Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/180

Rh showed, under the Normans, a spirit of obedience and an adaptability to changed circumstances which are above praise. Let us give the West-Saxon labourer credit for it both then and to this day, that though the most ill-paid and ill-fed in England, he bears his heavy yoke of poverty without a murmur.

Turning to another side of his character, we find him loving the same old sports as in the days of Alfred. He still follows the hounds on foot, and when there were deer in the Forest, naturally killed them. Wrestling and cudgel-playing have been continued till the last few years close to the northern boundaries of the Forest. The old Hock-tide games were till a late period kept up in the northern parts, and "Hock-tide money" was not so very long ago paid as an acknowledgment for certain Forest privileges. Heartiness and roughness still go hand in hand with him as with his forefathers. But a heaviness of intellect is always visible, and, as with all his race, a sadness oppresses his mirth. His dress to this day, too, bespeaks his nationality. He still wears what is locally called the "smicket," and sometimes the "surplice," the Old-English smoc, called also the tunece. It is still, too, as formerly, tied round the waist with a leathern band. His legs are still cased, as we see the Old-English in their drawings, with gaiters, known as "vamplets," or "strogs," equivalent to the "cockers" of the Midland Counties, which do not reach quite so high as the former, and "mokins," which are merely made of coarse sacking.

And now let us see how far he has made his presence felt on the district and in the language. But we must beware of overstraining our theory. No portion of our history is, in its details, so difficult as the English Conquest. None, to any statement which may be made, requires so many qualifications. The first faint flow of the Teutonic immigration was felt long 162