mighty Tram-tram), and there is no danger of
collision, nor any such thing; but, when she
nears the river-mouth, and first catches sight
of the crowded harbour and limitless ocean
beyond, she tears into the blood-red rock
amain; away into the darkness, screaming
and hysterical, for a few minutes, and then
getting quieter and quieter, as she remembers
the strong breakwaters, how safe they are, she
ventures out again under the heavens, and
scarce an arm's length from the sea; so
close, that on the pathway between her and
it, and where the seats that lovers love are
let into the tiny wall; she can hear their
whispered tones quite clearly, and even the
suspicion of a kiss. She hardly breathes for
fear of disturbing them; and perhaps, also,
for fear of our all taking a salt-water bath
together through the generosity, or "giving,"
of the chalk-cliff; which has happened once
or twice already: till suddenly, from out the
deep, there looms at her (as if in exorcism)
a rock shaped like a clergyman, and the
frightened Fairy tunnels through the cliff
again at speed.

So we pass on, from one pleasant resting
spot to another; stations with one
side open to the sands, where there are
more people honey-mooning; where tiny
children dig their little mounds to
keep the tide out, with wooden spades;
where the mighty seine-nets are narrowing
slowly to a pleasant music, or where the
crowd collects around the haul; and where
the encumbered maidens are laughing and
rolling in the waves. On the other side are
pretty watering-places, with a rill, perhaps,
flowing a-down the very middle of their
lawns; whose natural productions,flowers and
strawberries, are sold—or given away, most
likely—on the platform. Now by another
river-brink, a broad and deep one, where the
steamer on the waters pants with the Fairy
Puff-puff' side by side, and the merchant-ships
sail to and from the white port and its
mouth; where the harbour-bar is hidden by
the flowing tide, or is landed at ebb, a prey to
sand and eelers; where the bare-legged
shrimp-catchers are pushing their nets before
them, as though they held a plough; where,
at the village opposite, there tarries a fleet of
yachts, for the gentry of the south to take
their pleasure in at sea, when weary of fairy
land. Next, by a lovely pleasure-house,
and through a stately park, where the lofty
oaks and elms stand up between us and the
sun; where the herds of deer, with their
swift stealthy bite, and keen eyes cast behind
them, scarce regard the Fairy Puff-puff,
grown their so familiar friend; and, so,
through apple orchards and green fields, to
the old cathedral town upon the hill. It is
here that our sole danger lies. The mighty
Tram-tram here lays down his gauge, and
threatens to bear us whithersoever he will
—eastward, to haunts of money-making
ghouls. But the Fairy Puff-puff strikes
off northward, virgin still, and carries us
amongst quite other scenes, far from the
ocean and the tidal rivers of the hollowed
rocks. It is an old-world country altogether.
The villages through which we pass were, in
the old time, towns—the hamlets, villages.
"Leighford was a market-town when London
was a fuzzy down," goes the proverb.
So lately as the year seventeen hundred,
even, " it had pre-eminence for the fynest
sorts of karsies;" and for bishops of its own
(of the fynest description also, doubtless,) up
to the ninth century, when it began to decline.
It never quite got over the death of King
Edgar, who seems to have been to Leighford
what George the Magnificent was to
Brighthelmstone. There were forty miles of
beautiful valley then as now. The stream came
from the moorland, and ran from end to
end of it, the same; singing that very song;
and the woods waved just as greenly; for its
little towns are all named after one or other,
save those more favoured ones whom the
blessed saints have christened after themselves.
In almost every parish stands some sacred
ruin; which, from its little eminence, looks
down in a grey sadness, and sometimes in a
blood-red indignation too, upon the Fairy
Puff-puff and her train that go rejoicing by.
"What use to lay bad spirits under bann, and
not to have the power to blast this shrieking
demon? " mutters, or seems to mutter, the
holy patron.

Now we stop to look upon an ivied
church embosomed among trees; now, on
a wayside cross that once was market-
place; and now we linger by the margin of
the stream, to watch the angler at his
pleasant toil. We follow every winding like a
towing-path, and might ourselves be fishing
from the open window, except when some
graceful bridge—constructed, as it seems, to
carry grasshoppers—conducts to the opposite
bank, when we might fish from the other.
I am sure the Fairy Puff-puff, if we hooked a
trout, would put the break on, just to let us
play him. What mighty masses of foliage!
Cloud on cloud are heaped upon this bank.
How the rich land undulates on that in folds
of green, that shall be golden grain! How
gladly the waters part to left and right, to
let the little isles appear! How the freshets
sparkle and leap beside them in the sun!
How dreamily are the cattle drinking and
thinking as they stand knee-deep in the
brown pool under the May thorn!

Our passengers are almost solely lovers of
Nature, in search of her inmost haunts; save
a few yeomen of the country, whose pleasant
farms we pass low down in leafy dells, amidst
the pastures, or on a height amongst the
infant corn; and market-women, with fresh
red faces and bright eyes, with baskets on
their arms, of eggs and butter, covered with
cloths of snow. The guards are chosen for
their gentleness, and pat the children's cheeks
that lean out of the windows, or blow their