Tom Browns School Days | Page 7

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.
* "Pagani editiorem Iocum praeoccupaverant. Christiani ab inferiori
loco aciem dirigebant. Erat quoque in eodem loco unica spinosa arbor,
brevis admodum (quam nos ipsi nostris propriis oculis vidimus). Circa
quam ergo hostiles inter se acies cum ingenti clamore hostiliter
conveniunt. Quo in loco alter de duobus Paganorum regibus et quinque
comites occisi occubuerunt, et multa millia Paganae partis in eodem
loco. Cecidit illic ergo Boegsceg Rex, et Sidroc ille senex comes, et
Sidroc Junior comes, et Obsbern comes," etc. --Annales Rerum
Gestarum AElfredi Magni, Auctore Asserio. Recensuit Franciscus Wise.
Oxford, 1722, p.23.
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,
utterly unlike everything round him. On this hill some deliverer of
mankind--St. George, 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 token the place where it ran down is the easiest way up the
hillside.
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 privet
underwood. Here you may find nests of the strong down partridge and
peewit, but take care that the keeper isn't down upon you; and in the
middle of it is an old cromlech, 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, a place of classic fame now;
but as Sir Walter 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. 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, I think, who pitched his tent there.
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-walks no more,
but grow famous turnips and barley. One of these improvers lives over
there at the "Seven Barrows" 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; 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.
"What is the name of your hill, landlord?"
"Blawing STWUN Hill, sir, to be sure."
[READER. "Stuym?"
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, 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,