26 Idylls of the Field. ;, 



slide gently down j there is good footing a few feet 

 below. Thence through winding passages you make 

 your slow way. 



Now the narrow gallery is too low to stand upright 

 in j now the cavern widens out into a spacious chamber 

 hung with delicate draperies of stone. Then by a last 

 descent, so steep and difficult that it was christened 

 long ago the Chimney, you slip cautiously down, 

 steadying yourself with knee and elbow, into the great 

 hall at the end of the cavern. 



Here plunges through a narrow rift a stream that 

 has worn its way into the very heart of the hill. Here 

 in rude lettering, half effaced by damp, explorers have 

 left their names, sometimes with a friendly caution as 

 to the right turning, for, in the multitude of branching 

 galleries, to lose the way is easy. 



It is not a pleasant experience when an uneasy sense 

 of something wrong breaks on the minds of a party of 

 cave-hunters. When remembered marks are missed, 

 and a familiar passage is looked for in vain, men try 

 to look unconcerned, but the dull candles light up a 

 circle of serious faces. 



Gloomy traditions start swiftly into memory, of men, 

 lost in this very cave, who perished miserably in the 

 dark ; of the suspense of anxious friends, of the dismal 

 duty of the search party. 



Why does a bat choose this particular moment to 

 brush past like a phantom, on its noiseless wings ? 



There is a moment of ominous silence, broken only 



