130 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



stretch in every direction, affording wide views over a wild 

 and broken country. Moorland streams rising in the 

 bottoms, cut their way through the gravel and and soft 

 stone of the district, often running between steep banks, 

 in which the yellow sandstone, with its ruddier iron vein- 

 ing, forms a delightful background to fern and moss and 

 creeping plants. Here and there, it is true, the forest 

 redeems its pristine character, and protests against classifi- 

 cation with moorland pure and simple. Beech and oak 

 scrub occasionally dot the heather ; that most lovely of 

 young trees the birch, rises here and there in quaint group- 

 ings and fantastic wreathings and bendings of its slender 

 branches; while again and again those faithful denizens 

 of every English forest, the holly and the yew, throw in 

 their dark shading to other leafage, or break the surface 

 of the open heath. In one corner, indeed, there is a 

 genuine oak wood, not of great age, but yet not destitute of 

 those sturdy and rugged beauties which mark the species, 

 and just suggesting what the forest must have been before 

 its mineral wealth caused the destruction of its natural 

 vesture. Still the prevailing characteristic of the open 

 forest are heath-clad hill and wide-stretching moor, and 

 hence the presence of the masses of foliage which have 

 sprung up on the large inclosures sanctioned in the seven- 

 teenth century is by no means an unmixed evil. The 

 smaller enclosures, which are dotted about the forest, in 

 some places very thickly, and many of which originated in 

 nothing but encroachments, or to use the more expressive 

 term, ' squattings,' often add to the landscape a charm of 

 their own, the garden well stocked with fruit-trees, and the 

 bright green meadow, with its thick hedge-row, pleasantly 

 varying the slope of the hill, or nestling in the hollow by 

 the side of the stream. And even the cottages, which, like 

 most buildings erected under such circumstances, are 

 crude and hap-hazar.i enough in their construction, when 

 time has toned down the harshness of their outlines, and 

 the staring red of their tiles, are not out of harmony with 

 their surroundings. 



