1 68 Idylls of the Field. 



farther on led from the little port up the steep brow 

 to the great stronghold whose ruined walls and moss- 

 grown outworks wander far among the thickets of the 

 hill. 



It is a fortress such as crown so many of the heights 

 of Mendip, guarding the long line of road from the 

 distant lead-mines to the sea. 



Among this tangled underwood the eye may still 

 discover the pit-dwellings of the old inhabitants, who 

 perished when Ceawlin stormed these border strong- 

 holds, may discern among the charred remains of 

 their ruined homes some relics of the vanquished — 

 here a rusted spear-head, there a hoard of blackened 

 corn ; now a bead of quaint device, perhaps even a 

 Phoenician ring. 



Here, too, beneath broad arms of bracken buried 

 deep, have been found the grim memorials of desperate 

 fray — bones of forgotten heroes, scarred with sword 

 and war-axe, lying where they fell, above their burnt 

 and plundered hearths.' 



It was the debateable country, the border-line 

 between the races, and in all the country-side there 

 is no hilltop but has its lines of earthworks, its 

 legends of old fight, its barrows of the unremembered 

 dead. 



