And now, if the reader does not mind the swamps—and if he really wishes to know the Forest, and to see its best scenes, it is useless to mind them—let him make his way across to Mark Ash, the finest beechwood in the Forest, which even on a summer’s day is dark at noon. Thence the wood-cutter’s track will take him by Barrow’s Moor and Knyghtwood, where grows the well-known oak. Here a different scene opens out with broad spaces of heath and fern, where the gladiolus shows its red blossoms among the green leaves of the brake; whilst on the hill, distinguished by its poplars, stands Rhinefield, with its nursery, and, below, the two woods of Birchen Hat, where the common buzzard yearly breeds. Keeping along the main road, which is just before us, nearly as far as the New Forest Gate, we will turn in at Liney Hill Wood, going through the woods of Brinken, and the Queen’s Mead, and the Queen’s Bower, following the course of the stream. Very beautiful is this walk, with its paths which stray down to the water’s edge, where the cattle come to drink; the stream pausing round some oak roots, which pleach the banks, lingering in the darkness of the shade, and at last going away with reluctance. Few things, of their sort, can equal these lowland Forest streams, the water tinged with the iron of the district, flashing into amber in the sunlight, and deepening into rich browns in the shade, making the pebbles hazel as it ripples over them. All the way along grow oaks and beeches, each guarded with its green fence of kneeholm, and furred with moss, which the setting sun paints with bands of light. And so, in turn, passing Burley and Rhinefield Fords, and Cammel Green, and the Buckpen, where the deer used to be fed in winter, the path suddenly comes out by a lonely grass-field, known as the Queen’s Mead, and immediately after enters the Queen’s Bower Wood. At the farther end, a bridge crosses the brook by the side of one of the many Boldrefords in the Forest; and in the distance, across Black Knoll, shine the white houses of Brockenhurst. [Illustration: View in the Queen’s Bower Wood.] CHAPTER VIII. THE CENTRAL PART—LYNDHURST. [Illustration: The Great Huntley Woods.] As we leave Brockenhurst we find ourselves more and more in the Forest. The road to Lyndhurst is one long avenue of trees—beeches with their smooth trunks, oaks growing in groups, with here and there long lawns stretching far away into distant woods. Most beautiful is this road in the spring. Stand on the top of Clay Hill, about the beginning or end of May, and you shall see wood after wood, masses of colour, the birches hung with the softest green, and the oak boughs breaking into amber and olive, made doubly bright by the dark gloom of firs, the blackthorn giving place to the sweeter may, and the marigold on the stream to the brighter lily.