While at Newstead Abbey I took great delight in riding and rambling
about the neighborhood, studying out the traces of merry Sherwood
Forest, and visiting the haunts of Robin Hood. The relics of the old
forest are few and scattered, but as to the bold outlaw who once held a
kind of freebooting sway over it, there is scarce a hill or dale, a
cliff or cavern, a well or fountain, in this part of the country, that
is not connected with his memory. The very names of some of the tenants
on the Newstead estate, such as Beardall and Hardstaff, sound as if
they may have been borne in old times by some of the stalwart fellows
of the outlaw gang. One of the earliest books that captivated my fancy
when a child, was a collection of Robin Hood ballads, "adorned with
cuts," which I bought of an old Scotch pedler, at the cost of all my
holiday money. How I devoured its pages, and gazed upon its uncouth
woodcuts! For a time my mind was filled with picturings of "merry
Sherwood," and the exploits and revelling of the hold foresters; and
Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, and their doughty compeers, were
my heroes of romance.
These early feelings were in some degree revived when I found myself in
the very heart of the far-famed forest, and, as I said before, I took a
kind of schoolboy delight in hunting up all traces of old Sherwood and
its sylvan chivalry. One of the first of my antiquarian rambles was on
horseback, in company with Colonel Wildman and his lady, who undertook
to guide me to Borne of the moldering monuments of the forest. One of
these stands in front of the very gate of Newstead Park, and is known
throughout the country by the name of "The Pilgrim Oak." It is a
venerable tree, of great size, overshadowing a wide arena of the road.
Under its shade the rustics of the neighborhood have been accustomed to
assemble on certain holidays, and celebrate their rural festivals. This
custom had been handed down from father to son for several generations,
until the oak had acquired a kind of sacred character.
The "old Lord Byron," however, in whose eyes nothing was sacred, when
he laid his desolating hand on the groves and forests of Newstead,
doomed likewise this traditional tree to the axe. Fortunately the good
people of Nottingham heard of the danger of their favorite oak, and
hastened to ransom it from destruction. They afterward made a present
of it to the poet, when he came to the estate, and the Pilgrim Oak is
likely to continue a rural gathering place for many coming generations.
From this magnificent and time-honored tree we continued on our sylvan
research, in quest of another oak, of more ancient date and less
flourishing condition. A ride of two or three miles, the latter part
across open wastes, once clothed with forest, now bare and cheerless,
brought us to the tree in question. It was the Oak of Ravenshead, one
of the last survivors of old Sherwood, and which had evidently once
held a high head in the forest; it was now a mere wreck, crazed by
time, and blasted by lightning, and standing alone on a naked waste,
like a ruined column in a desert.
"The scenes are desert now, and bare,
Where flourished once a forest fair,
When these waste glens with copse were lined,
And peopled with the hart and hind.
Yon lonely oak, would he could tell
The changes of his parent dell,
Since he, so gray and stubborn now,
Waved in each breeze a sapling bough.
Would he could tell how deep the shade
A thousand mingled branches made.
Here in my shade, methinks he'd say,
The mighty stag at noontide lay,
While doe, and roe, and red-deer good,
Hare bounded by through gay green-wood."
At no great distance from Ravenshead Oak is a small cave which goes by
the name of Robin Hood's stable. It is in the breast of a hill, scooped
out of brown freestone, with rude attempt at columns and arches. Within
are two niches, which served, it is said, as stalls for the bold
outlaw's horses. To this retreat he retired when hotly pursued by the
law, for the place was a secret even from his band. The cave is
overshadowed by an oak and alder, and is hardly discoverable even at
the present day; but when the country was overrun with forest it must
have been completely concealed.
There was an agreeable wildness and loneliness in a great part of our
ride. Our devious road wound down, at one time among rocky dells, by
wandering streams, and lonely pools, haunted by shy water-fowl. We
passed through a skirt of woodland, of more modern planting, but
considered a legitimate offspring of the ancient forest, and commonly
called Jock of Sherwood. In riding through these quiet, solitary
scenes, the partridge and pheasant would now and then burst upon the
wing, and the hare scud away before us.
Another of these rambling rides in quest of popular antiquities, was to
a chain of rocky cliffs, called the Kirkby Crags, which skirt the Robin
Hood hills. Here, leaving my horse at the foot of the crags, I scaled
their rugged sides, and seated myself in a niche of the rocks, called
Robin Hood's chair. It commands a wide prospect over the valley of
Newstead, and here the bold outlaw is said to have taken his seat, and
kept a look-out upon the roads below, watching for merchants, and
bishops, and other wealthy travellers, upon whom to pounce down, like
an eagle from his eyrie.
Descending from the cliffs and remounting my horse, a ride of a mile or
two further along a narrow "robber path," as it was called, which wound
up into the hills between perpendicular rocks, led to an artificial
cavern cut in the face of a cliff, with a door and window wrought
through the living stone. This bears the name of Friar Tuck's cell, or
hermitage, where, according to tradition, that jovial anchorite used to
make good cheer and boisterous revel with his freebooting comrades.
Such were some of the vestiges of old Sherwood and its renowned
"yeomandrie," which I visited in the neighborhood of Newstead. The
worthy clergyman who officiated as chaplain at the Abbey, seeing my
zeal in the cause, informed me of a considerable tract of the ancient
forest, still in existence about ten miles distant. There were many
fine old oaks in it, he said, that had stood for centuries, but were
now shattered and "stag-headed," that is to say, their upper branches
were bare, and blasted, and straggling out like the antlers of, a deer.
