24 Hunting in the Olden Time. 



these English hills — widely different as are the con- 

 ditions of time and place — may throw a strong hght 

 upon man}' an incident of ancient history. There are 

 no traces remaining of any covered way or hollow 

 dj'ke leading down the slope in the direction of the 

 spring ; but some such traces do seem to exhibit 

 themselves in two places — at the rear of the earth- 

 work along the ridge of the hill, and down the steepest 

 and shortest ascent. The first does not come up to 

 the entrenchment, being separated by a wide interval ; 

 the latter does, and may possibly have been used as a 

 covered way, though now much obliterated and too 

 shallow for the purpose. The rampart itself is in 

 almost perfect preservation ; in one spot the soil has 

 slightly slipped, but form and outline are everywhere 

 distinct. 



In endeavoring, however, for a moment to glance 

 back into the unwritten past, and to reconstruct the 

 conditions of some fourteen or fifteen centuries since, 

 it must not be forgotten that the downs may then 

 have presented a different appearance. There is a 

 tradition lingering still that they were 'in the olden 

 times almost covered with wood. I have tried to fix 

 this tradition — to focus it and give it definite shape ; 

 but, like a mist visible from a distance yet unseen 

 when 3'ou are actually in it, it refuses to be grasped. 

 Still, there it is. The ©Id people say that the king — ■ 

 they have no idea which king — could follow the 

 chase for some forty miles across these hills, through 

 a succession of copses, woods, and straggling covers, 

 forming a great forest. To look now from the top 

 of the rampart over the rolling hills, the idea is dif- 

 ficult to admit at first. They are apparently bare, 



