hat rises just above the village and climbs the hillside, and goes
down to the river in the valley; such another long lovely valley,
Raymond, as that on which we looked one summer night, walking to and
fro before your house. For many an hour I strayed through the maze of
the forest, turning now to right and now to left, pacing slowly down
long alleys of undergrowth, shadowy and chill, even under the midday
sun, and halting beneath great oaks; lying on the short turf of a
clearing where the faint sweet scent of wild roses came to me on the
wind and mixed with the heavy perfume of the elder, whose mingled odour
is like the odour of the room of the dead, a vapour of incense and
corruption. I stood at the edges of the wood, gazing at all the pomp
and procession of the foxgloves towering amidst the bracken and shining
red in the broad sunshine, and beyond them into deep thickets of close
undergrowth where springs boil up from the rock and nourish the
water-weeds, dank and evil. But in all my wanderings I avoided one
part of the wood; it was not till yesterday that I climbed to the
summit of the hill, and stood upon the ancient Roman road that threads
the highest ridge of the wood. Here they had walked, Helen and Rachel,
along this quiet causeway, upon the pavement of green turf, shut in on
either side by high banks of red earth, and tall hedges of shining
beech, and here I followed in their steps, looking out, now and again,
through partings in the boughs, and seeing on one side the sweep of the
wood stretching far to right and left, and sinking into the broad
level, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the land over the sea. On the
other side was the valley and the river and hill following hill as wave
on wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield, and white houses gleaming,
and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaks in the north. And so
at least I came to the place. The track went up a gentle slope, and
widened out into an open space with a wall of thick undergrowth around
it, and then, narrowing again, passed on into the distance and the
faint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant summer glade
Rachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? I did not stay
long there.

In a small town near Caermaen there is a museum, containing for the
most part Roman remains which have been found in the neighbourhood at
various times. On the day after my arrival in Caermaen I walked over
to the town in question,