Ch. 6: On the Great Wall - Page 2

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 handsbreadth - 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 Gods 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 bad news of wild beasts. There's
where you meet hunters, and trappers for the Circuses,
prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves. Your
pony shies at them, and your men laugh.

'The houses change from gardened villas to shut forts
with watch-towers of grey stone, and great stone-walled
sheepfolds, guarded by armed Britons of the North
Shore. In the naked hills beyond the naked houses,
where the shadows of the clouds play like cavalry charging,
you see puffs of black smoke from the mines. The
hard road goes on and on - and the wind sings through
your helmet-plume - past altars to Legions and Generals
forgotten, and broken statues of Gods and Heroes, and
thousands of graves where the mountain foxes and hares
peep at you. Red-hot in summer, freezing in winter, is
that big, purple heather country of broken stone.

'Just when you think you are at the world's end, you
see a smoke from East to West as far as the eye can turn,