A Track of the Primitive Peoples 43 



through cornfield and fallow. It is distinct from the 

 waggon-tracks which cross it here and there, for these are 

 local only, and, if traced up, land the wayfarer presently 

 in a maze of fields, or end abruptly in the rickyard of a 

 lone farmhouse. It is distinct from the hard roads of 

 modern construction which also at wide intervals cross 

 its course, dusty and glaringly white in the sunshine. It 

 is not a farm track you may walk for twenty miles along 

 it over the hills ; neither is it the king's highway. 



For seven long miles in one direction there is not so 

 much as a wayside tavern ; then the traveller finds a little 

 cottage, with a bench under a shady sycamore and a trough 

 for a thirsty horse, situate where 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 

 shepherd'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 moaning hum of a 

 distant thrashing-machine rising and falling on the wind. 



The origin of the track goes back into the dimmest 

 antiquity ; there is evidence that it was a military road 

 when the fierce Dane carried fire and slaughter inland, 

 leaving his c 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 



