Assuming that it is a fine day we have chosen for our ramble, in the first place we are surrounded by a bright and rarefied atmosphere, whose inhalation, to quote a lamented writer, is a process something between breathing and drinking. The scene has changed, as if by magic. The barrier we have just passed would seem to be a fairy circle, shutting out all matters pertaining to human life. Castles and towns are things we must have dreamt of somewhere long ago. We are in a vast solitude of grassy mounds and giant trees, in all their native luxuriance, spreading as far as the eye can reach. The stillness would be appalling but for the clamor of a million birds. We have heard of a native of Piccadilly, who, spending a night in the country for the only time in his life, declared that he had been unable to sleep, the confounded birds made such a noise. If we had a grudge against that native (and doubtless if we knew him we should not be long in forming one, as we certainly should not like him), and had it in our power to punish him in our own way, we should condemn him to sling a hammock on one of the trees in Windsor Great Park, and roost there for a week; for the birds in Windsor Great Park are the noisiest in the world.
These are the combined causes of an effect similar to that of laughing-gas, or something to drink, leading to gymnastic results such as we have indicated....
The rabbits of Windsor Park, by the way, are endowed with matchless impudence. They treat you with a familiarity which borders too close on contempt to be gratifying. They will scarcely get out of your way. They sit comfortably before their holes, lazily watching you go past with as much indifference as a country gentleman seated at his own door would the passing of a travelling tinker. The same may be said of the game generally with which the park abounds. The flocks of deer will go on browsing comfortably till you almost tread on their little black noses. Then there will be a short listless consultation as to whether you are a person to be tolerated or not. The leader will probably give a verdict in the negative, and they turn slowly round, all showing their powder-puffs of tails at once in the most insulting manner, and strut a few yards off, when they recommence their endless meal, merely regarding you as something of a bore and a nuisance, but in no serious light whatever.
Once we started a pheasant; he would not even pay us the compliment of flying. We ran at him violently; he ran a few yards off, and commenced pecking at something. We threw a stone at him; he ducked his head a little,—no more. We waved our hands and cried “Shoo!” in the most approved manner, demonstrations to which he would not condescend to pay the slightest attention. We ran towards him again; he ran away from us a short distance, and then before our very eyes roosted on an old rail with unmistakable intentions of going to sleep. This was insufferable. We could almost have knocked him down with our walking stick, and were sufficiently exasperated to think of trying, when the appearance of a game-keeper on the horizon suddenly made us look in an opposite direction, and commence a careful search for botanical specimens.
This tameness, which is shocking to us, is very different from the trusting innocence of Alexander Selkirk’s happy family, who were
“So unaccustomed to man.”
It is the insolent security of a privileged class. They know you are not allowed to shoot them, and the airs they give themselves are intolerable....
Descending a cool valley densely wooded with magnificent Scotch firs, we come to a bridge crossing a placid-looking lake of considerable dimensions. The stranger generally thinks this is Virginia Water; he is a little disappointed,—thinks it hardly merits the reputation it has earned for beauty,—but, on the whole, is not dissatisfied. He thinks it is probably a little better farther on, on one side or the other; he wonders which he ought to try; he is, however, loath to explore either till he has ascertained whether there is really anything to be seen or not (for your speculative sight-seer is a cautious fellow, and has a great objection to being taken in). Seeing a lodge-gate a little ahead, he proceeds there to ask whether there is any more of Virginia Water than what he has just left; not but what that was very delightful,—he merely wishes to know. The lodge-keeper laughs sardonically, and, good-naturedly blessing the stranger’s eyes, tells him that is none of Virginia Water; then, with a look of contemptuous pity, seizes him by the arm, leads him impatiently to a little gate opening on to a thick wood, thrusts him in, and, bidding him follow his nose, returns to the lodge, satisfied at having nothing more to do with a person of that scale of intelligence.
Our plan is to follow the lodge-keeper’s precept and the stranger’s example. We pass through the little gate, and after a few seconds’ walk through the wood, come unexpectedly on a very novel and delightful scene, of which we cannot speak in higher terms than to say that it fully merits the florid eulogium of the original edition of the Royal Windsor Guide, already quoted.