Part 13 (2/2)

So Father Cuthbert and Alfred, with three attendant serfs, left Aescendune early on a fine summer morning, and followed a byroad through the forest, until, after a few difficulties, arising from entanglement in copse or swamp, they reached the Foss Way. Wide and s.p.a.cious, this grand old road ran through the dense forest in an almost unbroken line; huge trees overshadowed it on either side, and the growth of underwood was so dense that no one could penetrate it without difficulty.

Sometimes the scene changed, and a dense swamp, amidst which the timber of former generations rotted away, succeeded, but the grand old road still offered, even in its decay, a firm and sure footing. Built with consummate skill, the lower strata of which it was composed remained so firm and unyielding, that, could the Romans but have returned for a few years, they might have restored it to its ancient perfection, when the traveller might post rapidly upon it from Lincoln even to Totness in Devons.h.i.+re.

Little, however, did our travellers think of the grand men of old who had built this mighty causeway six or seven centuries earlier. Their chief feeling, when they reached it, was one of relief; the change was so acceptable from the tangled and miry bypath through the forest.

”Holy St. Wilfred,” exclaimed Father Cuthbert, ”but my steed hath wallowed like a hog. I have sunk in the deep mire where was no footing.”

”A little grooming will soon make him clean again, father.”

”But verily we have pa.s.sed through a slough and a wilderness, and my inner man needeth refreshment; let us even partake of the savoury pies wherewith the provident care of thy father hath provided us.”

The suggestion was by no means a bad one, and the party sat down on a green and sloping bank, overshadowed by a mighty oak which grew by the wayside. It was noontide, and the shelter from the heat was not at all unpleasant. Their wallets were overhauled, and choice provision found against famine by the road. There were few, very few inns where travellers could obtain decent accommodation, and every preparation had been made for a camp out when necessary.

So they ate their midday meal with thankfulness of heart, and reclined awhile ere courting more fatigue. The day was lovely, and the silence of the woods almost oppressive; nought save the hum of insects broke its tranquillity.

Fatigued by the exertions of the morning, the whole party fell asleep; the gentle breeze, the quiet rustling of the leaves, all combined to lull the senses. While they thus slept, the day wore on, and the sun was declining when they awoke and wondered that they had wasted their time for so long a period.

Starting again with renewed energy, they travelled onward through the mighty forest till sunset, when they approached the high ground which now runs along the northern boundary of Oxfords.h.i.+re and of which Edgehill forms a portion. Though progress had been slow, for the road, although secure, was yet in so neglected a state as to form an obstacle to rapid travelling, and they had met no fellow travellers. Leaving the Foss Way, which followed the valley, and slowly ascending the hill by a well-marked track, they looked back from its summit upon a glorious view. Far as the eye could reach stretched the forest to the northward, one huge unbroken expanse save where the thin wreaths of smoke showed some village or homestead, where English farmers already wrestled with the obstacles nature had formed. But westward the view was more home-like; the setting sun was sinking behind the huge heights now known as the Malvern Hills, which reared their forms proudly in the distant horizon.

The western sky was rich in the hues of the departing sun, which cast its declining beams upon village and homestead, thinly scattered in the fertile vale through which the Foss Way pursued its course.

But our travellers did not stay long to contemplate the beauty of the scene; they were yet ten miles from the hospitable roof where they had purposed spending the night, and they had overslept themselves so long at their noontide halt, that they found darkness growing apace, while their weary animals could scarcely advance farther.

”Is there no inn, no Christian dwelling near, where we may repose?

Verily my limbs bend beneath me with fatigue,” said Father Cuthbert.

”There is no dwelling of Christian men nearer than the halls of the Thane of Rollrich, and we shall scarcely reach them for a couple of hours,” said Oswy, the serf.

”Thou art a Job's comforter. What sayest thou, Anlac?”

”There are the remains of an old temple of heathen times not far from here, a little on the right hand of the road, but they say the place is haunted.”

”Has it a roof to shelter us?”

”Part of the ruins are well covered.”

”Then thither we will go. Peradventure it will prove a safe abiding place against wolves or evil men, and if there be demons we must even exorcise them.”

When they had emerged from the forest, they had, as we have seen, ascended the high tableland which formed the northern frontier of the territory of the Dobuni--pa.s.sing over the very ground where, seven hundred years later, the troops of the King and the Parliament were arrayed against each other in deadly combat for the first time.

But at this remote period the country where the Celts had once lived, and whence their civilised descendants had been driven by the English, had become a barren moorland. Scarce a tree grew on the heights, but a wild common, with valley and hill alternating, much as on Dartmoor at the present day, stretched before the travellers, and was traversed by the old Roman trackway. Dreary indeed it looked in the darkening twilight; here and there some huge crag overtopped the road, and then the track lay along a flat surface. It was after pa.s.sing some huge misshapen atones, which spoke of early Celtic wors.h.i.+p, that suddenly, in the distance on the right, the ruined temple lay before them.

Pillars of beautiful workmans.h.i.+p, evidently reared by Roman skill, surrounded a paved quadrangle raised upon a terrace approached on all sides by steps. These steps and the pavement were alike of stone, but where weeds could grow they had grown, and the footing was damp and slippery with rank vegetation and fungus growth.

At the extremity of the quadrangle the roof still partly covered the adytum or shrine from the sky, the platform reared itself upon its flight of ma.s.sive steps where early British Christianity had demolished the idol, and beneath were chambers once appropriated to the use of the priests, which, by the aid of fire, could shortly be made habitable.

There was plenty of brushwood and underwood near, and our travellers speedily made a large fire, which expelled the damp from the place, albeit, as the smoke could only escape by an aperture in the roof, which, it is needless to say, was not embraced in the original design of the architect, it was not till the blaze had subsided and the glowing embers alone warmed the chamber, that mortal lungs could bear the stifling atmosphere, so charged had it been with smoke.

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