64 By Stream and Sea. 



This man is a village Lyell probably, and though his 

 curiosity has led him into trying sacrilegious experiments- 

 with his crowbar, he follows the party industriously, and 

 listens to the prebendary's lecture, wagging his shock head 

 with benign approval at the most technical words. " " Mono- 

 lith" seems to fetch him immensely. Whatever the rev. 

 lecturer utters he turns to a younger Hodge and winks, as 

 much as to say — 



" Didn't I tell you so, you ignorant young chawbacon ? " 



Before the prebendary begins his lecture, however, we 

 form into a circle in the orchard. The sacred stones, lopming 

 brown out of the grass, are in the rear ; a herd of baby- 

 calves survey us with innocent wonder ; curs snuff, without 

 respect of persons, at the heels of professors and learned 

 ladies and gentlemen; the village children form an outer 

 ring, each munching an apple, and chewing the cud of 

 infantile reflection. Village patriarchs, who wear clean 

 smockfrocks for the occasion, lean on their staves, and 

 maintain a stolid demeanour. It is an interesting picture. 



The rector of the parish, in the foreground, makes a little 

 speech, bidding us welcome ; and it occurs to some of us 

 that his expressed hope that we shall make something out 

 of the stones (all the books he had read, he must say, 

 seeming to contradict each other) is a very neat side-thrust 

 at the true believer in Druidical remains. Nevertheless, the 

 prebendary explains everything with great pleasantness of 

 manner and unobtrusive confidence in his subject, and 

 shows us in the distance a bit of the real line of communi- 

 cation maintained by the Romans from Thames to Severn. 



Some youthful Gallios of our party, I grieve to say, did 

 not express overpowering anxiety to hear the prebendary's 

 discourse about monolithic remains, but sat on the gates 

 and stiles smoking their meerschaums, and, worst of all, 



