in heaven? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is:--else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts: But oh! the exceeding grace
Of Highest God that loves His creatures so,
And all His works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed Angels He sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!"

SPENSER.

CHAPTER II

[Illustration: "A quiet, silent, rich, happy place."--_P. 35._]

A MILE off, and a thousand feet down.

So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a pebble
on to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was weeding in the
garden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond. For the bottom of
the valley was just one field broad, and on the other side ran the
stream; and above it, grey crag, grey down, grey stair, grey moor walled
up to heaven.

A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into the
earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can hardly
find it out. The name of the place is Vendale; and if you want to see it
for yourself, you must go up into the High Craven, and search from
Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the Nine Standards and Cross
Fell; and if you have not found it, you must turn south, and search the
Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea; and then, if you have not
found it, you must go northward again by merry Carlisle, and search the
Cheviots all across, from Annan Water to Berwick Law; and then, whether
you have found Vendale or not, you will have found such a country, and
such a people, as ought to make you proud of being a British boy.

So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet of
steep heather, mixed up with loose brown gritstone, as rough as a file;
which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, stump,
jump, down the steep. And still he thought he could throw a stone into
the garden.

Then he went down three hundred feet of limestone terraces, one below
the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with his ruler
and then cut them out with his chisel. There was no heath there, but--

First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers,
rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of sweet
he