Then the trees grew sparser, and over the deep-grown flat of Debden Slade Bessy stopped again and again to recognise some well-remembered wild-flower; and little brown butterflies skimmed over the rushes and tall grass, the sun mounted higher, and everything was brisk and bright and sweet-smelling. Brother and sister climbed the hill before them slowly, often staying to look back over the great prospect of rolling woodland, ever widening as they rose. Till at last they stood at the point of the ridge, in the gap through the earthwork made by ancient Britons. This beyond all others was the spot that Bessy had loved best. This ragged ring of crumbling rampart and ditch, grown thick with fantastic hornbeams, pollarded out of all common shape; its inner space a crowded wonder of tall bracken, with rare patches of heather; its outer angles watching over the silent woods below, and dominating the hills that ranked beyond; this was the place where best an old book from the shelf would fill a sunny afternoon. For the camp was a romance in itself, a romance of closer presence than anything printed on paper. Here, two thousand years ago, the long-haired savages had stood, in real fact, with spears and axes, brandishing defiance to foes on the hillside. Here they had entrenched themselves against the Roman legions—they and their chief, fierce Cassivellaunus: more, to her, than a name in an old history-book. For had not she seen the wild prince a hundred times in her day-dreams, stalking under the oaks—with the sheeted Druids? Till the wood grew alive with phantoms, and she hid her face in her book. And now she sat here again, in the green shade, and looked out over the thousand tree-tops, merry with the sunlight. How long had she left it all? What was that fancy of a ride to London, of ship-yards, and of a chandler’s-shop? But Johnny whistled to a robin on a twig, and she turned and looked at him, to see that here was the engineer, indeed, and the painter of the chandler’s-shop. Still, which was the dream, that or this? Left alone, Bessy would have sat here all the day. But there were other places not to be forgotten, as Johnny reminded her. Over the heather they went, then, to Monk Wood, where the trees were greater and the flowers were more abundant than anywhere else in the forest; and they did not leave it till Johnny insisted on dinner. Now this dinner was a great excitement; for at setting out Johnny had repelled every suggestion of sandwiches in a bag, and now dauntlessly marched into an inn on the main road and ordered whatever was ready, with two glasses of beer. Bessy, overwhelmed by the audacity of the act, nevertheless preserved her appetite, and even drank a little of the beer. And the adventure cost Johnny four shillings. “Mother’s having her dinner alone,” said Bessy in a flutter of timid delight. “She doesn’t guess we’re having ours at the Red Deer!”