The road now became very bad, with ruts in the chalk like water-courses. On our left hand there was a deep, narrow valley like a little bay running up into the hill, on the opposite side of which valley a large wood hung along the steepest part of the hill-side, which Joe informed me was Uffington wood, a well-known meet for the hounds; it made me giddy to look at the places which he declared the huntsman, and any one who wanted to be sure of a good place when the hounds broke cover, had to ride along. And now the great, green hill seemed to be hanging right over us, as we came to a curious round mound on our right hand, up which Joe scrambled, and I after him, till we both pulled up out of breath on the flat top, some fifty yards across. “This is Dragon’s Hill,” said Joe, pulling off his hat and mopping his face with his handkerchief, “where St. George killed the Dragon in the old times. Leastways so they says about here, only they calls him King George instead of Saint George. And this bare place is where his blood ran out, and nothing’ll grow on it since, not so much as a thistle.” Of course I knew better than to believe that, but it is a beautiful place; for just below it another little deep valley, like the one on the left, only narrower and steeper at the sides, runs right up into the hill-side. The road we had left winds round the head of this gorge, for any one to drive along who isn’t particular about breaking his neck, for the hill is like a wall up above, and down below, with nothing but a little bank between you and the descent. “Those are the giants’ seats opposite,” said Joe, pointing across the valley to a set of beautiful great green slopes, like huge ridges and furrows, which went sweeping down into the valley one after another as far as I could see; “and this is the Manger, this great hole in the hill-side, because it lies right under the old Horse’s nose. Come along, let’s get up to him; there he is, you see, right above us.” So we scrambled down the side of Dragon’s Hill, crossed the road, and then started up a row of steps cut in the turf. I’m sure it must be twice as steep as the hill in Greenwich Park, and I don’t mind confessing that I shouldn’t have liked to look round just at first, and wouldn’t have minded giving myself a help with my hands if I hadn’t been afraid of Joe’s seeing me and laughing. I should think we must have gone up two hundred steps, when all of a sudden Joe stopped just above me, and called out, “Here we are;” and in about four steps I came to a trench cut into the chalk about two feet deep, which ran up the hill-side right ahead of us. The chalk in the trench was all hard and flat, and seemed to have been scraped and brushed up quite lately. “This is his tail,” said Joe. “Come on; look, they’re scouring him up above; we’re in luck--I thought they’d have done before this; and there’s the Squire too with ’em.” [Illustration]