Well, those downs do look very like sea-cliffs.
So they do, very like an old shore-line. Be that as it may, after the chalk was eaten away, Madam How began digging into the soils below the chalk, on which we are now; and because they were mostly soft clays, she cut them out very easily, till she came down, or nearly down, to the harder freestone rocks which run along on our left hand, miles away; and so she scooped out this great vale, which we call here the Vale of White Horse; and further on, the Vale of Aylesbury; and then the Bedford Level; and then the dear ugly old Fens.
Is this the Vale of White Horse? Oh, I know about it; I have read The Scouring of the White Horse.
Of course you have; and when you are older you will read a jollier book still,--Tom Brown's School Days--and when we have passed Swindon, we shall see some of the very places described in it, close on our right.
* * *
There is the White Horse Hill.
The White Horse Hill? But where is the horse? I can see a bit of him: but he does not look like a horse from here, or indeed from any other place; he is a very old horse indeed, and a thousand years of wind and rain have spoilt his anatomy a good deal on the top of that wild down.
And is that really where Alfred fought the Danes?
As certainly, boy, I believe, as that Waterloo is where the Duke fought Napoleon. Yes: you may well stare at it with all your eyes, the noble down. It is one of the most sacred spots on English soil.
Ah, it is gone now. The train runs so fast.
So it does; too fast to let you look long at one thing: but in return, it lets you see so many more things in a given time than the slow old coaches and posters did.--Well? what is it?
I wanted to ask you a question, but you won't listen to me.
Won't I? I suppose I was dreaming with my eyes open. You see, I have been so often along this line--and through this country, too, long before the line was made--that I cannot pass it without its seeming full of memories--perhaps of ghosts.