The Argosy — page 67: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 In the New Forest. The original stone had been so defaced by people carving their names upon it, that it was encased by this iron structure, which to a certain extent defies the power of the knife, and the efforts of those who are too eager to leave behind them wherever they go such records of their folly. The very trees of the forest are not sacred to these destroyers, and names and initials were deeply carved upon the bark of many a noble oak, many a fine beech, in the very teeth of the notices warning against the practice. How vividly passed before one that scene that took place nearly a thousand years ago, when a king lost his life at the hands of a subject. If purposely done, what remorse must have been his: if an accident, what sorrow and regret! Wecan imagine the sad procession: the monarch carried to a neighbouring hut; thence, in the evening, taken ona rough cart, through the gloomy forest and the long dark roads, to Winchester; a mournful, melancholy transport; though in those days probably they thought less of death and changes—“ Le roi est mort, vive le roi !”—than we do in this later and more civilized age. Still, a king was a king, whatever might have been his life; and great must have been the cry and stir that vibrated throughout the country, spread by the slow-reaching channels of report. From the stone the road stretched upwards over the heath, but the slope of the hill hid the inn from view. To the nght the wood grew thick and dense, and in its recesses one might easily stray and be lost. Following the road downwards, I soon came to the small village of Brook, with its inevitable inn and swinging sign. Here a magpie hopping mischievously about, came up and boldly inspected me, chattering in a tame and very impudent manner. Finally it went off in triumph with a bright steel chain thrown to it by the landlord of the inn, which it stowed away cunningly behind a wagon in the yard. Passing on over a rustic, picturesque bridge, I turned to the right into the wood and followed the course of the stream for some distance. Nothing could be more lovely than the scene. The banks of the stream were lined with a wealth of fern and bracken, and the water rippled along with the most musical of sounds. ‘The trees arched and met overhead; the sun threw long shadows into the wood. Bright scarlet fungi grew in profusion, and the tender fronds of the younger bracken were of the most transparent green and gold, as they held up their delicate structures to the light. In the hot summer months, to come and picnic here with a favourite book would be high bliss. Still better to go further into the depths, out of sound and reach of the high road, and pitch one’s tent—which may easily be done—and pass the days sketching or reading, or lounging and doing nothing but enjoying the bare fact of existence, free and happy as primeval man. Burdened perhaps with a load of sin, sorrow and suffering as yet unknown to him; but possessing a thousand-and-one advantages, sources of happiness, civilization and refinement, to which he was equally a stranger. CORNICE OOOKS (C(O)