OF ASHDOWN
And now we leave the camp, and descend toward the west, and are on the Ashdown. We are treading on heroes. It is sacred ground for Englishmen, more sacred than all but one or two fields where their bones lie whitening. For this is the actual place where our Alfred49 won his great battle, the battle of Ashdown "Æscendum" in the chroniclers), which broke the Danish power, and made England a Christian land. The Danes held the camp and the slope where we are standing – the whole crown of the hill, in fact. "The heathen had beforehand seized the higher ground," as old Asser50 says, having wasted everything behind them from London, and being just ready to burst down on the fair vale, Alfred's own birthplace and heritage. And up the heights came the Saxons,51 as they did at the Alma.52 "The Christians led up their line from the lower ground. There stood also on that same spot a single thorn-tree, marvellous stumpy (which we ourselves with our very own eyes have seen)." Bless the old chronicler!53 does he think nobody ever saw the "single thorn-tree" but himself? Why, there it stands to this very day, just on the edge of the slope, and I saw it not three weeks since; an old single thorn-tree, "marvellous stumpy." At least, if it isn't the same tree, it ought to have been, for it's just in the place where the battle must have been won or lost – "around which, as I was saying, the two lines of foemen came together in battle with a huge shout. And in this place one of the two kings of the heathen and five of his earls fell down and died, and many thousands of the heathen side in the same place." After which crowning mercy, the pious king, that there might never be wanting a sign and a memorial to the country-side, carved out on the northern side of the chalk hill under the camp, where it is almost precipitous, the great Saxon white horse, which he who will may see from the railway, and which gives its name to the vale over which it has looked these thousand years and more.
Right down below the White Horse is a curious deep and broad gully called "the Manger," into one side of which the hills fall with a series of the most lovely sweeping curves, known as the "Giant's Stairs"; they are not a bit like stairs, but I never saw anything like them anywhere else, with their short green turf, and tender bluebells, and gossamer and thistle-down gleaming in the sun, and the sheep-paths running along their sides like ruled lines.
The other side of the Manger is formed by the Dragon's Hill, a curious little round self-confident fellow, thrown forward from the range, and utterly unlike everything round him. On this hill some deliverer of mankind – St. George54 the country folk used to tell me – killed a dragon. Whether it were St. George, I cannot say; but surely a dragon was killed there, for you may see the marks yet where his blood ran down, and more by token55 the place where it ran down is the easiest way up the hill-side.
Passing along the Ridgeway to the west for about a mile, we come to a little clump of young beech and firs, with a growth of thorn and privet56 underwood. Here you may find nests of the strong down-partridge and pewit, but take care that the keeper57 isn't down upon you; and in the middle of it is an old cromlech,58 a huge flat stone raised on seven or eight others, and led up to by a path, with large single stones set up on each side. This is Wayland Smith's cave,59 a place of classic fame now; but as Sir Walter60 has touched it, I may as well let it alone, and refer you to Kenilworth for the legend.
The thick deep wood which you see in the hollow, about a mile off, surrounds Ashdown Park, built by Inigo Jones.61 Four broad alleys are cut through the wood, from circumference to centre, and each leads to one face of the house. The mystery of the downs hangs about house and wood, as they stand there alone, so unlike all around, with the green slopes, studded with great stones just about this part, stretching away on all sides. It was a wise Lord Craven,62 I think, who pitched his tent there.
THE "SEVEN BARROWS" FARM
Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon come to cultivated land. The downs, strictly so called, are no more; Lincolnshire farmers have been imported, and the long fresh slopes are sheep-walks63 no more, but grow famous turnips and barley. One of these improvers lives over there at the "Seven Barrows"64 farm, another mystery of the great downs. There are the barrows still, solemn and silent, like ships in the calm sea, the sepulchres of some sons of men. But of whom? It is three miles from the White Horse, too far for the slain of Ashdown to be buried there – who shall say what heroes are waiting there? But we must get down into the Vale again, and so away by the Great Western Railway to town, for time and the printer's devil press; and it is a terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking bad road. At the bottom, however, there is a pleasant public,65 whereat we must really take a modest quencher, for the down air is provocative of thirst. So we pull up under an old oak which stands before the door.
