Wansdyke that in old time hard blows were
struck by Dane and Saxon, Celt and Roman.
Thousands of Romans, with skulls beaten in by
British axes and bronze swords, lie peacefully
under the thin turf of the Wiltshire Downs.
The white horse standard was forced back here
by Arthur's warriors at the crowning victory at
Badbury. Those British villages, now mere rings
of stone, mere dimples in the turf, were first
torn down by the rough hands of men who had
helped to destroy Jerusalem with Titus. Those
Druid circles were once trodden by the white-
robed priests, who urged on the scythed chariots
against the Romans. The thrush pipes sweetly
now from the wood, where once the yelling
painted warriors rushed on the spears of
Vespasian; and the mole burrows silently, where
once the legionaries dug trenches to shelter
themselves from the British slingers.

The crow remembers, as he flies from grassy
camp to camp, many traditions of the plain,
and of its dangers in former days, when Death
often met the traveller in this great ocean of
wild waste.

On a dark calm October night in 1816, the
Exeter mail having traversed many miles of the
plain, rattled at last in the dark up to Winterslow
House, where the guard sounded his bugle
and the coachman stopped. There was but a
dim light at the inn, and the coachman had
hardly pulled up his four smoking horses, when
a dark shape suddenly leaped with a roar upon
one of the leaders. No one knew what monster
it could be. It seemed a horrible nightmare
—the passengers leaped down panic-struck.
Two dandies, awakened out of their sleep by the
monster's roars of rage and fury, and by the
horse's screams and neighs of angry terror,
leaped out of the vehicle, dashed into the
inn, and barricaded themselves in an upper
room to bide the result, or at all events to
keep death at bay as long as possible. A
large mastiff belonging to the inn, eager for
battle and careless of what the monster
might be, leaped to the rescue, but was
instantly killed. When lights came, it proved
to be a lioness that had escaped from a
caravan on its way to Salisbury fair. It had
left the horse, which, striking out like a boxer
with its fore hoofs pursued its retreating assailant
and beat it to the ground. Presently the
keeper arrived, and, accustomed to tame such
beasts, forced the lioness by blows and threats
into an outhouse, where it was secured.

Floating above Lady Down, the crow notes
that the spot is remarkable for the apparition of
a headless lady, who, centuries ago, was slain
there by her injured husband, who overtook her
as she was flying from him with a lover. But on
the downs, towards Marlborough, a Wiltshire
tradition of the highwaymen times compels the
crow to alight on the stone that records the
fact. One dark night at the beginning of this
century, when pistols were as regular travelling
furniture as cigar cases are now, a Wiltshire
gentleman, riding over the downs beyond
Hungerford, was attacked by two thieves on
foot — a short grim man and a tall savage
man. His pistols missed fire, but the
traveller having a stout heart and a strong
arm, drove back the fellows with the heavy
butt-end of his riding whip, and eventually,
after a tough fight, beat down the shorter
of his two enemies. After a further tussle
the taller man also threw up the game and
fled. The traveller, resolute on retaliation,
pursued him fast, but the man was swift-footed
fear gave him wings, and though the moon had
just risen, he contrived to dodge about in and
out of Roman encampments, behind bushes and
old earthworks, so as to evade for a long
time the keen and unrelenting pursuit. Hour
after hour the pursuit and the flight
continued, till, just towards daybreak, the traveller
caught the tired rogue in the open, and pushed
him to his full speed. A lash of the horse and
he gained on him. Nearer and nearer now, till
at last in a far valley of the downs he ran in on
him, and leaping off his horse threw him heavily
to the ground, grasped his throat, and bade him
surrender. The man made no resistance, no
curse broke from him, no cry for mercy. He
was dead! His heart had broken. Like a
hunted hare, he had died of fatigue before
the hounds' teeth could meet in him.

From Inkpen Beacon, the highest chalk hill
of England, and just south of Hungerford, the
crow looks down from his airy height on the
spot where in 1856 the last bustard was caught.
This clumsy bird, the ostrich of Europe, was
once common on the Wiltshire downs, where it
could stride and stalk as it used to do before
the drum drove it away from the plain of
Chalons. It used to be run down with
greyhounds, but its flesh hardly repaid this
singular chase. In 1805, one of these strong
birds, four feet long and very powerful in the
claws and beak, attacked a horseman near
Heytesbury, treating the genus homo as an
intruder on its wild domain. The bustard
is now all but extinct.

That brave mansion of the Pophams, Littlecot,
whose mullioned windows overlook the
valley of the Kennet, is the scene of the old
legend of Wild Darell, which Scott tells in the
notes to Rokeby. One night, in the reign of
Elizabeth, a midwife was sent for out of
Berkshire. The pay was to be light, the groom said,
but the woman must be blindfolded, and must
ask no questions and tell no tales. She
consented, and mounted behind the man, who
took her a long rough ride over the downs.
She lost all sense of direction or distance. At
last she arrived at a house, was shown up a
grand staircase, and performed her duties.
When they were ended, the tapestry lifted,
and a ferocious man entered: who seized the
new-born child, dashed it under the grate,
destroying it as ruthlessly as if it had been a
wolf's cub. The woman returned unhappy, and
brooding over the murder. She bore the agonies
of remorse for some time, but at last was
driven to tell the secret and free her conscience.
She went and confessed the matter to a
magistrate. Had she any clue? Yes, she had
counted the number of stairs up which she had