the "dazzling splendours," which are gas and oil; and the "magic transformations," which are done with ropes and pulleys; and the "brilliant elves," who are poor little children out of the next foul alley; and the harlequin and clown, who through all their fun are thinking wearily over the old debts which they must pay, and the hungry mouths at home which they must feed: and so, having thought it all wondrously glorious, and quite a fairy land, slips tired and stupid into bed, and wakes next morning to see the pure light shining in through the delicate frost-lace on the window-pane, and looks out over fields of virgin snow, and watches the rosy dawn and cloudless blue, and the great sun rising to the music of cawing rooks and piping stares, and says, "This is the true wonder. This is the true glory. The theatre last night was the fairy land of man; but this is the fairy land of God.” CHAPTER VII. WHAT THE CHALK-CARTS. HAT do you want to know about next? More about the caves in which the old savages lived, how they were made, and how the curious inside them got there, and so forth? Well, we will talk about that in good time: but now What is that coming down the hill? Oh, only some chalk-carts. Only some chalk-carts? It seems to me that these chalk-carts are the very things we want; that if we follow them far enough-I do not mean with our feet along the public road, but with our thoughts along a road which, I am sorry to say, the public do not yet know much about—we shall come to a cave, and understand how a cave is made. Meanwhile, do not be in a hurry to say, "Only a chalk-cart," or only a mouse, or only a dead leaf. Chalk-carts, like mice, and dead leaves, and most other matters in the universe, are very curious and odd things in the eyes of wise and reasonable people. When. : ever I hear young men saying "only" this and "only" that, I begin to suspect them of belonging, not to the noble army of sages-much less to the most noble army of martyrs,—but to the ignoble army of noodles, who think nothing interesting or important but dinners, and balls, and races, and backbiting their neighbours and I should be sorry to see you enlisting in that regiment when you grow up. But think—are not chalk-carts very odd and curious things? I think they are. To my mind, it is a curious question how men ever thought of inventing wheels; and, again, when they first thought of it. It is a curious question, too, how men ever found out that they could make horses work for them, and so began to tame them, instead of eating them; and a curious question (which I think we shall never get answered) when the first horse-tamer lived, and in what country. And a very curious, and, to me, a beautiful sight it is, to see those two noble horses obeying that little boy, whom they could kill with a single kick. But, beside all this, there is a question which ought to be a curious one to you (for I suspect you cannot answer it)-Why does the farmer take the trouble to send his cart and horses eight miles and more, to draw in chalk from Odiham chalk. pit? Oh, he is going to put it on the land, of course, They are chalking the bit at the top of the next field, where the copse was grubbed. But what good will he do by putting chalk on it ? Chalk is not rich and fertile, like manure. It is altogether poor, barren stuff: you know that, or ought to know it. Recollect the chalk cuttings and banks on the railway between Basingstoke and Winchester-how utterly barren they are. Though they have been open these thirty years, not a blade of grass, hardly a bit of moss, has grown on them, or will grow, perhaps, for centuries. Come, let us find out something about the chalk before we talk about the caves. The chalk is here, and the caves are not; and "Learn from the thing which lies nearest you" is as good a rule as "Do the duty which lies nearest you." Let us come into the grubbed bit, and ask the farmer-there he is in his gig. Well, old friend, and how are you? Here is a little boy who wants to know why you are putting chalk on your field? Does he then ? If he ever tries to farm round here, he will have to learn for his first rule-No chalk, no wheat. But why? nere at Why, is more than I can tell, young squire. But if you want to see how it comes about, look this freshly grubbed land-how sour it is. You can |