THE ROMAN ROAD 279 



There are those in Dorsetshire who bitterly resent the 

 Tony Kytes, the Car Darches, the Bathshebas, and 

 in especial poor Tess, who flit through his unconven- 

 tional pages, and hold that he deprives the Dorset 

 peasant of his moral character ; but if you hold no 

 brief for the natives in their relation to the Ten 

 Commandments, why, it need matter little or 

 nothing to you whether his characters are intended 

 as portraitures, or are evolved wholly from a peculiar 

 imagination. It remains only to say that they are 

 very real characters to the reader, who can follow 

 their loves and hatreds, their comedy and tragedy, 

 and can trace their footsteps with a great deal more 

 personal interest than can be stirred up over the 

 doings of many historical j)ersonages. 



XXXIX 



The Exeter Road begins to rise immediately on 

 leaving Dorchester. Leaving the town by a fine 

 avenue of ancient elms stretching for half a mile, the 

 highway runs, with all the directness characteristic of 

 a Roman road, on a gradual incline up the bare and 

 open expanse of Bradford Down, unsheltered as yet 

 by the stripling trees newly planted as a continuation 

 of the dense avenue just left behind. The first four 

 miles of road from the town are identical with the 

 Roman V'ui Iceniana, the Icen Way or Icknield 

 Street ; and on the left rises, at the distance of a 

 mile awav. the sombre Roman earthwork of Maiden 



