24 Idylls of the Field. 



turf of the great encampment yonder, whose rampart 

 of loose stones stands out against the sky, bring up 

 to the light of day the coins and pottery, the flints and 

 fibulae, of two races of defenders. 



But hidden away in dark recesses in this lonely 

 gorge there are dim records that go back to the un- 

 certain mist of a time long before these broad hill-tops 

 became the hunting-ground of Saxon kings. 



Here, close at hand, under a great archway in the 

 living rock, a cavernous chamber runs deep into the 

 hill. Its early explorers found skeletons beneath the 

 floor in such numbers, and disposed with such orderly 

 arrangement, as to show that the cave was anciently a 

 place of burial. Rude flint implements discovered 

 here suggest human occupation, but of far earlier 

 date : the Cave Men were not so careful in the disposal 

 of their dead. But whoever they were whose bones 

 were laid in this dark chamber under the hill, no clue 

 to their history remains. Their skeletons have long 

 since crumbled into dust. Nothing now is left but a 

 dim and dateless memory. 



Farther up the ravine, screened from sight by the 

 contour of the hill, is another cave — a retreat, perhaps, 

 of the still earlier race. There is a hollow round the 

 entrance that suggests the hand of man, while the 

 great blocks of limestone that with rugged brows pro- 

 tect the low dark archway are themselves almost like 

 the work of some Cyclopean architect. The deep 

 wrinkles that frost and rain have graven in the rock 



