ide halt, that they found darkness growing apace, while
their weary animals could scarcely advance farther.

"Is there no inn, no Christian dwelling near, where we may repose?
Verily my limbs bend beneath me with fatigue," said Father Cuthbert.

"There is no dwelling of Christian men nearer than the halls of the
Thane of Rollrich, and we shall scarcely reach them for a couple of
hours," said Oswy, the serf.

"Thou art a Job's comforter. What sayest thou, Anlac?"

"There are the remains of an old temple of heathen times not far from
here, a little on the right hand of the road, but they say the place is
haunted."

"Has it a roof to shelter us?"

"Part of the ruins are well covered."

"Then thither we will go. Peradventure it will prove a safe abiding
place against wolves or evil men, and if there be demons we must even
exorcise them."

When they had emerged from the forest, they had, as we have seen,
ascended the high tableland which formed the northern frontier of the
territory of the Dobuni--passing over the very ground where, seven
hundred years later, the troops of the King and the Parliament were
arrayed against each other in deadly combat for the first time.

But at this remote period the country where the Celts had once lived,
and whence their civilised descendants had been driven by the English,
had become a barren moorland. Scarce a tree grew on the heights, but a
wild common, with valley and hill alternating, much as on Dartmoor at
the present day, stretched before the travellers, and was traversed by
the old Roman trackway. Dreary indeed it looked in the darkening
twilight; here and there some huge crag overtopped the road, and then
the track lay along a flat surface. It was after passing some huge
misshapen atones, which spoke of early Celtic worship, that suddenly, in
the distance on the right, the ruined temple lay before them.

Pillars of beautiful workmanship, evidently reared by Roman skill,
surrounded a paved quadrangle raised upon a terrace approached on all
sides by steps. These steps and the pavement were alike of stone, but
where weeds could grow they had grown, and the footing was damp and
slippery with rank vegetation and fungus growth.

At the extremity of the quadrangle the roof still partly covered the
adytum or shrine from the sky, the platform reared itself upon its
flight of massive steps where early British Christianity had demolished
the idol, and beneath were chambers once ap