The sun was sinking like a ball of fire before I left this spot, and the shadow of the pyramid was lengthening into a spire on the smooth down. Descending, I walked along a wire-netting put up to circumscribe the “bunnies” who swarm in this neighbourhood, and then came to Crab Wood. Thence I reached, by the old Roman highway, Tegg Down, where the soldiers were practising at targets, and soon was back on the main road near “Oliver’s Battery.” The ancient “Gwent” was surrounded by a sea of foliage. Only in one direction was there an opening--over the chalk downs westward. This vast forest was part of the great Andreds wood which clothed the chief part of Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire. Different districts in it had local names. Southwards from Winchester it came to be called Bere Forest, and afterwards Waltham Chase. Roman roads from “Venta Belgarum” pierced it in several directions. There is a story about part of it connected with the building of the Cathedral. Bishop Walkelin found himself in want of timber, and applied to the Conqueror to let him have as much timber as he could carry out of Hanepinges Wood in four days and nights. William at once granted the request. The astute bishop then collected all the woodmen in the neighbourhood, and they managed to cut and carry the whole wood within the appointed time. When the King returned to Winchester and went into the district he exclaimed--“Am I bewitched, or have I lost my senses? Why I thought I had a most delightful wood here?” The cause of the clearance was explained to him, and he was angry; but Walkelin pacified him by falling on his knees and offering to resign his bishopric. “I was too lavish a donor, and thou wast too grasping a receiver,” he finally replied. [Sidenote: Hampage Oak.] There is a tradition that one tree was spared in this general clearance--an oak under which St. Augustine had preached. I was anxious to see this venerable relic, and inquired where Hanepinges Wood was. No one could give me any information. At last I came to a man upon whom the light seemed suddenly to break. “Hanepinges? It must be ‘Hampage.’ There is the Hampage oak, to the south-east, near Itchen Abbas. It is rather more than five miles off.” Wishing to make a round, I walked again to King’s Worthy, and, keeping to the right, passed on my left hand Miss Turner’s handsome new residence; and, on my right, a fine old house with a kind of tower, which I heard, to my surprise, had been the old parsonage. A little further on a larger house with a long façade is that of King’s Worthy Park. A road pleasantly fringed with trees leads to the Itchen Abbas station. By taking the train I might have saved four miles of my walk.