2 46 THE EXETER ROAD 



until Blandford was reached ; while Shaftesl)ury to 

 the north, and AVimborne to the south, marked its 

 extent in another direction. Belonging anciently to 

 great feudal lords or to the Sovereign, it was Crown 

 property from the time of Edward the Fourth to the 

 reign of James the First. James delighted in killing 

 the buck here, but that Royal prig granted the Chase 

 to the Earl of Pembroke, from whom, shorn of its 

 oppressive laws, it has descended to Lord Rivers ; 

 while the Earl of Shaftesbury also owns great tracts 

 of woodlands here. But, singularly enough, that part 

 of the Chase which still retains the wildest and densest 

 aspect lies quite away from Cranborne, and in the 

 county of Wilts, around Tollard Royal. The nature 

 of the country and the character of the soil must needs 

 always keep this vast tract wdld, and, in an agricul- 

 tural sense, unproductive. Game will always abound 

 here in the thickets, and indeed the weird-looking 

 hill-top plantations, called by the rustics ' hats of 

 trees,' are especially planted as cover, wherever the 

 country is open and unsheltered. 



The severity of the laws which governed a Chase 

 and punished deer-stealers was simply barbarous. 

 Cranborne had its courts and Chase Prison where 

 offenders and deer-stealers were punished by mutila- 

 tion, imprisonment, or fine, according to the crime, 

 the status of the offender, or the comparative state of 

 civilisation of the period in which the offence was 

 committed. But whether the punishment for stealing 

 deer was the striking off of a hand, or imprisonment 

 in a noisome dungeon, or merely being mulcted in a 

 larger or smaller sum, there were always those who 



