218 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



cultivation purposes. That attempts were made at drainage, 

 grass-strewn hill and furrow tracks, still in evidence on Norton 

 Common, tend to prove, but this untilled area remained, and to 

 its unsuitability for cultivation we owe this unique relic of a 

 bygone age. 



Wandering daily upon this fine open stretch of eighty acres, 

 only a stone's throw from the writing-table, my thoughts are 

 often far away in the misty past. As I traverse parts of the 

 grassy Icknield Way to-day, I am also carried back to the long 

 ago, when men of the Stone Age fashioned their flints for war 

 or chase, when swarthy Britons drove their herds along it, and 

 later, when Roman chariots swept by. 



" Give me," says Hazlitt, " the clear blue sky over my head, 

 and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, 

 and a three hours' march to dinner and then to thinking ! " 

 If Hazlitt traversed some of the winding stretches of the Icknield 

 Way, as did poor Edward Thomas of never-to-be-forgotten 

 memory, now lying " Somewhere in France," he must have 

 practised the noble art of thinking very often, at least, that is 

 my own experience, as I sit in the quietude of my study this 

 evening, amidst these old-time associations. 



The Icknield Way is one of the most famous of our ancient 

 British roads, and may have been originally an Ox drove. An 

 old Charter is said to exist which refers to it as " the Way the 

 Cattle go," and Thomas says that one writer has gone one better, 

 and boldly derived the name from the British Yken, or Ychen, 

 meaning Oxen. 



I must not dilate at greater length upon this fascinating road- 

 way, or I shall be accused, and rightly so, of undue transgression, 

 but I mention these surroundings of my country study as showing 

 how, to one keenly sensitive of the mysterious influence of bygone 

 days, such an environment may help to mould one's character, 

 and build up one's ultimate career. To me it is a privilege to 

 have residence upon this old roadway, and to daily peregrinate 

 its winding tracks over hill and dale, where the wild birds sing, 

 and the wild flowers revel in the chalk strata, where the foot- 

 prints of antiquity may be discovered at almost every step. 



Upon my desk I invariably have before me for mental con- 

 sumption a weekly calendar of Thoughts. To-day it is from 

 a woman's rosary I am able to sustain myself. Lilian Whiting 

 is the author, and in " The World Beautiful " she writes : 



" A little margin for the stillness and leisure of growth the 



