An experience of this sort actually befell a friend of mine, who himself narrated it in print. A devoted botanist and nature-lover, he was twice in the same day found trespassing by a gigantic gamekeeper, who, on the second occasion, ended all parley in the manner described in the following "Mystical Ballad," wherein the writer has ventured somewhat to idealize the circumstances, though the story is based on the facts.
A Poet through a haunted wood Roamed fearless and serene, Nor flinched when on his path there stood A Form in Velveteen.
"Gaunt Shape, come you alive or dead, My footsteps shall not swerve." "You're trespassing," the Vision said: "This place is a preserve."
"How so? Is some dark secret here Preserved? some tale of shame?" The Spectre scowled, but answered clear: "What we preserve is Game."
Yet still the Poet's heart was nerved With Phantoms to dispute: "Then tell me, why is Game preserved?" The Goblin yelled: "To shoot."
"But Game that's shot is Game destroyed, Not Game preserved, I ween." It seemed such argument annoyed That Form in Velveteen;
For swift It gripped him, as he spake, And, making light the load, Upheaved, and flung him from the brake Into the King's high-road.
And as that Bard, still arguing hard, High o'er the palings flew, He vows he heard this ghostly word: "We're not preserving _you_."
Long time he lay on that highway, Dazed by so weird a fall; Then rose and cried, as home he hied: "The Lord preserve us all!"
I have often thought it was an error on the part of the trespassing poet not to explain to his assailant that he was a botanist; for "botanist," as I can testify, is a blessed word which has a soothing effect upon many of the most irascible landowners or their satellites. Personally I never presume to call myself botanist, except when I am found trespassing, on which occasions I have rarely known it to fail. I recall a Saturday afternoon when, as I was rambling in a Derbyshire dale with Bertram Lloyd, and admiring the flowers, we were accosted by the owner in person, who inquired with a sort of suppressed fury whether we knew that we were on his estate. We said we were botanists, and the effect was magical; in less than a minute we were courteously permitted to go where we would and stay as long as we liked.