embowered in nettles, while the keeper waltzed round you, roaring
mere incoherencies?--four pounds full. Now, is there any sherry left
in the flask? No. Then we will give the keeper five shillings; he
is well worth his pay; and then drag our weary limbs towards the hall
to bath, supper, and bed; while you confess, I trust, that you may
get noble sport, hard exercise, and lovely scenery, without going
sixty miles from London town.



III. THE FENS.



A certain sadness is pardonable to one who watches the destruction of
a grand natural phenomenon, even though its destruction bring
blessings to the human race. Reason and conscience tell us, that it
is right and good that the Great Fen should have become, instead of a
waste and howling wilderness, a garden of the Lord, where


'All the land in flowery squares,
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,
Smells of the coming summer.'


And yet the fancy may linger, without blame, over the shining meres,
the golden reed-beds, the countless water-fowl, the strange and gaudy
insects, the wild nature, the mystery, the majesty--for mystery and
majesty there were--which haunted the deep fens for many a hundred