THE BLOWING STONE
"What is the name of your hill, landlord?"
"Blawing Stwun Hill, sir, to be sure."
[Reader. "Sturm?"
Author. "Stone, stupid; The Blowing Stone."]
"And of your house? I can't make out the sign."
"Blawing Stwun, sir," says the landlord, pouring out his old ale from a Toby Philpot jug,66 with a melodious crash, into the long-necked glass.
"What queer names!" say we, sighing at the end of our draught, and holding out the glass to be replenished.
"Bean't queer at all, as I can see, sir," says mine host, handing back our glass, "seeing that this here is the Blawing Stwun itself"; putting his hand on a square lump of stone, some three feet and a half high, perforated with two or three queer holes, like petrified antediluvian67 rat-holes, which lies there close under the oak, under our very nose. We are more than ever puzzled, and drink our second glass of ale, wondering what will come next. "Like to hear un,68 sir?" says mine host, setting down Toby Philpot on the tray, and resting both hands on the "Stwun." We are ready for anything; and he, without waiting for a reply, applies his mouth to one of the rat-holes. Something must come of it, if he doesn't burst. Good heavens! I hope he has no apoplectic tendencies. Yes, here it comes, sure enough, a grewsome69 sound between a moan and a roar, and spreads itself away over the valley, and up the hill-side, and into the woods at the back of the house, a ghost-like awful voice. "Um70 do say, sir," says mine host, rising, purple-faced, while the moan is still coming out of the Stwun, "as they used in old times to warn the country-side, by blawing the Stwun when the enemy was a comin' – and as how folks could make un heered then for seven mile round; leastways, so I've heerd lawyer Smith say, and he knows a smart sight about them old times." We can hardly swallow lawyer Smith's seven miles, but could the blowing of the stone have been a summons, a sort of sending the fiery cross71 round the neighborhood in the old times? What old times? Who knows? We pay for our beer, and are thankful.
"And what's the name of the village just below, landlord?"
"Kingstone
Alfred: Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, 871. He defeated the Danes, who had overrun most of England, at Ashdown, and compelled them to make a treaty of peace. He is justly considered one of the noblest and wisest of the English sovereigns; and the thousandth anniversary of his birth was celebrated in 1849, at Wantage, Berks.
Asser: a contemporary of Alfred; he wrote his life.
Saxons: a name given to certain German tribes who conquered Britain, in the fifth century. The name England came from the Angles, a people of the same stock, who settled in the east and north of the island. From these Anglo-Saxons the English have in great part descended.
Alma: a river in the Crimea where a desperate battle was fought between the Russians and the allied English and French in 1854.
Chronicler: Asser, from whom this is quoted.
St. George: the patron saint of England.
More by token: as a sign or proof that this is so.
Privet: a shrub much used for hedges.
Keeper: the gamekeeper, a man kept on great estates to look after the game.
Cromlech: a rude tomb built by the first inhabitants of Britain.
Wayland Smith's Cave: a "supernatural smith" who shod horses on payment of sixpence.
Sir Walter: Sir Walter Scott.
Inigo Jones: a celebrated architect of the 17th century.
Lord Craven: the owner of the estate on which the "White Horse" is located.
Sheep-walks: sheep pastures, for which the "downs" are much used.
Barrows: ancient burial mounds.
Public: a public house.
Toby Philpot jug: a large brown pitcher, shaped like a jolly old gentleman of the olden time.
Antediluvian: before the deluge.
Un: it; also him or her.
Grewsome: frightful.
Um: they.
Fiery cross: a cross, the ends of which had been fired and then extinguished in blood. It was sent round by the chiefs of clans in time of war, to summon their followers.
