And now I came to a point where both Wallditch and Vallum surpassed themselves in grandeur. Hutton writes with enthusiasm of the Vallum, and is quite poetic in his fervour:
"I climbed over a stone wall to examine the wonder; measured the whole in every direction; surveyed them with surprise, with delight, was fascinated, and unable to proceed; forgot I was upon a wild common, a stranger, and the evening approaching. I had the grandest works under my eye, of the greatest men of the age in which they lived, and of the most eminent nation then existing; all which had suffered but little during the long course of sixteen hundred years. Even hunger and fatigue were lost in the grandeur before me. If a man writes a book upon a turnpike road, he cannot be expected to move quick; but, lost in astonishment, I was not able to move at all."
The effect when I saw it was heightened (if such a thing were possible) by the marvellous clothing of gorse, glorious clusters of gold, as if Nature herself desired to do honour to this great achievement.
From the top of the next hill the Vallum can be seen to perfection, running up the slope of the hill facing us; nowhere is it better. Soon after this, the distant hills come into view, over the tops of which we are to follow the Wall.
Just before reaching the eighteenth milestone, another mile-castle can be very distinctly traced.
Here again the sight of the gorse was something too much for words. The north bank of the Wallditch, which is very high just here, was one blazing mass of gold, facing south, and with the sun full upon it, while primroses and celandine starred the turf at the bottom. I got over the fence and walked along the glacis. The facing-stones were to be seen then on the northern face, several feet high. It may be the dry weather was specially good for the gorse. Certainly the hot sun brought out to perfection the sweet almond scent, and the bees appreciated it as much as I did, droning in and out of the blossoms in their hundreds.
It was simply baking on the road; the time was midday, and there were hardly any trees at all; only the long white road stretched out before me, going up and down, up and down, in straight, relentless lines.
Crossing the road to examine the Vallum near a small plantation of fir-trees, I caught sight of a column of smoke curling up from behind a low gorse bush. Yes, there was no doubt about it; the bush was on fire! It could not have been burning long, but the fire seemed to be spreading rapidly, running along the dry grass, which burned like tinder. I broke off some green elder-boughs from a bush in the ditch, and began to beat the fire, continuing till I had got it under enough to be able to stamp upon it; but it was half an hour before I was satisfied that it was dead. It was by bringing water in my hands from a tiny stream that I finally finished it off.