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 those 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 here is a 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. "_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, 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.

"Be'an't queer at all, as I can see, sir," says mine host, handing back
our glass, "seeing as this here is the Blawing Stwun his self," 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 antediluvian
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, 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