And now the two main objects of the afforestation have nearly come to an end: neither venison nor vert are of their old importance. The deer had encroached so much on the foresters’ rights, that their extinction was decreed; a few yet linger in the north and west, but the Forest is no longer for them. Moreover, since we have ceased to trust in the “wooden walls of Old England”, the demand for sound oak timber is shrinking, and once in the utilitarian days of the last century it was seriously proposed to throw the whole district open for cultivation. Happily there were enough lovers of nature to save it, and it is still preserved as a bit of the wild country our forefathers enjoyed.
For the Forest has a peculiar charm which I would fain convey. Where does it lie? Just where it is
least sought; where the cheap tripper complains there is nothing to see. Not by Rufus’ Stone; not in the drear formality of the Ornamental Drive; hardly under the big trees where picnic parties leave their sandwich papers and banana skins: rather where the brown rivulet winds its hidden way between the rushes; beside the dark pool lying in the hollow of the moor with deep, shadowy reflections of its fringe of trees and just a glint of blue sky between; or along the green rides where the wood seems endless; or on the high shoulder of the wide, lonely moor, sloping away, fold beyond fold, to the distant sea, with all its wondrous changeful hues, bronze and russet with bracken, purple with heather, with sweeps of ling tenderly grey—yet most beautiful, perhaps, when the amethyst dusk has swallowed up all shades, and the dark crest lies against the fading glow of sunset. The palpitating song of the lark, that all day filled the sky with music, is hushed, and the tawny owls, with their soft flight like huge moths, swoop across, calling to each other with their long tu-whoo.
BROCKENHURST AND THE MOORLAND
Instead of beginning with Lyndhurst in the middle of the Forest, as most Forest books do, and branching out thence like a starfish, it has seemed good to me to take first Brockenhurst, not only because at its big junction many travellers arrive, but because in its infinite variety it shows more of the characteristic features of the land. There is the open Forest stretching away, with its wide views and its silver border of sea, with its marshy hollows and crested heights; there is the Boldre—Byldwr, or full stream—gliding through meadow and thicket till it becomes the broad Lymington River and meets the tide between the marshes; there are the deep green woods of the manor climbing up from the riverside to meet other woods at Ladycross, or opening out on the uplands at Heathy Dilton; and, lastly, the village is still full of interest and old-world corners, though, alas! threatened with development into villadom at the Rise and beyond.
IN BROCKENHURST VILLAGE
Hard by the station, on a bare plot of ground, once a small village green, stands the smithy at the meeting