EARLY SPRING IN SAVERNAKE FOREST 81 



of miserable conventions, and cannot refresh and 

 invigorate us. There are seasons and moods when 

 even the New Forest does not seem sufficiently 

 remote from life : in its most secluded places one 

 is always liable to encounter a human being, an 

 old resident, going about in the exercise of his 

 commoner's rights ; or else his ponies or cows or 

 swine. These last, if they be not of some improved 

 breed, may have a novel or quaint aspect, as of 

 wild creatures, but the appearance is deceptive ; 

 as you pass they lift their long snouts from grubb- 

 ing among the dead leaves to salute you with 

 a too familiar grunt — an assurance that William 

 Rufus is dead, and all is well ; that they are do- 

 mestic, and will spend their last days in a stye, 

 and end their life respectably at the hands of the 

 butcher. 



At Savernake there is nothing so humanised as 

 the pig, even of the old type ; you may roam for 

 long hours and see no man and no domestic animal. 

 You have heard that this domain is the property 

 of some person, but it seems like a fiction. The 

 forest is nature's and yours. There you are at 

 liberty to ramble all day unchallenged by any one ; 

 to walk, and run to warm yourself ; to disturb a 

 herd of red deer, or of fallow deer, wliich are more 



