“I don’t see much fear of that, Sir,” said I, “after it has lasted so long already.”
“No fear, Sir!” said he, “why miles of it have been ploughed up within my memory. God meant these downs, Sir, for sheep-walks, and so our fathers left them; but within the last twenty years would-be wise men have found that they will grow decent turnips and not very bad oats. Well, they plough them up, find two inches of soil only, get one crop out of them, and spoil them for sheep. Next year, no crops. Then comes manure, manure, manure, nothing but expense; not a turnip will trouble himself to grow bigger than a reddish under a pennyworth of guano or bones. The wise men grumble and swear, but the downs are spoiled.”
“But that will all cure itself then, Sir,” said I; “they won’t plough up any more, if it doesn’t pay; and then the Ridgeway won’t be touched!”
“They are all mad for ploughing, Sir, these blockhead farmers; why, half of them keep their sheep standing on boards all the year round. They would plough and grow mangold-wurzel on their fathers’ graves. The Tenth Legion, Sir, has probably marched along this road; Severus and Agricola have ridden along it, Sir; Augustine’s monks have carried the Cross along it. There is that in that old mound and ditch which the best turnips and oats in the world (if you could get them) can’t replace. There are higher things in this world, Sir, than indifferent oats and d—d bad turnips.”
The old gentleman was all in a blaze again; he brought down his cane sharply on to the cob’s neck, which made him caper up and jump off along the Ridgeway, and it was a hundred yards before they drew up. I followed, thinking that he couldn’t be a clergyman after all, to be swearing like that about nothing. When I got up to him, however, he was quite cool again. He had stopped just below the western entrance to the Castle, and the ground fell rapidly in front of us.
“Now, you can’t have a better point than this,” said he; “you remember what I told you about the armies. The Danes held the higher ground, that is, Uffington Castle, up here, behind us. Alfred, with his division of the Saxon army, lay over there, in that valley to the left, where you see the great wood in the middle of the down. That is Ashdown Park, Lord Craven’s seat, and just on the edge of it there is a circular earthwork, which is called Alfred’s camp. Aubrey says that in his time it was ‘almost quite defaced, by digging for the Sarsden stones to build my Lord Craven’s house in the park;’ but you may still find it if you look. Then, over there, on that point, a mile or more away to the right, is a camp called Hardwell Camp, where Æthelred lay. The crown of the slope you see along which the Ridgeway runs, is midway between the Saxon camps.
“In the early spring morning, the low call to arms passes round the height; the Danish host, marshalled behind the high earthworks, breaks over them, like an overflowing lake, and rushes down the slope. Alfred’s division of the Saxon army is already on foot, and there he sits, the sickly stripling on the white horse, untried save in one luckless fight. How will he guide such a battle? See, his host is in motion; scouts fly out, riding for life across to Æthelred’s camp. ‘Come up, my brother! the Pagan is upon us—while I live they shall not divide us—I will hold the crest of the Ridgeway, come life, come death.’ The vans are together with a wild shout, squadron by squadron the hosts close up, the fight sways slowly backwards and forwards, the life’s blood of a brave man pays for every inch won or lost. The Saxons are but one to three, the Pagans slowly overlap them—are on their flanks. The white horse and his rider dash from side to side, faster and faster, as the over-matched Christians faint, reel, give back—now here, now there, along the line. When will the mass be over? Cut it short, as thou art Saxon man, oh priest! and get thee to sword and buckler.
“At last they come, Æthelred and his host—they are upon the right flank of the Pagan, and the fight is restored; and with many an ebb and pause, but steadily, through the long morning hours, rolls up the hill towards the camp and the fatal thorn.”
“Is that the old thorn-tree, then, do you think, Sir?” said I, pointing to one which was growing by itself some way off.
“I fear not, Sir, I fear not; the ‘unica spinosa arbor’ is gone. It must have stood somewhere up here, on the slope just below the Castle, the stronghold of the Danish robbers. Here the grim Pagan turns to bay for the last time. King Bægseeg lies dead, a hundred yards below; by his side his standard-bearer and Earl Frœna; Halfdene is still unhurt, but near him Osbert totters under his shield; Harold can scarce back his charger, and the life-blood trickles slowly down his leg, and falls, drop by drop, on the trampled turf, as they still make front against Æthelred yonder—there on the right. But here, here the field must be won! This way, you Saxon men, kings-thane, and alderman! Whoever hath stout heart and whole body left.