But the road itself
turned west at once and went on through the wood, till some four
miles further it first thinned and then ceased altogether, the ground
going down-hill all the way: for this was the lower flank of the
first great upheaval toward the high mountains. But presently, after
the wood was ended, the land broke into swelling downs and winding
dales of no great height or depth, with a few scattered trees about
the hillsides, mostly thorns or scrubby oaks, gnarled and bent and
kept down by the western wind: here and there also were yew-trees,
and whiles the hillsides would be grown over with box-wood, but none
very great; and often juniper grew abundantly. This then was the
country of the Shepherds, who were friends both of the Dalesmen and
the Woodlanders. They dwelt not in any fenced town or thorp, but
their homesteads were scattered about as was handy for water and
shelter. Nevertheless they had their own stronghold; for amidmost of
their country, on the highest of a certain down above a bottom where
a willowy stream winded, was a great earthwork: the walls thereof
were high and clean and overlapping at the entering in, and amidst of
it was a deep well of water, so that it was a very defensible place:
and thereto would they drive their flocks and herds when war was in
the land, for nought but a very great host might win it; and this
stronghold they called Greenbury.
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