The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [365]
‘We must all move with the times, Pride.’
They forded the stream. Ahead of them rose a long heathery slope at the crest of which lay the stretch of open heath known as Fritham Plain. Here and there Grockleton could see cattle grazing, and as they came out on to the plain, he counted a dozen ponies. He sighed. The commoners and their stock: men like George’s father were so wedded to these useless animals. The cows he could understand, but the sturdy little ponies hardly seemed worth keeping. About the time of the Deer Removal Act the queen’s husband, Prince Albert, had lent an Arabian stallion for a few seasons to breed with the local mares. One could sometimes see a trace of Arabian in some of the ponies now, but the experiment hadn’t yielded much. His friend Cumberbatch, for some reason, had interested himself in the ponies and introduced some fresh mares from other places. But the stocky creatures still looked ugly to Grockleton.
‘We mustn’t blame men like your father for wanting to keep their stock on the Forest you know, Pride,’ he said kindly. ‘It’s a way of life that has to go, but we must be patient.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ said George.
‘There were some new plantations planned up here, I believe,’ Grockleton continued. ‘I want you to show me where.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ said George. ‘This way.’
There was no question, Minimus Furzey considered: the northern Forest was another world. There were individual vantage points, of course, in the wide tracts below Lyndhurst, from which you might enjoy some fine views. But as you made your way northwards up the rising ground above Lyndhurst and went past Minstead and climbed the high slope up to Castle Malwood, you realized that you had come out on to a broad ridge that swept westward right across to Ringwood. Below the ridge, in descending shelves, the southern Forest spread out; but above, in a huge north-western triangle, a high, heather-clad plateau extended for a dozen miles all the way past Fordingbridge and up to Hale.
This was the table-land that Minimus Furzey loved. Up here in its airy silences, under the open sky, a huge panorama opened out beyond the plateau’s edge: eastward to the downs of Wessex, westward to the blue hills of Dorset, northward to the chalk ridges of Sarum rolling away into the distance like a sea. It was a high, bare, brown and purple place, a land in the sky, a world apart.
This afternoon, as he often did, Minimus had chosen a pleasant spot up on the high ground to sit and sketch. He and Beatrice had walked up from their cottage together, and she had continued across the high heath while he sat down to work.
It was delightfully warm. At his feet, Minimus noticed the bright emerald backs of the tiny Forest insects known as tiger beetles. Across the heather and gorse, he could hear a Dartford warbler, the click of a stonechat and the faint sounds of one or two other heathland birds. He had not remained alone for long, however.
The lone gypsy caravan that had come slowly westward along the track was not an unusual sight. No one was sure when the gypsies had first appeared in the Forest. Some said it was back at the time of the Spanish Armada, some said later. But whenever it was, these strange eastern people who wandered all over Europe made a colourful addition to the Forest scene. With their brightly painted caravans and strings of horses they would pass across near Fordingbridge, then follow the ancient prehistoric tracks along the ridges below Sarum towards the horse fairs in the West Country.
Minimus would often talk to passing gypsies. Once he had gone off with them for several days, leaving Beatrice only a note to say where he was going. He had returned with an armful of sketches and a rich vocabulary of gypsy words so that,