‘I have driven out the Britons.’  Parnesius laughed like a boy.  ’I occupy their high forts.  But Rome is merciful!  You may come up.’  And up they three all scrambled.

‘What was the song you were singing just now?’ said Una, as soon as she had settled herself.

’That?  Oh, Rimini.  It’s one of the tunes that are always being born somewhere in the Empire.  They run like a pestilence for six months or a year, till another one pleases the Legions, and then they march to that.’

’Tell them about the marching, Parnesius.  Few people nowadays walk from end to end of this country,’ said Puck.

’The greater their loss.  I know nothing better than the Long March when your feet are hardened.  You begin after the mists have risen, and you end, perhaps, an hour after sundown.’

‘And what do you have to eat?’ Dan asked promptly.

’Fat bacon, beans, and bread, and whatever wine happens to be in the rest-houses.  But soldiers are born grumblers.  Their very first day out, my men complained of our water-ground British corn.  They said it wasn’t so filling as the rough stuff that is ground in the Roman ox-mills.  However, they had to fetch and eat it.’

‘Fetch it?  Where from?’ said Una.

‘From that newly invented water-mill below the Forge.’

‘That’s Forge Mill—­our Mill!’ Una looked at Puck.

‘Yes; yours,’ Puck put in.  ‘How old did you think it was?’

‘I don’t know.  Didn’t Sir Richard Dalyngridge talk about it?’

‘He did, and it was old in his day,’ Puck answered.  ’Hundreds of years old.’

‘It was new in mine,’ said Parnesius.  ’My men looked at the flour in their helmets as though it had been a nest of adders.  They did it to try my patience.  But I—­addressed them, and we became friends.  To tell the truth, they taught me the Roman Step.  You see, I’d only served with quick-marching Auxiliaries.  A Legion’s pace is altogether different.  It is a long, slow stride, that never varies from sunrise to sunset.  “Rome’s Race—­Rome’s Pace,” as the proverb says.  Twenty-four miles in eight hours, neither more nor less.  Head and spear up, shield on your back, cuirass-collar open one hand’s breadth—­and that’s how you take the Eagles through Britain.’

‘And did you meet any adventures?’ said Dan.

‘There are no adventures South the Wall,’ said Parnesius.  ’The worst thing that happened me was having to appear before a magistrate up North, where a wandering philosopher had jeered at the Eagles.  I was able to show that the old man had deliberately blocked our road; and the magistrate told him, out of his own Book, I believe, that, whatever his Gods might be, he should pay proper respect to Caesar.’

‘What did you do?’ said Dan.

’Went on.  Why should I care for such things, my business being to reach my station?  It took me twenty days.