They Seem So Close Together, So Thickened And Matted, Impenetrable
To Footsteps, Like A Mound Of Earth Rather Than Woods, A Solid Block Of
Wood; But There Are Ways That Wind Through And Space Between The Taller
Trunks When You Come Near.
The odour of firs is variable; sometimes it
fills the air, sometimes it is absent altogether, and doubtless depends
upon certain conditions of the atmosphere.
A very small pinch of the
fresh shoot is pleasant to taste; these shoots, eaten constantly, were
once considered to cure chest disease, and to this day science endeavours
by various forms of inhalations from fir products to check that malady.
Common rural experience, as with the cow-pox, has often laid the basis of
medical treatment. Certain it is that it is extremely pleasant and
grateful to breathe the sweet fragrance of the fir deep in the woods,
listening to the soft caressing sound of the wind that passes high
overhead. The willow-wren sings, but his voice and that of the wind seem
to give emphasis to the holy and meditative silence. The mystery of
nature and life hover about the columned temple of the forest. The secret
is always behind a tree, as of old time it was always behind the pillar
of the temple. Still higher, and as the firs cease, and shower and
sunshine, wind and dew, can reach the ground unchecked, comes the tufted
heath and branched heather of the moorland top. A thousand acres of
purple heath sloping southwards to the sun, deep valleys of dark heather;
further slopes beyond of purple, more valleys of heather - the heath shows
more in the sunlight, and heather darkens the shadow of the hollows - and
so on and on, mile after mile, till the heath-bells seem to end in the
sunset. Round and beyond is the immense plain of the air - -you feel how
limitless the air is at this height, for there is nothing to measure it
by. Past the weald lie the South Downs, but they form no boundary, the
plain of the air goes over them to the sea and space.
This wild tract of Ashdown Forest bears much resemblance to Exmoor; you
may walk, or you may ride, for hours and meet no one; and if black game
were to start up it would not surprise you in the least. There seems room
enough to chase the red stag from Buckhurst Park with horn and hound
till, mayhap, he ended in the sea at Pevensey. Buckhurst Park is the
centre of this immense manor. Of old time the deer did run wild, and were
hunted till the pale was broken in the great Civil War. The 'Forest' is
still in every one's mouth - 'on the Forest,' 'by the Forest,' 'in' it, or
'over' it, everything comes from the 'Forest,' even stone to mend the
roads, or 'through the Forest,' as up from Brighton. People say this farm
used to be forest, or this garden or this house was the first built on
the forest.
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