A Walk across the Downs. 47 



three such modern roads (also lonely enough) cross 

 the old green track. Far apart, and far away from 

 its course hidden among their ricks and trees a few 

 farmsteads stand, and near them perhaps a shep- 

 herd's cottage : otherwise it is an utter solitude, a 

 vast desert of hill and plain ; silent too, save for the 

 tinkle of a sheep-bell, or, in the autumn, the moan- 

 ing hum of a distant threshing-machine rising and 

 falling on the wind. 



The origin of the track goes back into the dim- 

 mest antiquity : there is evidence that it was a 

 military road when the fierce Dane carried fire and 

 slaughter inland, leaving his ' nailed bark ' in the 

 creeks of the rivers, and before that when the Saxons 

 pushed up from the sea. The eagles of old Rome, 

 perhaps, were borne along it, and yet earlier the 

 chariots of the Britons may have used it traces of 

 all have been found ; so that for fifteen centuries this 

 track of the primitive peoples has maintained its 

 existence through the strange changes of the times, 

 till now in the season the cumbrous steam-ploughing 

 engines jolt and strain and pant over the uneven turf. 



To-day, entering the ancient way, eight miles or 

 so from the great earthwork, hitherto the central 

 post of observation, I turn my face once more 

 towards its distant rampart, just visible showing 

 over the hills, a line drawn against the sky. Here, 

 whence I start, is another such a camp, with mound 

 and fosse ; beyond the one I have more closely de- 

 scribed some four miles is still a third, all connected 

 by the same green track running along the ridges 

 of the downs and entirely independent of the roads 

 of modern days. Thev form a chain of forts on the 



