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In the Early English time the north aisle was rebuilt or added, perhaps, for the first time, and the chancel rebuilt. Later the church was lengthened westward, and the tower built at the eastern end of the Norman aisle. In that aisle there is a tablet to William Gilpin, the author of "Forest Scenery," who was vicar of Boldre for a generation, dying in 1804 aged eighty years.

Then he watched all the company sit or lie down on the shady side of the hedge, under the pollard-willows, and Tom Boldre the shuffler and one or two more go into the farm-house, and come out with great yellow-ware with pies in them, and the little sturdy-looking kegs of beer, and two mugs to go round among them all.

Therefore I went down through the oak woods, over Boldre Bridge, to find the high road, which presently brought me past St Austin's once belonging to the Priory of Christchurch, under Buckland Rings to the very ancient borough of Lymington, with its charming old ivy-clad church tower at the end of the High Street.

So in silence they walked under the spread of the branches on the grass-grown path from Boldre. "By St. Paul!" quoth the knight, "but this is a passing strange sight, and perchance some very perilous and honorable venture may arise from it. I pray you, Edricson, to ride up to them and to ask them the cause of it."

About six miles off, the artist Gilpin had the living of Boldre, and here he often came to sketch views of woodland and river scenery. We landed near the bridge, and walked on to see Beaulieu Abbey. Passing through a gateway we observed the massive walls, which exist here and there almost entire, in some places mantled with ivy, and at one time enclosing an area of sixteen acres or more.

Cope told her who he was; so Miss Jane came and asked me all about him, and I told her what a fine scholar he is, and how shamefully the farmer and Boldre treat him, and how good he was to Alfred about the ointment, and how steady he is. And I told her about the boys dressing him up yesterday, and how he wouldn't take a gift.

From Brockenhurst, on the following morning, I set out again over the open heath for Boldre southward. Many a fine view over the woods I had, and once, as I came down Sandy Down, I caught sight of the Isle of Wight. Then the scene changed, and I came through meadows, and past coppices into Boldre.

'But if I thought I could be good and go on well, I would not mind so much. I say, Alfred, when people round go on being like Tom Boldre, you know do you think one can always feel that about God being one's Father, and church home, and all the rest? 'I can't say I never tried, said Alfred. 'But you know you can always go to church and then the Psalms and Lessons tell you those things.

With such grown men as he had, he was obliged to keep himself under some restraint, but this only incited him to make up for it towards the poor friendless boy. It was really nearly eight o'clock, and Paul's work had been neglected, which was enough to cause displeasure; and besides, Boldre had heard Paul coming home past eleven, and the farmer insisted on knowing what he had been doing.

The forest almost blends with the village-green, and on a low artificial mound stands its church, with traces of almost every style of architecture since the Conquest, and guarded by a famous yew and oak. At Boldre, near Brockenhurst, lived Rev. W. Gilpin, the vicar of the parish, the author of several works on sylvan scenery, and reputed to be the original of the noted Dr.