in the
sky; the valleys held joy as a cup holds water. From the down the
chalk-pits took great bites; the crinolined trees curtseyed down the
slopes. The happy-coloured sea cut the world in half; the sight of a
distant town at the corner of the river and the coast made one laugh for
pleasure. There was a boat with sunlit sails creeping across the sea. I
never see a boat on an utterly lonely sea without thinking of the secret
stories that it carries, of the sun moving round that private world, of
the shadows upon the deck that I cannot see, of the song of passing seas
that I cannot hear, of the night coming across a great horizon to devour
it when I shall have forgotten it. Further off and more suggestive than a
star, it seems to me.

A gust of sunlight struck the watchers, and passed: they each ran a few
steps towards the sight that pleased them most. And then they stood so
long that Mr. Russell's Hound had time to make himself acquainted with
every smell within twenty yards. He turned over a snail that sat--round
and striped like a peppermint bull's-eye--on the short grass, he patted a
little beetle that pushed its way across a world of disproportionate
size, and then, by peevishly pulling the end of his whip which hung from
Mr. Russell's pensive hand, he suggested that the pursuit should
continue. So they walked to the crest of wood that stands at the top of
the Ring, a compressed tabloid forest, fifty yards from side to side, as
round as a florin piece.

The slopes rushed away from every side of it. There was a dark secret
beneath those trees, there was a hint of very ancient love and still more
ancient hatred. You could feel things beyond understanding, you left
fact outside under the sky, and went in with a naked soul.

They walked across it in silence, well apart from each other. When they
came out the other side, Mrs. Gustus said, "We must stay for a little
while within reach of this. It has something ..."

Mr. Russell swallowed something that he had thought of saying, and
instead drew his Hound's attention to a yellow square of mustard-field
which made brilliant the distance.

Kew said nothing, but he felt choked with a lost remembrance of a very
old childhood. He seemed to taste the quiet taste of youth here, there
was even a feeling of going home through a damp evening to a nursery tea.
It was the nursery of all Secret Worlds. Gods had been born there. No
surprise could live there now, no wonder, no prot