8 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



' Castle ' lies on the right, a double-mounded camp, 

 where it is thought that Cedric and Ceawlin routed the 

 Britons in the sixth century ; and beside it the nineteen 

 harassed beeches, one dead, in a clump that is to be seen 

 for many miles, from Uffington and from the hills above 

 Oxford. The dull, soft sheep-bells interweave their tink- 

 lings among the tumuli and in the shade of the big 

 mounds of beech that look so dark and massy from the 

 lands below. It was over these hills that Margaret, in 

 ' Greene Feme Farm,' wandered with Geoffrey, and at 

 night found rest only in the Devil's Den, near Fyfield, or 

 the kistvaen, on Manton Down, near Rockley. Marl- 

 borough is reached by entering the Wootton Bassett and 

 Marlborough road, which passes Marlborough Common. 



Best of aU the Down ways is the Ridgeway, joining it 

 where it crosses the Hungerford road or near Chisledon. 

 Jefferies knew it well ; this above all others would take 

 him past 'hill after hill and plain after plain' in silence and 

 solitude. It passes under Liddington Hill, with little 

 risings and fallings through the open corn-land, but, 

 climbing almost to Barbury Castle, it keeps a great height 

 along the top of Hackpen Hill, paving itself with hare- 

 bell, silverweed, eyebright and bartsia ; now east, now 

 west, now south, it commands vast soaring and diving 

 grounds for the delighted eyes, among solitary slopes of 

 green and white hills, of turf and cloud. Moles, journeying 

 often in the grassy ruts, turn up a fine dark soil from above 

 the chalk. Tumuli, earthworks, and ancient settlements, 

 and flocks of ' grey wethers ' or sarsen stones, mark the 

 side of the road until it dips to East Kennett, across the 

 Bath Road, and on to Alton Priors over Wansdyke, which 

 it intersects at Furze Hill. Wansdyke, that stupendous 

 highway and barrier, running from near Heddington Wick 

 over Morgan's Hill, by Shepherd's Shore, over Tann Hill 

 to Savernake Forest, makes a rough southern boundary 

 to the country of Jefferies, except that it excludes part of 

 the forest. If the Ridgeway is left on Avebury Down, 

 another grassy track leads into Avebury ; and most pleas- 



