long journey hither, age by age out
of the south. We shall remember the sacrifices we made and the crazy
reasons why we made them. We sowed our corn in blood here. We had
strange fancies about the stars. Those we brought with us out of the
south where the stars are brighter. And what like were those wooden gods
of ours? I don't remember.... But I could easily persuade myself that I
had been here before."

They stood on the crest of the ancient wall and the setting sun cast
long shadows of them athwart a field of springing wheat.

"Perhaps we shall come here again," the doctor carried on Sir Richmond's
fancy; "after another four thousand years or so, with different names
and fuller minds. And then I suppose that this ditch won't be the riddle
it is now."

"Life didn't seem so complicated then," Sir Richmond mused. "Our muddles
were unconscious. We drifted from mood to mood and forgot. There was
more sunshine then, more laughter perhaps, and blacker despair. Despair
like the despair of children that can weep itself to sleep.... It's
over.... Was it battle and massacre that ended that long afternoon here?
Or did the woods catch fire some exceptionally dry summer, leaving black
hills and famine? Or did strange men bring a sickness--measles, perhaps,
or the black death? Or was it cattle pest? Or did we just waste our
woods and dwindle away before the new peoples that came into the land
across the southern sea? I can't remember...."

Sir Richmond turned about. "I would like to dig up the bottom of
this ditch here foot by foot--and dry the stuff and sift it--very
carefully.... Then I might begin to remember things."

Section 5

In the evening, after a pleasant supper, they took a turn about the
walls with the moon sinking over beyond Silbury, and then went in and
sat by lamplight before a brightly fussy wood fire and smoked. There
were long intervals of friendly silence.

"I don't in the least want to go on talking about myself," said Sir
Richmond abruptly.

"Let it rest then," said the doctor generously.

"To-day, among these ancient memories, has taken me out of myself
wonderfully. I can't tell you how good Avebury has been for me. This
afternoon half my consciousness has seemed to be a tattooed creature
wearing a knife of stone...."

"The healing touch of history."

"And for the first time my damned Committee has mattered scarcely a rap."

Sir Richmond stretched himself in his chair and blinked cheerfully at