270 yUANK FORESTER S FIELD SPORTS. 



which, to them, savour far more of purgatory than they do of 

 paradise, — " for quiet, to quick bosoms, is a hell," — and theirs 

 are quick enough, heaven knows, in Wall-street. It v/as a hot 

 and breathless afternoon — the sun, which had been scourging 

 the faint earth all day long with a degree of heat endurable by 

 those alone who can laugh at 100^^ of Fahrenheit, was stooping 

 toward the western verge of heaven ; but no drop of diiimond 

 dew had as yet fallen to refresh the innocent flowers, that hung 

 their heads like maidens smitten by passionate and ill-rei]uited 

 love; no indication of the evening breeze had sent its welcome 

 whisper among the motionless and silent tree-tops. Such was 

 the season and the hour when, having started, long before Dan 

 PhcBbus had arisen from his bed, to beat the mountain swales 

 about the greenwood lake, and having bagged, by dint of infi- 

 nite exertion and vast swcZor, present alike to dogs and men, our 

 thirty couple of good summer Woodcock, Archer and 1 paused 

 on the bald scalp of Round Mountain. 



Crossing a little ridge, we came suddenly upon the loveliest 

 and most fairy-looking ghi/ll — for I must have recourse to a 

 north-country word to denote that which lacks a name in any 

 other dialect of the Anglo-Norman tongue — 1 ever looked upon. 

 Not, at the most, above twenty yards wide at the brink, nor 

 above twelve in depth, it was clothed with a dense rich growth 

 of hazel, birch, and juniper ; the small rill brawling and spark- 

 ling in a thousand mimic cataracts over the tiny hnies.(jne 

 ledges which opposed its progress — a beautii'ul proi'usion of 

 wild flowers — the tall and vivid spikes of the bright scarlet 

 habonai'ia — the gorgeous yellow cups of the low-growing eno- 

 thera — and many g-aily-co!ore.l creepers decked the green 

 marges of the water, or curled, in chistering beauty, over the 

 neighbouring coppice. We f illowed for a lew paces this ian- 

 tastic clel't, until it widened into a circular recess oi- co\e — the 

 summit-level of its waters — whence it dnslu'd headlong, some 

 twenty-five or thirty feet, into the chasm below. Tiie ilooi*of 

 this small basin was paved with the bare rock, thi-ough the very 

 midst of which the little stream had worn a channel scarcely a 



