Arrival Of The New Owner I found two keepers doing their rounds, Leading the pheasants from wood to hill, Their stares as flint as their lurcher hounds: 'And whom be you?' 'I'm walking the bounds Of my land,' I said. And stood stock-still. The elder veteran belched and sighed, Snapping commands to his front and back; With rumbling throats the dogs complied And slumped to the side of the grassy ride As game-birds fluttered across the track. Then each side spoke -- politely enough -- As I folded my map, shook hands and left; The skin of their hands was poacher rough, While the lurchers watched in a wary huff And growled to each other of thieves and theft. And as to that, well, the dogs had cause, For though it was true the land was mine, Paid for, haggled for, clause by clause, Due stamped and deeded by ancient laws -- Yet each of us knew, though we gave no sign, That the land was theirs. And theirs alone. That they owned each hanger and stream and hill, Each wood, each hedge, each meadow and stone -- That I understood what they'd always known: The land was theirs. And remained theirs, still. The meeting is imaginary, but the land is not; nor the truth of what I am trying to say. For six hundred years, the Spernal and Coughton estate was owned by the Throckmorton family of 'Gunpowder Plot' fame. Now a large chunk of those 3,500 acres is