BY J. H. DANA.
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There is no scenery in England more beautiful than that to be found in portions of the New Forest. Huge gray old oaks, gnarled, and twisted, and aspiring to heaven; deep glens, overshadowed by canopies of leaves, through which the light but faintly struggles; vast arcades, stretching far away in the distance, and buried in religious gloom; wild wood roads, that wind hither and thither among the giant trees in fanciful contortions; and open, sunny glades, intersected by sparkling streamlets, waving with verdant grass, and now and then disclosing a fairy cottage nestled in the edge of the forest, are to this day, the characteristics of this favorite hunting ground of the conqueror and his immediate successors. There is a solitude about this old labyrinthine chace, which is perfectly bewitching. You may travel for miles, in the more secluded parts of the forest, without meeting a human being, or seeing the smoke of a single cottage curling among the foliage; but on every hand you will behold trees growing in the wildest luxuriance, and tread on a sward as soft and thick as the richest velvet. You will, for a space, hear nothing but the sound of a nut rattling to the ground, or the song of some wood bird down in a brake; and then you will rouse the deer from their retreat, a rustle will be heard down in the under-growth, and you will catch a sight of the noble herd, perchance, as they go trotting away into the darker recesses of the forest.
Such is the New Forest now, and such it was eight centuries ago, on a bright sunny morning, towards the end of summer. The hour was still early, for the dew yet sparkled in the grass, or pattered down from the foliage as the wind stirred among the forest branches. The scene was one of the loveliest the chace afforded—a bright glade embosomed in the most silent depths of the forest. The whole of this open space was carpeted with the thickest and greenest grass, varying in hue, at every breath of the balmy wind over the undulated surface. On one side, the glade was bounded by a gentle elevation, covered with stately oaks, whose giant branches, spreading out far and wide, buried their trunks in the obscurity of a constant twilight—and on the other three sides the ground either extended itself in a plain, or sloped so gently off, that the descent was nearly imperceptible. Thousands of wild flowers spangled the surface of the glade, some flaunting proudly on the air, and some modestly hiding under the long grass, yet all sending forth the most delicious perfume—while innumerable birds, of every variety of plumage, hopped from twig to twig, or skimmed across the glade, filling the air with untold harmonies,—and high in the heaven, a solitary lark, lingering there long after his fellows had departed, poured forth his lay with such sweet, such liquid harmony, that a stranger, unaccustomed to his song, and unable to distinguish his tiny form far up in the sunny ether, might well have fancied those unrivalled notes the breathings of an unseen cherubim.
Such was the scene on which there now gazed two beings, both beautiful, but one surpassingly so. The elder of the two might have been one and thirty, and both his face and figure were moulded in the noblest style of manly beauty. His broad brow, chiselled features, and commanding port, bespoke him one born to rule, although the simple and somewhat mean garb he wore argued that he was not rich in this world’s goods. The attire of his companion was richer, but less gay, and she wore the veil of a novice. Her face, however, made up in loveliness for whatever absence of ornament there was in her dress, and indeed she might well have challenged the world to produce her rival. The fair delicate skin through which the blue veins could be seen meandering, the snowy brow that seemed made for the temple of the loveliest and purest thoughts, the golden hair that lay in wreathes upon the forehead, and the blue eye whose azure depths seemed to conceal mysteries as pure and rapturing as those of heaven, made up a countenance of overpowering beauty, even without that expression, so high and seraphic, which beamed with her every word, and threw over each lineament of her face a loveliness almost divine. Her figure was like that of a sylph, yet full and rounded in every limb; and beneath her dress peeped forth one of the most delicate feet that ever trod green sward. She was perhaps eighteen, though she might have been younger. She sat now on a low bank, at the very edge of the forest, while her companion reclined at her feet, holding one of her tiny hands in his broad palm, and gazing up into her eyes with a look of the deepest, yet most respectful passion. Nor were the maiden’s orbs averted from his gaze, for ever and anon she would twine her fingers playfully yet half sadly in his locks, and return his look with all a woman’s tenderness.
“Yes, sweet one,” said the hunter, as if continuing a conversation, “I have sometimes, during our separation for the last six long months, almost desponded, especially when I heard how urgent my brother was that you should wed his favorite Warren, and when I reflected that your aunt, the good abbess Christiana, was so hostile to my suit. But I did you injustice, dear one, and thus,” and he kissed the hands of his companion again and again, “I sue for pardon. God only knows,” he added in a sadder tone, “whether I shall ever have my rights. They sneer at me now as a landless prince, and that purse-proud Surrey hath no better name for me than Deer’s-foot, because I am not always able to follow the hunt with a steed. But so long as thou art true to me, sweet Maud, all these will be as nothing; and the time may come when we shall yet be happy.”
“Fear not, Beauclerk,” said the princess—for it was Matilda of Scotland who spoke, and he whom she addressed was the younger son of the conqueror, the penniless dependent of him whom men called the Red King, “fear not—all, as you say, will be well. I feel it, I know it. Do you believe in presentiments, dear Henry?” and pushing aside her lover’s thick locks, she held her hand on his forehead, and looked with her sunny orbs full into his eyes, as if she would playfully read his very soul.
“Presentiments trouble me not much, despite what the books say thereof,” answered the frank hunter, “I trust rather to my sword and my good right arm, though forsooth, they availed me little when I was cooped up in St. Michael’s Mount by my two kingly and loving brothers. Aye! presentiments and prophesies, and such things, trouble me but little, or I would e’en have consolation now, in all my troubles, in calling to mind the words of my father—the saints assoilzie his memory!—since dying, he said, ‘that I should be inheritor of all his honors, and should excel both Robert and William in riches and power.’ By St. George, the riches had best come soon, for I gave my last mark away this morning. No, kind Maud, I place little faith in presentiments. But you sigh. If it pains you that I credit them not, why, then I am the most devout believer in all England,” and again he pressed that fair hand to his lips, “why do you ask the question?”
“Because,” said the princess, blushing at his eagerness, “I have had a presentiment that we should yet be happy, and that full soon. I know not how it is to happen; but of this I am assured, we shall live for brighter days. The abbess threatens me with the veil if I do not wed Surrey, and even now forces me, in her presence, to wear a tissue of horse-hair; but though I can as yet see no escape from the alternative, I am not the less certain that it will never be mine to choose. So now, despond no more, dear Beauclerk.”
“Thanks, thanks, for your cheering homily,” said the young prince laughing, for her sanguine words had affected him with an unusual gaiety. “I can hunt now with some spirit. Little does Surrey think, while he is getting ready for the chase and perhaps sneering at me as a laggard for not being up to set out with the rest, that I have stolen out into the forest to meet her for whom he would give the whole of his broad lands.”