Verily my limbs bend beneath me with fatigue," said Father Cuthbert.

"There is no dwelling of Christian men nearer than the halls of the
Thane of Rollrich, and we shall scarcely reach them for a couple of
hours," said Oswy, the serf.

"Thou art a Job's comforter. What sayest thou, Anlac?"

"There are the remains of an old temple of heathen times not far from
here, a little on the right hand of the road, but they say the place is
haunted."

"Has it a roof to shelter us?"

"Part of the ruins are well covered."

"Then thither we will go. Peradventure it will prove a safe abiding
place against wolves or evil men, and if there be demons we must even
exorcise them."

When they had emerged from the forest, they had, as we have seen,
ascended the high tableland which formed the northern frontier of the
territory of the Dobuni--passing over the very ground where, seven
hundred years later, the troops of the King and the Parliament were
arrayed against each other in deadly combat for the first time.

But at this remote period the country where the Celts had once lived,
and whence their civilised descendants had been driven by the English,
had become a barren moorland. Scarce a tree grew on the heights, but a
wild common, with valley and hill alternating, much as on Dartmoor at