h when
your feet are hardened. You begin after the mists have risen, and you end,
perhaps, an hour after sundown.'

'And what do you have to eat?' Dan asked, promptly.

'Fat bacon, beans, and bread, and whatever wine happens to be in the
rest-houses. But soldiers are born grumblers. Their very first day out, my
men complained of our water-ground British corn. They said it wasn't so
filling as the rough stuff that is ground in the Roman ox-mills. However,
they had to fetch and eat it.'

'Fetch it? Where from?' said Una.

'From that newly-invented water-mill below the Forge.'

'That's Forge Mill--_our_ Mill!' Una looked at Puck.

'Yes; yours,' Puck put in. 'How old did you think it was?'

'I don't know. Didn't Sir Richard Dalyngridge talk about it?'

'He did, and it was old in his day,' Puck answered. 'Hundreds of years
old.'

'It was new in mine,' said Parnesius. 'My men looked at the flour in their
helmets as though it had been a nest of adders. They did it to try my
patience. But I--addressed them, and we became friends. To tell the truth,
they taught me the Roman Step. You see, I'd only served with
quick-marching Auxiliaries. A Legion's pace is altogether different. It is
a long, slow stride, that never varies from sunrise to sunset. "Rome's
Race--Rome's Pace," as the proverb says. Twenty-four miles in eight hours,
neither more nor less. Head and spear up, shield on your back,
cuirass-collar open one hand's breadth--and that's how you take the Eagles
through Britain.'

'And did you meet any adventures?' said Dan.

'There are no adventures South the Wall,' said Parnesius. 'The worst thing
that happened me was having to appear before a magistrate up North, where
a wandering philosopher had jeered at the Eagles. I was able to show that
the old man had deliberately blocked our road, and the magistrate told
him, out of his own Book, I believe, that, whatever his God might be, he
should pay proper respect to Caesar.'

'What did you do?' said Dan.

'Went on. Why should _I_ care for such things, my business being to reach
my station? It took me twenty days.

'Of course, the farther North you go the emptier are the roads. At last
you fetch clear of the forests and climb bare hills, where wolves howl in
the ruins of our cities that have been. No more pretty girls; no more
jolly magistrates who knew your Father when he was young, and invite you
to stay with them; no news at the temples and way-stations except ba