Well, this was the first squire I had ever seen, so I looked at him with all my eyes; and if all squires were like him, I don’t wonder at Joe’s getting in a passion at our talk in Farringdon-market. I should think he must be about forty-five years old, and stands not far short of six feet high; for when he came to stand by Joe, I could see he was the taller of the two; but he didn’t look so tall quite when he stood by himself—I suppose because his figure was so good. For you never saw such a clean made man; he was for all the world like a well-rounded wedge from his shoulders down, and his neck and head put on like a statue. He looked just as if he could have jumped the highest five-barred gate in the Vale, and then have carried it off on his shoulders, and run up the hill with it. And his face, which was well browned, was so manly and frank, and his voice so cheery, and he looked you so straight in the face, that you felt he wasn’t ashamed of any thing, or afraid of anybody; and so you looked him back and spoke out, and were twice as good a man at once yourself while you were talking to him.
Well, when the Squire saw Joe, he stopped working away with his shovel, and called out to him; and so Joe went up and shook hands with him, and began talking to him, and in another minute the Squire called for his coat—a gray tweed shooting-jacket it was—and put it on, and took up his riding-whip, and told the men to look alive and get their job done, and then to send up to the Castle for some beer and bread and cheese which he would order for them.
Then Joe and the Squire walked away along the hill-side talking, and I went and sat down on a little mound, just above the Horse’s ears, and watched the men working, and looked at the view. How I did enjoy myself! The turf was as soft as a feather bed, and as springy as horsehair; and it was all covered with thistle down, which came drifting along like snow with the south wind; and all down below the country looked so rich and peaceful, stretching out for miles and miles at my feet in the hazy sunshine, and the larks right up overhead sang so sweetly, that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I should have liked to have had a turn at the besoms and shovels with the men, who seemed very good-tempered, only I was too shy, and I couldn’t make out half they said. So I took out my pipe and lighted it, and sat looking on at the work, and thinking of nothing.
Presently a gentleman whom I hadn’t noticed, but who was poking about the place, came and sat down near me. He was dressed in dark clothes, very quiet; I suppose he was a parson from some of the villages near. And we began talking about the weather, and what chance there was of having fine days for the pastime. He was a very grave, elderly man, but easy and pleasant, and had a keen look in his gray eyes, and a sort of twinkle about his mouth, which made me put my best leg foremost, and take care what I said.
Well, when we had done about the weather, thinks I, “This is just the sort of gentleman to tell me what I want to know about the White Horse and all the rest of it,” and you’ll see as you go on that I never made a better guess in my life. So I got my note-book out quietly, so that he shouldn’t take much notice of what I was about, and began, “I suppose, Sir,” said I, “that it’s all right about Alfred, and that he really did cut out this figure after winning a great battle up here?”
“Yes,” said he, “I think so myself, because there has always been a tradition in the country side that this was so. And where antiquaries differ, a tradition of this sort may always be pretty safely believed. Country folk hold on to such stories, and hand them down in a very curious manner; but you know, I dare say, that it is claimed by some as a Druidical, or at any rate a British monument, which would make it several hundred years older at least.”
I didn’t know any thing about it, but why should I tell him so. “I shouldn’t like to think so, Sir,” said I, “because one wouldn’t care so much about it if it wasn’t made by the Saxons and their great king. The Druids don’t seem akin to us somehow; and then one would lose all about the great battle, which was certainly fought up here, wasn’t it, Sir?”
“I have no doubt about it,” said he; “there are many signs of it—above all, graves enough to hold the harvest of many battles. You are lying on one.”
“No! am I really, though?” said I, sitting up and looking at the ground; “how do you know?”