Pagan Papers

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The Romance of the Road

Among the many places of magic visited by Pantagruel and his company during theprogress of their famous voyage, few surpass that island whose roads didliterally “go” to places—“ou les chemins cheminent, comme animaulx”: andwould-be travellers, having inquired of the road as to its destination, andreceived satisfactory reply, “se guindans” (as the old book hathit—hoisting themselves up on) “au chemin opportun, sans aultrement se poinerou fatiguer, se trouvoyent au lieu destiné.”

The best example I know of an approach to this excellent sort of vitality inroads is the Ridgeway of the North Berkshire Downs. Join it at Streatley, thepoint where it crosses the Thames; at once it strikes you out and away from thehabitable world in a splendid, purposeful manner, running along the highestridge of the Downs a broad green ribbon of turf, with but a shade of differencefrom the neighbouring grass, yet distinct for all that. No villages norhomesteads tempt it aside or modify its course for a yard; should you lose thetrack where it is blent with the bordering turf or merged in and obliterated bycriss-cross paths, you have only to walk straight on, taking heed of noalternative to right or left; and in a minute ’tis with you again—arisen out ofthe earth as it were. Or, if still not quite assured, lift you your eyes, andthere it runs over the brow of the fronting hill. Where a railway crosses it,it disappears indeed—hiding Alpheus-like, from the ignominy of rubble andbrick-work; but a little way on it takes up the running again with the samequiet persistence. Out on that almost trackless expanse of billowy Downs such atrack is in some sort humanly companionable: it really seems to lead you by thehand.

The “Rudge” is of course an exceptional instance; but indeed this pleasantpersonality in roads is not entirely fanciful. It exists as a characteristic ofthe old country road, evolved out of t

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