On the highest point of the Forest of Dean district—just one thousand feet above ocean’s level—is a singular mass of rock known as the “Buckstone.” An inverted pyramid, with base some fifteen feet in diameter, poised upon its apex, which rests on another rock mass of quadrangular shape as upon a plinth. Into this the down-turned apex seems indented so far as to make the apparent surface of contact but a few square feet. In reality the two masses are detached, the superimposed one so loose as to have obtained the character of a “rocking stone.” Many the attempt to rock it; many the party of tourists who had laid shoulders against it to stir it from its equilibrium; not a few taking departure from the place fully convinced they had felt, or seen it, move.
And many the legend belonging thereto, Druidical and demoniac; some assigning it an artificial, others a supernatural, origin.
Alas for these romantic conjectures! the geologist gives them neither credence nor mercy. Letting the light of science upon the Buckstone, he shows how it comes to be there; by the most natural of causes—simply through the disintegration of a soft band of the old red sandstone interposed between strata of its harder conglomerate.
From beside this curious eccentricity of the weather-wearing forces is obtained one of the finest views of all England, or rather a series of them, forming a circular panorama. Turn what way one will the eye encounters landscape as lovely as it is varied. To the east, south-east, and south can be seen the far-spreading champaign country of Gloucester, Somerset, and Devon, here and there diversified by bold, isolated prominences, as the Cotswolds and Mendips, with a noble stream, the Severn, winding snake-like along, and gradually growing wider, till in funnel-shape it espouses the sea, taking to itself the title of Channel.
From the shores of this, stretching away northward, but west from the Buckstone, is a country altogether different. No plains in that direction worth the name, but hills and undulating ridges, rolling up higher and higher as they recede, at length ending in a mountain background, blue black, with a horizontal line which shows many a curious col and summit.
The greater portion of this view is occupied by the shire of Monmouth, its foreground being the valley of the Wye, where this river, after running the gauntlet between English Bicknor and the Dowards, comes out surging and foam-crested as a victorious warrior with his plumes still unshorn. And as he in peaceful times might lay them aside, so the fretted and writhing river, clot after clot, casts off its snowlike froth, and, seemingly appeased, flows in tranquil current through the narrow strip of meadow land on which stands the miniature city of Monmouth.
Although below the Buckstone, at least nine hundred of the thousand feet by which this surmounts the sea’s level, the point blank distance between them is inside the range of modern great guns. And so well within that of a field-glass that from the overhanging Forest heights men could be distinguished in the streets of the town, or moving along the roads that lead out of it.
As already said, one of these is the Kymin, then the main route of travel to Gloucester, by Coleford and Mitcheldean. Near where it attains the Forest elevation, at the picturesque village of Staunton, a lane branches off leading to the higher point on which stands the Buckstone; a path running through woods, only trodden by the tourist and others curious to examine the great balanced boulder.
On that same afternoon and hour when the cadgers were toiling up the Kymin Hill, two personages of very different appearance and character—both men—might have been seen entering into the narrower trackway, and continuing on up towards the rock-crowned summit.
On reaching it one of them drew out a telescope, and commenced adjusting the lens to his sight. If his object was but to view the scenery there was no need for using glass. Enough could be taken in by the naked eye to satisfy the most ardent lover of landscape, though in September the woods still wore their summer livery; for on Wye side it is late ere the foliage loses its greenery, and quite winter before it falls from the trees. Here and there only a dash of yellow, or a mottling of maroon red, foreshadowed the coming change; but no russet-grey as yet. The afternoon was one of the loveliest; not a cloud in the azure sky save some low-lying fleecy cumuli, snow-white but rose-tinted, towards which the sun seemed hastening as to a couch of repose. A cool breeze had succeeded the sultriness of the mid-day hours; and, aroused from its torpor, all animated nature was once more active and joyous. Out of the depths of the High Meadow woods came the whistling call of stag and the bleat of roebuck; from the pastures around Staunton the lowing of kine, mingled with the neighing of a mother mare, in response to the “whigher” of unweaned foal, while in Forest glade might now and then be heard shrill cries of distress, where fierce polecat or marten had sprung upon the shoulders of some hapless hare, there to clutch and cling till the victim dropped dying on the grass.