Page:The English Peasant.djvu/147

 (Golden Hours, 1892.)

It is a mistake into which most people fall, to suppose that a forest is simply a large wood. In its original signification the word "forest" meant very much the same as it does now in the mouth of a backwoodsman, and included the whole country exterior to the towns or the lands cleared and brought under civilization. Such has always been the character of the New Forest, the greater part of which is moorland, bare of trees, covered with heather, ling, and brake.

In old Saxon times civilization had advanced a few steps into the Forest, but further progress was peremptorily stopped by the stern edict of the conquering Norman. Nevertheless, it does not appear that it was ever entirely without inhabitants. A few hamlets, with here and there a solitary toft or farmhouse, and many a little cot of mud and thatch on its outskirts, sheltered a population which, from generation to generation, has continued to dwell there under conditions quite peculiar to themselves. For its human inhabitants were only just tolerated, and lived under the most terrible penalties if they dared in the slightest way to interfere with the wild animals for whose preservation the Forest existed.

Whatever may be the exact truth about the origin of the New Forest, it is certain the Conqueror much enlarged it, absorbing the lands of many Saxon owners; and, above all, greatly increased the severity of the Forest Laws, executing them with fierce rigour.

The cruelty and injustice of these laws is one of the main 133