“On we went, twisting and turning through a labyrinth of lanes ... till we came suddenly on a solitary farm-house which had one solitary inmate, a smiling, middle-aged woman, who came to us and offered her services with the most alert civility. “All her boys and girls were gone to the Maying, she said, and she remained to keep house. “‘The Maying! We are near Bramley then? Is there no carriage road? Where are we?’ “‘At Silchester, close to the walls, only half a mile from the church.’ “‘At Silchester!’ and in ten minutes we had said a thankful farewell to our kind informant, had retraced our steps a little, had turned up another lane, and found ourselves at the foot of that commanding spot which antiquaries call the amphitheatre, close under the walls of the Roman city.” Miss Mitford has written the following lines on this striking scene:— “Firm as rocks thy ruins stand And hem around thy fertile land; That land where once a city fair Flourished and pour’d her thousands there: Where now the waving cornfields glow And trace thy wide streets as they grow. Ah! chronicle of ages gone, Thou dwellest in thy pride alone.” “Under the walls,” she continues, “I [met] an old acquaintance, the schoolmaster of Silchester, who happened to be there in his full glory, playing the part of cicerone to a party of ladies, and explaining far more than he knows, or than anyone knows of streets and gates and sites of temples, which, by the way, the worthy pedagogue usually calls parish churches. I never was so glad to see him in my life, never thought he could have spoken with so much sense and eloquence as were comprised in the two words ‘straight forward,’ by which he answered our enquiry as to the road to Bramley. “And forward we went by a way beautiful beyond description, and left the venerable walls behind us.... But I must loiter on the road no longer. Our various delays of a broken bridge—a bog—another wrong turning—and a meeting with a loaded waggon in a lane too narrow to pass—all this must remain untold.