The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [379]
But the real sting in the tail came in a provision the W. H. Smith Committee thought of themselves.
The ancient order of verderers, that had ruled the medieval Forest through its Swainmote courts, was to be given a new life in a new form. Under an Official Verderer, nominated by the Crown, six local landowners were to be elected as verderers by the commoners and parishioners of the Forest. They were to rule the Forest. It was they who would now make the bye-laws, administer the grazing, collect fees, hold judicial courts and, above all, protect the interests of the Commoners. If the Office of Woods misbehaved in the Forest, they would have to answer to the verderers. It was a complete reversal. The Office of Woods had, so to speak, been railed off in their own inclosures.
Mr Cumberbatch, on hearing the news, left the forest, never to return.
At a celebratory party given by Lord Henry at Beaulieu, Colonel Albion gravely, albeit hesitantly, took the proferred hand of his son-in-law Minimus and declared:
‘We’ve won.’
1925
It was Jack’s wife Sally, George Pride’s daughter-in-law, who persuaded the old man to talk. He was still the same spare, upright figure she had always known, but he was eighty-three years old.
‘Once you’ve gone,’ she reminded him, ‘who’s going to remember all this?’ Sally’s family came from Minstead. She had trained as a nurse, and was a great one for writing things down. So in the spring of 1925, George Pride sat in the wooden chair he loved in his little cottage at Oakley and talked for an hour or two, until he got tired, each afternoon.
Sally had been quite surprised, once he had started, how soon she had filled the notebooks she had bought. Indeed, she had already used up two before, at the start of the fifth afternoon, he reached the point that really interested her.
‘Your Jack was the last of our children born,’ he began. ‘I think we knew he would be.
‘That was the summer of 1880. And three days later,’ he smiled, ‘I was summoned to Lyndhurst.
‘The Queen’s House, next to the Verderers’ Court, is quite an impressive sort of building, so you can imagine I was a bit nervous the few times I ever went in there, and this was the first time I’d had occasion to meet the new Deputy Surveyor that took over after Cumberbatch. But say what you like about him, Mr Lascelles was a gentleman. A tall, sporting sort of man, very polite. He looked at me, as if he was measuring me, and then he said:
‘“I’ve heard all about you, Pride. Both the good and the bad.” He smiled when he said that. “My predecessor dismissed you. How would you like your job back?”
‘As you can imagine, I was nearly bowled over. But I thought I’d better be careful, so I said: “May I give you my answer on Monday, Sir?” It was a Friday that day. And he said: “Yes, you may.” So off I went.
‘The first thing I did was go to Albion Park to see the Colonel. After all, he was employing me then and he’d done everything for me. He was also one of the verderers on the new Verderers’ Court. And I told him: “Mr Lascelles just offered me my old job back with the Office of Woods.”
‘“Did he?” said the Colonel. “You come back here on Sunday evening and we’ll see about that.”
‘That was when he offered me the job as Agister.
‘The Agister’s job was much the same then as now. You’re in charge of all the stock in your part of the Forest. It’s a riding job, chiefly, checking the cattle and ponies. Sometimes you help collect the marking fees and licences. The pay was better than the other job: sixty pounds a year. You had to find your own cottage. “But I’ll help you buy one,” the Colonel said.
‘Above all though, it meant a choice. I could work for the verderers or the Office of Woods. Those were