Ch. 6: A Tryst at an Ancient Earth Work

At one's every step forward it rises higher against the south sky, with
an obtrusive personality that compels the senses to regard it and
consider. The eyes may bend in another direction, but never without the
consciousness of its heavy, high-shouldered presence at its point of
vantage. Across the intervening levels the gale races in a straight line
from the fort, as if breathed out of it hitherward. With the shifting of
the clouds the faces of the steeps vary in colour and in shade, broad
lights appearing where mist and vagueness had prevailed, dissolving in
their turn into melancholy gray, which spreads over and eclipses the
luminous bluffs. In this so-thought immutable spectacle all is change.

Out of the invisible marine region on the other side birds soar suddenly
into the air, and hang over the summits of the heights with the
indifference of long familiarity. Their forms are white against the
tawny concave of cloud, and the curves they exhibit in their floating
signify that they are sea-gulls which have journeyed inland from expected
stress of weather. As the birds rise behind the fort, so do the clouds
rise behind the birds, almost as it seems, stroking with their bagging
bosoms the uppermost flyers.

The profile of the whole stupendous ruin, as seen at a distance of a mile
eastward, is cleanly cut as that of a marble inlay. It is varied with
protuberances, which from hereabouts have the animal aspect of warts,
wens, knuckles, and hips. It may indeed be likened to an enormous many-
limbed organism of an antediluvian time--partaking of the cephalopod in
shape--lying lifeless, and covered with a thin green cloth, which hides
its substance, while revealing its contour. This dull green mantle of
herbage stretches down towards the levels, where the ploughs have essayed
for centuries to creep up near and yet nearer to the base of the castle,
but have always stopped short before reaching it. The furrows of these
environing attempts show themselves distinctly, bending to the incline as
they trench upon it; mounting in steeper curves, till the steepness
baffles them, and their parallel threads show like the striae of waves
pausing on the curl. The peculiar place of which these are some of the
features is 'Mai-Dun,' 'The Castle of the Great Hill,' said to be the
Dunium of Ptolemy, the capital of the Durotriges, which eventually came
into Roman occupation, and was finally deserted on their withdrawal from
the island.

* * * * *

The evening is followed by a night on which an invisible moon bestows a
subdued, yet pervasive light--without radiance, as without blackness.
From the spot whereon I am ensconced in a cottage, a mile away, the fort
has now ceased to be visible; yet, as by day, to anybody