296 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



achieved in their favour. The old hen bird with her 

 brood hops easily across one of these ditches ; but her 

 recently hatched young, in endeavouring to follow 

 her, invariably, from the width and steepness of the 

 sides of the drain, fall in, when they either perish on 

 the spot or are carried oif l)y the run of water. Some 

 foolish persons, called forest keepers, exclaim, " AVhat 

 good these great enclosures will do to the black 

 game ! " but, as they are men who look no more into 

 the bottom of a drain than they do into any other 

 place where they might " pad " a vermin or catch a 

 thief, their opinion may go for what it is worth. 

 The forest with its deer was a happy and contented 

 land once, and might have been made still more so in 

 the way I have pointed out. It is now a sad, a dis- 

 contented, and a complaining w^aste, not much of a 

 nursery for timber, but a wide field for the nurture of 

 crime and incendiarism, produced by the act of par- 

 liament brought in by Lord Seymour and the Whigs. 

 I do not stir a step in the forest without hearing 

 complaints from man and woman as to the restric- 

 tions of the new law, and one of their exclamations 

 is, " What have we got by the utter destruction of 

 the deer, and why, if they are so killed, are we not 

 to enjoy the pasturage vacated by them ? Instead of 

 getting more in fuel and pasturage we now have less, 

 though there are no deer to eat it." If the feeling 

 remains in the forest such as it is, instead of re- 

 ducing the Avoodmen and keepers, if the plantations 

 are to be kept from tire, the staff of watchers must 

 not only be amended by the introduction of more 

 active men, but the Crown will have yearly to expend 

 a heavy sum of money in keeping down the gorse and 

 preventing its being accessible to fire, or the plant- 



