the Downs of Wiltshire as season or temperature moves them. As we leave our comfortable inn quarters, on our way to Lyndhurst, proceeding for a short distance eastwards along the breezy ridge of Stoneycross, we can see, away to our right, if we turn our eyes southwards, a cultivated valley lying just beneath us; away over the uplands that rise from the valley a sweep of far-reaching forest; and then, beyond again, forming the distant horizon, the hills of the Isle of Wight rising, like a great blue line, against the sky and high above all the Hampshire mainland. On our left, and away to the north, the eye takes in a line of wood-covered hills which rise from a wooded valley formed by a slope in the forest that begins almost at our feet. Looking down into this valley and letting the eye take a northeasterly direction we get a view of the beautifully-wooded Canterton Glen, in which stands the stone supposed to mark the spot where stood the Oak by which Rufus fell. The woods in this romantic glen are of singular beauty and splendour and as wild and weird and rugged as they could ever have been in the Conqueror's day. The glen itself is surrounded by wood-covered uplands, and above and beyond these the eye can follow, to the north-east, a long extent of pastoral and agricultural country-meadow, cornfield, and their dividing hedges, rolling away, over undulated country, to the far horizon. Turning round by the gateway which leads into the enclosure of Castle Malwood we take a south-easterly direction over the brow of a hill, passing, immediately afterwards, on the left-hand side of our way, a wild and beautiful bit of forest, and then, as we make a bend in our road, getting a delightful prospect, away to the east, of the wooded depths of the forest below and the distant sweep beyond of undulating country, and, to the south-east, of the town of Southampton. Our road still descends by orchard and fruit garden by way of Minstead Green, with its clump of large Oaks, through the leafy valley of Minstead-a smiling region with its undulating meadows and trees and its enclosures of cottage and farmstead, Oaks, overspread with autumnal hues, overarching the hedgebank and making chequered shadows on the road. Our way leads us on past cottages garlanded by roses and trailing Ivy, and turns and winds through the straggling village, now gently rising, now descending. Under the deep shadows of Oaks which, on either side of the way, filter the sunshine through the leafy screen of their branches, we pass out and away from the village and, ere long, reaching the limit of enclosures, again come upon the open forest. Coming soon upon a road running to the right and to the left, we turn to the right and for a short distance pursue a level way. At a point where two stalwart Oaks, growing from opposite sides of our path, commingle their branches over our heads the road makes a general and sweeping descent, and, at its lowest part, rises again through the forest until, in the far distance, it appears almost to touch the sky. Arrived at the top of this distant hill our road falls once more, and again rising with a graceful sweep leads into Lyndhurst, whose houses can now be seen embowered in trees. |