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CHAPTER XIV. 



" To thee, both day and night must bring some traces 

 Of joys or sorrows shared in other places." 



" Indeed, dear Doe, thou say'st ihe words of truth, 

 All nature is with reminiscence rife, 

 Scents from the flower's sigh the scenes of youth, 

 Each distant bell 's a chime from early life. 

 In perfume, as in music, mingled joy and pain, 

 From the long past awake, and rule the mind again." 



The Last oj" the New Forest Deer, an unpublished Poem. 



G. F. B. 



Having obtained the Royal leave to shoot over the 

 New Forest, with the sport at my command over my 

 own beat, coupled with the kindness of my friends, 

 I was at no loss for amusement. The licence over 

 the forest is in writing, and plainly restrictive in 

 certain things ; for instance, to shoot the grey-hen or 

 hen pheasant is strictly prohibited, and the person 

 possessing the licence is given to understand that 

 the Crown expects him to use its gift in modera- 

 tion, as an occasional recreation, and not to make 

 the royal waste a scene of continuous slaughter, 

 or gain by sale of the game therein killed. I had 

 not long had the licence, or become acquainted 

 with the habits of some of those who possessed it, 

 before I was suspicious as to considerable abuses. 

 In the first place, the keepers, with very few 

 exceptions, never took the trouble to ascertain, 

 when they heard a gun, who it was that fired it : 

 this I observed in my own case, for unless I hap- 

 pened to cross a keeper, he never purposely came 

 to see who I was. In the second, I observed that if 

 I took a turf or furze cutter from the vicinity of the 



