4 THE NEW FOREST 



moner, and British public alike contend in their 

 traffic, I trust the reader who has no occasion to 

 trouble himself with any of these things will 

 bear with me, mindful ever as I am of the local 

 foresters who love to discuss these matters. 



Indeed, a large book might be filled with 

 such disputations, but I have restricted myself 

 solely to those which led to the events passing 

 in my brief space of thirty-five years, terminat- 

 ing with 1914. 



Prosily no doubt, as is the wont of the gar- 

 rulus senex, who is invariably laudator temporis 

 acti se puero, and though I have laboured to 

 avoid those particular rocks, I doubt if anyone 

 attempting my task could steer his barque en- 

 tirely clear of them. 



Lastly, I have written this book, because it 

 amused me to do so. Because it was pleasant 

 in my old age to recount, before memory slips 

 quite away, incidents of the best and happiest 

 years of my life. Because I liked just once 

 again to recall the old fights, the old hunts, the 

 old days of good hard work in the woods and 

 about them, planning their future, realising their 

 defects, and rejoicing when nature was propitious 

 and plantations flourished. 



In this book, however, I have no single word 

 to say about politics, local or otherwise. 



