He dates from the beginning of Man. I have seen many a Baldy Hill in my life; he never fails to give me the feeling that he is Primitive Man survived. Primitive Man lived like that, in the woods, in the darkness, outwitting the wild things, while the rain dripped, and the owl cried, and the ghost came out from the grave. Baldy Hill stole the last litter of the last she-wolf to cross them with the King's hounds. He was in at the death of the last wild-boar. Sometimes, in looking at him, I think that his ashen stake must have a flint head, with which, on moony nights, he still creeps out, to rouse, it may be, the mammoth in his secret valley, or a sabretooth tiger, still caved in the woods. Life may and does shoot out into exotic forms, which may and do flower and perish. Perhaps when all the other forms of English life are gone, the Baldy Hill form, the stock form, will abide, still striding, head bent, with an ashen stake, after some wild thing, that has meat, or fur, or is difficult or dangerous to tackle.

I hope that he may live to wear spindle-fruit for many seasons to come. Hunting makes more people happy than anything I know. When people are happy together, I am quite certain that they build up something eternal, something both beautiful and divine, which weakens the power of all evil things upon this life of men and women.

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