’ then you hear the sea rangin’ left and right-handed all up along the Wall. You’ve seen how flat she is—the Marsh?

2. They walked toward it through an all abandoned land. Here they found the ghost of a patch of lucerne that had refused to die: there a harsh fallow surrendered to yard-high thistles; and here a breadth of rampant kelk feigning to be lawful crop. In the ungrazed pastures swaths of dead stuff caught their feet, and the ground beneath glistened with sweat. At the bottom of the valley a little brook had undermined its footbridge, and frothed in the wreckage. But there stood great woods on the slopes beyond—old, tall, and brilliant, like unfaded tapestries against the walls of a ruined house.

3. The \valley was so choked with fog that one could scarcely see a cow’s length across a field. Every blade, twig, bracken-frond, and hoof-print carried water, and the air was filled with the noise of rushing ditches and field-drains, all delivering to the brook below. A week’s November rain on water-logged land had gorged her to full flood, and she proclaimed it aloud.

The sources of the last set of extracts are as follows:

1. (...he was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog ... to and fro on the floor, up and down in great circles, but his eyes were red, and he held on ..)  is is from "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" in The Jungle Book.

2.  (... they could see the ridged and furrowed surface of the floe all tipped and laced with strange colours - red, copper, and bluish...)  This is from "Quiquern" in The Second Jungle Book.

3.  (...he wanted to scratch, but that made it worse; and then he lay down on the sand and rolled and rolled and rolled, and every time he rolled the cake crumbs tickled him worse and worse and worse ...)  This is from "How the Rhino got his Skin" in Just-So Stories.

In the NRG we have recently published notes by Philip Holberton on  "The Fairies' Siege",  "Heriot's Ford" , and  "Anchor Song", and by John McGivering on "Gunga Din",  "An American";  "The Story of Ung";   "The Derelict" and  "The Merchantmen".

Good wishes to all

John R