58 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
cross a plain lying between a semicircle of downs ; 
and here at last are hedges of hawthorn and hazel 
and stunted crab tree. 
Round black marks upon the turf, with grey ashes 
scattered about and half-consumed sticks, show 
where the gipsies have recently bivouacked, sheltered 
somewhat at night by the hedges. Near by is an 
ancient tumulus, on which grows a small yet obviously 
aged sycamore tree, stunted by wind and storm, and 
under it the holes of rabbits—drilling their habita- 
tions into the tomb of the unknown warrior. In 
his day, perhaps, the green track wound through a 
pathless wood long since cleared. Soon the hedges 
all but disappear, the ground rises once more, nearing 
the hills ; and here the way widens out—first fifty, 
then a hundred yards across—green sward dotted 
with furze and some brake fern, and bunches of tough 
dry grass. Above on the summit is another ancient 
camp, and below two more turf-grown tumuli, low 
and shaped like an inverted bowl. Many more have 
been ploughed down, doubtless, in the course of the 
years: sometimes still, as the share travels through 
the soil there is a sudden jerk, and a scraping sound 
of iron against stone. 
The ploughman eagerly tears away the earth, and 
moves the stone to find a thin jar, as he thinks—in fact, 
a funeral urn. Like all uneducated people, in the 
far East as well as inthe West, he is imbued with the 
idea of finding hidden treasure, and breaks the urn in 
