'TRUTH AT THE BOTTOM OF A MARL-PIT. OO 



warned me that the bright little sentinels of Heaven 

 were taking one by one their watch-posts, and beckon- 

 ing me to follow the example which one weary toiler 

 after another had set,* even to the very Plough that 

 lay sleeping in its bed in the half-finished furrow at 

 my side, as if nothing w T ould ever move it again. 

 And then through the still night air, as I moved 

 tardily homewards, there would come a sound a 

 strange sound which the diggers of those ancient 

 marl-pits never heard by day or night. Was it a 

 beetle or some other lazy insect, homeward bound, 

 that made that peculiar humm which seemed to 

 thrill through the atmosphere, far away at first 

 then gradually nearer, and then louder and more 

 tremulous as a gust of wind brushed by then 



fainter and fainter still and then gone ! AVhat 



was it? if the ear could measure miles, it might 

 seem to have traversed some seven or eight, before 

 it reached me. Oh ! ye who tilled these fields and 

 dug these marl-pits in the days of narrow lanes 

 and pack-saddles, what would you have said to that 

 Mail-Train that was flying like a meteor through the 



.* " et jam nox huraida coelo 

 Pnecipitat, suadentque cadentia sidera somnos." 



