Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/215

Rh medley of various races and tongues, in escaping with so little change as that from Uricon to Wrekin. It would be natural for the Romans to call the permanent city which they built afterwards almost at the foot of this hill, Uriconium.

Having luxuriated for an hour or two on the helmet of this famous hill in the scenery it commanded, we descended, with the descending sun, the western side, and made our way back to Wellington along the wooded skirt of the eminence. Following footpaths which were faintly marked among the leaves and across brooks, we reached the main road to the town. Midway we over-took a regular Saxon—a fair-haired broad-shouldered man of about thirty, wearing the hereditary livery and untaxed powder of a miller. We fell immediately into conversation with him, with the wish to elicit from him some additional facts or ideas to add to our impressions already obtained We found that he was a contented, happy wight walking upon the green border-land that divides between the early dreams and mild realities of married life, and that both were blending pleasantly in his present experience. For, on asking if he had been often on the Wrekin, and knew the people who lived in the half-way cottage, he said he knew both well and had often visited them. Indeed, he added, with a deeper colour to his honest face and half-timidly, he had married