Their trunks, too, were hollow, and full of crows and jackdaws, who
made them their nestling places. He occasionally rode over to the
forest in the long summer evenings, and pleased himself with loitering
in the twilight about the green alleys and under the venerable trees.
The description given by the chaplain made me anxious to visit this
remnant of old Sherwood, and he kindly offered to be my guide and
companion. We accordingly sallied forth one morning on horseback on
this sylvan expedition. Our ride took us through a part of the country
where King John had once held a hunting seat; the ruins of which are
still to be seen. At that time the whole neighbor hood was an open
royal forest, or Frank chase, as it was termed; for King John was an
enemy to parks and warrens, and other inclosures, by which game was
fenced in for the private benefit and recreation of the nobles and the
clergy.
Here, on the brow of a gentle hill, commanding an extensive prospect of
what had once been forest, stood another of those monumental trees,
which, to my mind, gave a peculiar interest to this neighborhood. It
was the Parliament Oak, so called in memory of an assemblage of the
kind held by King John beneath its shade. The lapse of upward of six
centuries had reduced this once mighty tree to a mere crumbling
fragment, yet, like a gigantic torso in ancient statuary, the grandeur
of the mutilated trunk gave evidence of what it had been in the days of
its glory. In contemplating its mouldering remains, the fancy busied
itself in calling up the scene that must have been presented beneath
its shade, when this sunny hill swarmed with the pageantry of a warlike
and hunting court. When silken pavilions and warrior-tents decked its
crest, and royal standards, and baronial banners, and knightly pennons
rolled out to the breeze. When prelates and courtiers, and steel-clad
chivalry thronged round the person of the monarch, while at a distance
loitered the foresters in green, and all the rural and hunting train
that waited upon his sylvan sports.
'A thousand vassals mustered round
With horse, and hawk, and horn, and hound;
And through the brake the rangers stalk,
And falc'ners hold the ready hawk;
And foresters in green-wood trim
Lead in the leash the greyhound grim."
Such was the phantasmagoria that presented itself for a moment to my
imagination, peopling the silent place before me with empty shadows of
the past. The reverie however was transient; king, courtier, and
steel-clad warrior, and forester in green, with horn, and hawk, and hound,
all faded again into oblivion, and I awoke to all that remained of this
once stirring scene of human pomp and power--a mouldering oak, and a
tradition.
"We are such stuff as dreams are made of!"
A ride of a few miles farther brought us at length among the venerable
and classic shades of Sherwood, Here I was delighted to find myself in
a genuine wild wood, of primitive and natural growth, so rarely to be
met with in this thickly peopled and highly cultivated country. It
reminded me of the aboriginal forests of my native land. I rode through
natural alleys and green-wood groves, carpeted with grass and shaded by
lofty and beautiful birches. What most interested me, however, was to
behold around me the mighty trunks of veteran oaks, old monumental
trees, the patriarchs of Sherwood Forest. They were shattered, hollow,
and moss-grown, it is true, and their "leafy honors" were nearly
departed; but like mouldering towers they were noble and picturesque in
their decay, and gave evidence, even in their ruins, of their ancient
grandeur.
As I gazed about me upon these vestiges of once "Merrie Sherwood," the
picturings of my boyish fancy began to rise in my mind, and Robin Hood
and his men to stand before me.
"He clothed himself in scarlet then,
His men were all in green;
A finer show throughout the world
In no place could be seen.
"Good lord! it was a gallant sight
To see them all In a row;
With every man a good broad-sword
And eke a good yew bow."
The horn of Robin Hood again seemed to resound through the forest. I
saw this sylvan chivalry, half huntsmen, half freebooters, trooping
across the distant glades, or feasting and revelling beneath the trees;
I was going on to embody in this way all the ballad scenes that had
delighted me when a boy, when the distant sound of a wood-cutter's axe
roused me from my day-dream.
The boding apprehensions which it awakened were too soon verified. I
had not ridden much farther, when I came to an open space where the
work of destruction was going on. Around me lay the prostrate trunks of
venerable oaks, once the towering and magnificent lords of the forest,
and a number of wood-cutters were hacking and hewing at another
gigantic tree, just tottering to its fall.
Alas! for old Sherwood Forest: it had fallen into the possession of a
noble agriculturist; a modern utilitarian, who had no feeling for
poetry or forest scenery. In a little while and this glorious woodland
will be laid low; its green glades be turned into sheep-walks; its
legendary bowers supplanted by turnip-fields; and "Merrie Sherwood"
will exist but in ballad and tradition.
"O for the poetical superstitions," thought I, "of the olden time! that
shed a sanctity over every grove; that gave to each tree its tutelar
genius or nymph, and threatened disaster to all who should molest the
hamadryads in their leafy abodes. Alas! for the sordid propensities of
modern days, when everything is coined into gold, and this once holiday
planet of ours is turned into a mere 'working-day world.'"
My cobweb fancies put to flight, and my feelings out of tune, I left
the forest in a far different mood from that in which I had entered it,
and rode silently along until, on reaching the summit of a gentle
eminence, the chime of evening bells came on the breeze across the
heath from a distant village.