itself burst up one of those noble springs known as winter-bournes
in the chalk ranges, which, awakened in autumn from the abysses to
which it had shrunk during the summer's drought, was hurrying down
upon its six months' course, a broad sheet of oily silver over a
temporary channel of smooth greensward.

The hounds had checked in the woods behind; now they poured down the
hillside, so close together 'that you might have covered them with a
sheet,' straight for the little chapel.

A saddened tone of feeling spread itself through Lancelot's heart.
There were the everlasting hills around, even as they had grown and
grown for countless ages, beneath the still depths of the primeval
chalk ocean, in the milky youth of this great English land. And
here was he, the insect of a day, fox-hunting upon THEM! He felt
ashamed, and more ashamed when the inner voice whispered--'Fox-
hunting is not the shame--thou art the shame. If thou art the
insect of a day, it is thy sin that thou art one.'

And his sadness, foolish as it may seem, grew as he watched a brown
speck fleet rapidly up the opposite hill, and heard a gay view-
halloo burst from the colonel at his side. The chase lost its charm
for him the moment the game was seen. Then vanished that mysterious
delight of pursuing an invisible object, which gives to hunting and
fishing their unutterable and almost spiritual charm; which made
Shakespeare a nightly poacher; Davy and Chantrey the patriarchs of
fly-fishing; by which the twelve-foot rod is transfigured into an
enchanter's wand, potent over the unseen wonders of the water-world,
to 'call up spirits from the vasty deep,' which will really 'come if
you do call for them'--at least if the conjuration be orthodox--and