Then we left the old road, and crossed the ancient Parrett bridge,
where the Roman earthworks yet stood frowning as if they would stay
us. They were last held against Kenwalch, and now we were in that
no-man's land which he had won and wasted. Then we climbed the long
slope of the Quantocks, whence we might look back over the land we
had left, to see the Tor at Glastonbury shouldering higher and
higher above the lower Poldens, until the height was reached and
the swift descent toward Norton began. There we could see all the
wild Exmoor hills before us, with the sea away to our right, and
Thorgils shewed us where lay, under the very headlands of the hills
we were crossing, the place where his folk had their haven. He said
that he could see the very smoke from the hearths, but maybe that
was only because he knew where it ought to be, and we laughed at
him.

So we came to the outskirts of Norton, and all the way we had seen
no man. The hills were deserted, save by wild things, and of them
there was plenty. And now for the first time I saw men living in
houses built of stone from ground to roof, and that was strange to
me. We Saxons cannot abide aught but good timber. Here none of us
had ever come, and still some of the houses built after the Roman
fashion remained, surrounded, it is true, by mud hovels of
yesterday, as one might say, but yet very wonderful to me. Many a
time I had seen the ruined foundations of the like before, but one
does not care to go near them. The wastes our forefathers made of
the old towns they found here, and had no use for, lie deserted,
for they are haunted by all things uncanny, as any one knows. Maybe
that is because the old Roman gods have come back to their old
places, now that the churches are no longer standing.