These woods are always beautiful. Of their loveliness in spring we have spoken; and if you come to them in summer, then the first purple of the heather flaunts on every bank, and edges the sides of the gravel-pits with a crimson fringe; and the streams now idle, suffer themselves to be stopped up with water-lilies and white crowfoot, whilst the mock-myrtle dips itself far into the water. Then is it you may know something of the sweetness and the solitude of the woods, and wandering on, giving the day up to profitable idleness, can attain to that mood of which Wordsworth constantly sings, as teaching more than all books or years of study.
The Woodman’s Path, Bramble Hill.
CHAPTER IX.
MINESTEAD AND RUFUS’S STONE.
Oaks in Boldrewood.
About four miles off from Lyndhurst lie Minestead and Rufus’s Stone. There are three or four different roads to them. The most beautiful, though the longest, is over Emery Down, where, turning off to the left, you pass the woods of Kitt’s Hill, and James Hill. Then crossing Millaford Bridge, and skirting on each side of the road the beeches of Holme Hill, and passing through Boldrewood, you make your way eastward across the stream below the Withy Bed Hat, and go through the woods of Puckpits and Stonehard.
Another road to the Stone is through Minestead by a footpath which crosses Mr. Compton’s park, dotted with cottages, each with its garden full in the summer and autumn of flowers—yellow Aaron-rods, pink candy-tufts, colchicums, and marigolds, and tall sheaves of grey Michaelmas daisies.
In the village stands “The Faithful Servant,” copied from the well-known picture at Winchester College. A little farther on we ascend Stoneycross Hill, the village orchards full of Mary-apples and Morrisses mingling their blossoms, in the spring, with the green Forest oaks. As we reach the top, suddenly there opens out one long view. On the north-east rise the hills beyond Winchester; but the “White City” is hidden in their valley. To the east lies Southampton, with its houses by the water-side; and to the north, across the woods of Prior’s Acre, gleam the green Wiltshire downs lit up by the sunlight.
Close to us, among its beeches, lies Castle Malwood, with its single trench and Forest lodge, where tradition and poets say Rufus feasted before his death; and down in the valley stands the Stone which marks the spot where he is said to have fallen.