called, which, under the care of a swineherd, are collected from the farmers all round the neighbourhood, and turned out to fatten. The right of "pannage dates from the olden times, and they who possess it pay a small fee into the steward's court at Lyndhurst, which entitles them to the range of the best part of the forest for mast and acorns, from the end of September to the beginning of November. The swineherd, however, takes charge of the hogs: he initiates them into their new mode of life by the sound of his horn, feeding them when necessary; but they soon become expert foragers, especially in windy weather, when the mast falls most abundantly, and he drives them back to their owners at the end of the season in excellent condition.

But to return from what may be thought a digression, or a loitering by the way: While crossing the patches of open ground, the distant slopes are seen rising above the nearer trees, with here and there the white walls of a house gleaming amid the wood; and the cottagers who dwell on the skirts of the scrub will tell you that Squire Preston lives in one, and Squire Compton in the other, and supplement the information with a rough and ready opinion on the characters of the gentlemen. I asked one of these cottagers, an aged man, what he and the others did for medical advice in case of illness: "Bless ye, measter," he answered, "we bean't never poorly here, 'thout it is a touch o' rheumatiz when we gets old like." Happy foresters!

That invalids derive benefit from a residence in the forest is certain, perhaps from the combined effects of

shelter and dryness, for the soil consists in great part of chalk, sand, and gravel. And something must be allowed for the refreshing effect on the eye and mind of vast masses of foliage. But I am digressing again.

The opening crossed, there was another breadth of wood, fewer beeches, and more oaks, of that short, twisted, rugged sort peculiar to the New Forest, highly esteemed by shipwrights, and all who manipulate crooked timber. Some years ago it was no uncommon occurrence for a tree to disappear suddenly, no one knew how but those who were in the secret; and the government was plundered in this way to a shameful extent. The appearance of some of these contorted trees is altogether grotesque; others form groups that would delight the eye of an artist. Then, again, comes a knee-deep patch of heath, then another swamp; and at times, when the solitude seems most complete, the shrill crowing of a cock dissipates the charm, and tells you plainly there is a cottage or a small farm-house but a few yards off, though concealed by the trees. Then I crossed a turnpike-road, and, still keeping a straight course, came out shortly afterwards at Minstead, a pleasant village nestled in the heart of the forest.

This was nearly a mile to the left of the clump of firs to which I was bound, and the deviation puzzled me, as I had corrected my way more than once by the compass. Thinking it over, the cause occurred to me. While taking the bearings before starting, with arm half-bent and the compass on my palm, my umbrella,

which had an iron frame, was held horizontally under the same arm, and the metal gave the needle a bias from the true direction. Consequently, when I got among the trees, and used the umbrella as a walking-stick, its influence not being felt, the point N.N.W. was no longer the same, and led me too far to the west. To test my supposition, I put the compass on the ground, and placing the umbrella first on one side and then on the other, observed a divergence of the needle full two points in either direction.

I lost nothing, however, by the error; for the sight of Minstead, quietly cheerful in aspect, its low thatched houses with honeysuckled porches, and little flowergardens bordering the highway in an irregular line, the wheelwright's shop open to the road, the smithy ringing with hammer-strokes, the green-the playground of children and grazing-ground of geese, suggestive of the simple incidents of rustic life-all this would have repaid a wider excursion. As it leaves the village the road begins to rise, and continuing up the ascent you come at length to the top of the hill, close to the clump of fir-trees, and from thence there opens all round the horizon a charming prospect. Nothing but masses of foliage whichever way you look, with scarce an interval between, for from this height the smaller openings are masked by the intervening trees. Far in the south a faint white patch marks the site of Osborne, and westward of this a few green swells peeping above the rim of circling woods show the summits of the highest downs in the Isle of Wight, backed by the misty

glimmer of the sea. All within this limit is wood, apparently nothing but wood, broken up into endless varieties of form and colour, as the breeze sweeps across, and the shadows of the clouds drift slowly by. It is such a forest scene as surprises one accustomed to think of English forests as mere plantations; and though stretching over a breadth of twenty miles, from Southampton Water to the Avon, and from the Solent to the border of Wiltshire, the inequalities of the soil and the different physiognomy of the trees relieve it of all monotony. As your eye after a time begins to occupy itself with details you note the difference of outline between oaks and beeches, and distinguish one from the other even far away. You perceive, too, where the ash is intermingled, and where the birch sends up its shadowy-looking maze of drooping branches. Standing in the centre of such a scene, it seems scarcely possible that but a few hours before you were in the noisy streets of London.

The top of the hill is a table-land of some extent, cut up in places by gravel-pits, and crossed by the road from Romsey to Ringwood, to which towns the distance is about nine miles in either direction. The view towards the former town takes in a long slope covered by one of the finest parts of the forest, into which you get a few peeps while going down the footpath on the northern -side of the hill. The foot of the descent is broken and abrupt in places, forming an uneven border to a basinlike hollow immediately beyond, carpeted with short

turf, where a few scattered thorns and small oaks surround a short, white, triangular column; and that is the spot where the Red King fell. The column, which is about five feet in height, is a hollow case of cast iron, with the stone, "Rufus' Stone," standing inside it, as you can see by looking through the grated opening in the top. Not too soon was it protected, for it is so much defaced and reduced in size by acquisitive visitors who have gratified their want of taste by knocking pieces off to carry away, that in a few years more it would have entirely disappeared. Judging from the countless initials and names scratched on the painted surface of the iron, the new memorial would be in danger of a similar fate, were it not that the metal is harder than the stone. Will the mischievous propensity for that sort of notoriety never die out?

Here it was, then, that Rufus came on that fatal morning from "Malwood Keep" with a gallant retinue of knights and squires, and horse and hound eager for the chase, startling the echoes with jocund shouts, the sound of horns, and the tramp of hoofs, while the red deer springing from his lair fled into the deepest recesses of the forest. Little deemed the monarch as the noble train swept by he should not return to the evening feast. He was going to his doom; and here he fell, with what result is told in history.

Three inscriptions, one on each face of the column, record the event and the circumstances of its commemoration in the following terms: