this I found enchanting,
and more especially because the nave and chancel seemed to me to be
originally of the thirteenth century, and certainly the font is Norman.
But the church with its eighteenth-century tower is perhaps the most
amazing conglomeration of the work of all periods since the twelfth
century to be found in southern England.

From Minstead I went on up the Bartley water to Stone Cross, nearly
four hundred feet over the Forest, from which by good fortune I saw the
mighty Abbey of Romsey in the valley of the Test, where I intended to
sleep. Then I went down past Castle Malwood to where stands Rufus'
Stone. There I read:

"Here stood the oak-tree on which an arrow shot by Sir
Walter Tyrrell at a stag glanced and struck King William II.,
surnamed Rufus, on the breast, of which stroke he instantly
died on the 2nd August 1100.

"King William II., surnamed Rufus, being slain as before related,
was laid in a cart belonging to one Purkess and drawn
from hence to Winchester and buried in the cathedral church
of that city.

"That where an event so memorable had happened might
not hereafter be unknown this stone was set up by John Lord
Delaware who had seen the tree growing in this place anno
1745.

"This stone having been much mutilated and the inscriptions
on the three sides defaced, this more durable memorial
with the original inscription was erected in the year 1841 by
him. Sturges Bourne, warden."

The memorial and inscription are of iron.

The most famous thing that ever befell in the New Forest was this
strange murder or misfortune which cost the Red King his life. It
haunts the whole forest, and rightly understood fills it with meaning
and can never have been or be far from the thoughts of anyone who
wanders there, even as I have done in the excellent days of Spring.

[Illustration: IN THE NEW FOREST]

No less than three members of the Conqueror's family were killed in the
New Forest; first Richard, one of his sons, then another Richard,
bastard son of Duke Robert of Normandy, this in May 1100; and in August
of the same year, his son and successor William, surnamed Rufus. All
these deaths are said to have been caused by accidents, all were caused
by arrows; it is a strange thing.

All we really know about the death of William Rufus may be found in the
English "Chronicle." "On the morrow was the King William shot off with
an arrow from his ow