Zhc ^u^or period 



CHAPTEE XXII. 



THE GENERAL ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, WITH ITS HOUSES, 

 GARDENS, AND ORCHARDS, 



Always pleasant as it is to wander forth into the country, 

 it is doubly so when the brain is jaded with the dry topics of 

 the Law Courts and the artificial life of a great town. Such 

 should be the condition of any reader who has struggled 

 through the last few chapters of this liistory, and who is now 

 invited to leave for a while the busy scenes of mart and the 

 dusty courts of law to accompany his author on a tour of 

 inspection amidst the green lanes and verdant fields of rustic 

 life. In Camden's Counties we have as it were a map and a 

 picture in one ; but with the graphic accuracy of an ej^e-wit- 

 ness and in the quaint language of the day, this writer 

 conveys to his readers an impression of Tudor England far 

 more lifelike than that which map and picture could furnish. 



But before we can thoroughly enjoy the vivid colouring and 

 sweet scents of wooded hill and nestling valley, we have still 

 to traverse the dust of those ill-repaired tracks called by 

 courtesy the king's highways. Far back in the now remote 

 era of the British rule there were roads which, with the temples 

 of the gods ; and the ploughs of tillers, afforded " freedom of 

 succour" to the fugitive from an enemy's vengeance or a 

 country's justice ; and it was with the object of clearly defin- 

 ing these particular words that Moluncius and his son Belirus, 

 sovereigns of Britain, first introduced the term " King's High- 

 way." ^ Henceforth the Fosse Way, leading from Cornwall to 



« Vide Eanulph Hidden, Polychronicon. 



287 



