Mottled

Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the sinking sun.

Our wagonette had topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled with gnarled and craggy cairns and tors. A cold wind swept down from it and set us shivering.

I looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge swelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes. Nothing stirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked loudly from a tor behind us.

Giles Headley the younger was a fine tall youth, but clumsy and untrained in the use of his limbs, and he rode a large, powerful brown horse, which brooked no companionship, lashing out with its shaggy hoofs at any of its kind that approached it, more especially at poor, plump, mottled Poppet.

Two other horses were led by grooms, one a superb mottled grey, with green silk housings; the other a noble black, with white silk housings.

The mottled skin of the snake was a camouflage that helped it blend in with the shadows.