And up the heights came the Saxons, as
they did at the Alma. "The Christians led up their line from the
lower ground. There stood also on that same spot a single thorn-tree,
marvellous stumpy (which we ourselves with our very own eyes have
seen)." Bless the old chronicler! Does he think nobody ever saw the
"single thorn-tree" but himself? Why, there it stands to this very day,
just on the edge of the slope, and I saw it not three weeks since--an
old single thorn-tree, "marvellous stumpy." At least, if it isn't the
same tree it ought to have been, for it's just in the place where the
battle must have been won or lost--"around which, as I was saying, the
two lines of foemen came together in battle with a huge shout. And in
this place one of the two kings of the heathen and five of his earls
fell down and died, and many thousands of the heathen side in the same
place." * After which crowning mercy, the pious king, that there might
never be wanting a sign and a memorial to the country-side, carved out
on the northern side of the chalk hill, under the camp, where it is
almost precipitous, the great Saxon White Horse, which he who will may
see from the railway, and which gives its name to the Vale, over which
it has looked these thousand years and more.
* "Pagani editiorem Iocum praeoccupaverant. Christiani ab
inferiori loco aciem dirigebant.
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