After a while, in walking along the footpaths of the meadows and by the woods, a feeling grew upon me that it would be pleasant to know something of their history. It was through inquiring about the age of the rookery that this thought took shape. No one could tell me how long the rooks had built there, nor were there any passing allusions in old papers to fix the date. There was no tradition of it among the oldest people; all they knew was that the rooks had always been there, and they seemed to indicate a belief that there the rooks would always remain. It seemed to me, however, that the site of their city was slowly travelling, and in a few generations might be found on the other side of the Chace. Some of the trees where the nests were most numerous were decaying, and several were already deserted. As the trees died, the rooks moved to the next clump, and thus gradually shifted their city.
This inquiry led to further reflections about the past of the woods and meadows. Besides the birds, the flowers, and animals that had been there for so many, many centuries, there were the folk in the scattered homesteads, whose ancestors might have left some record. In these times history is concerned only with great cities or strategical positions of world-wide renown; interest is concentrated on a siege of Paris or a march towards Constantinople. In days of yore battles were often fought in or near what seem to us mere villages; little places whose very names are uncertain and exact site unascertainable were the centres of strife. Some of these places are buried under the sward as completely as Herculaneum under the lava. The green turf covers them, the mower passes over with his scythe and knows not of them.
Hilary had observed in one of his meadows that the turf turned brown or burnt up in squares during hot summer weather. This he conjectured to be caused by the shallowness of the soil over some ancient foundations; and some years before he had had the curiosity to open a hole, and soon came upon a hidden wall. He did not excavate farther, but the old folk, when they heard of it, remembered a tradition of a village having once existed there. At present there were no houses near; the place, whatever it was, had disappeared. The mention of this meadow led to some conversation about the names of the fields, which are often very curious.
Such names as Lea, Leaze, Croft, and so on, are readily explained; but what was the original meaning of The Cossicles? Then there were Zacker's Hook, the Conigers,[3] ] Cheesecake, Hawkes, Rials, Purley, Strongbowls, Thrupp, Laines, Sannetts, Gaston, Wexils, Wernils, Glacemere, several Hams, Haddons, and Weddingtons, Slades, and so on, and a Truelocks. These were quickly put down; scores of still more singular names might be collected in every parish. It is the meadows and pastures which usually bear these designations; the ploughed fields are often only known by their acreage, as the Ten Acre Piece, or the Twelve Acres. Some of them are undoubtedly the personal names of former owners. But in others ancient customs, allusions to traditions, fragments of history, or of languages now extinct, may survive.
There was a meadow where deep trenches could be traced, green now, but clearly once a moat, but there was not even a tradition about it. On the Downs overlooking the Idovers was an earthwork or entrenchment, of which no one knew anything. Hilary believed there was an old book—a history of Overboro' town—which might perhaps contain some information, but where it could be found he did not know. After some consideration, however, he thought there might be a copy at the Crown, once an old posting-inn, at Overboro': that was about the only place where I should be likely to find it. So one warm summer day I walked into Overboro', following a path over the Downs, whose short sward affords the best walking in the world.
At the Crown, now no more an inn but an hotel, the archway was blocked up with two hand-trucks piled with trunks and portmanteaus, the property of commercial gentlemen and just about to be conveyed to the station. What with the ostler and the 'boots' and the errand-boys, all hanging about for their fees, it was a push to enter; and the waiters within seemed to equally occupy the passage, fetching the dust-coats and walking-sticks and flourishing coat-brushes. Seeing a door marked 'Coffee-room,' I took refuge, and having ordered luncheon began to consider how I should open my subject with the landlord, who was clearly as much up to the requirements of modern life as if his house had been by a London terminus. Time-tables in gilt-stamped covers strewed the tables; wine lists stood on edge; a card of the local omnibus to the station was stuck up where all could see it; the daily papers hung over the arm of a cosy chair; the furniture was new; the whole place, it must be owned, extremely comfortable and the service good.
But it was town and not country—to-day and not the olden time; and I did not feel courage enough to ask for the book. I believe I should have left the place without mentioning it, but, fortunately looking round the room while the lunch was prepared, I found it in the bookcase, where there was a strange mixture of the modern and antique. I took down the history from between Rich's thin grey 'Ruins of Babylon' and a yellow-bound railway novel.
Towards the close of the eighteenth century a learned gentleman had taken much pains to gather together this account of the town. He began with the story of Brutus, and showed that one of the monarchs descended from the illustrious Trojan founded a city here. Some fossil shells, indeed, that had been dug up furnished him with conclusive proof that the Deluge had not left the site uncovered, since no how else could they have got there: an argument commonly accepted in his day. Thus he commenced, like the monks themselves, with the beginning of the world; but then came a wide gap down to Domesday Book. The hides and yardlands held by the conquerors—how much was in demesne, how many acres were wood and how many meadow—the number of servi, and what the mill paid were duly translated and recorded.