Boy. Amazing! what, have you been here nine hundred

and twenty-five years?

Oak. Indeed I have; England, they tell me.

and I am not the oldest oak in

A traveller came last summer to

look at me, and he was talking about a tree he had seen which was more than a thousand years old.

I am not clear that he knew the exact truth.

However,

Boy. Oh! papa says we all like drawing the long bow; but begin, if you please. Yet stay. Nine hundred years, did you say. Well, Mr. Oak, nobody living can give you the lie.

Oak. I think not, indeed.

Boy. And here. I sit, and a very few years ago there was no such boy; and not many years hence I shall be gone. And you have seen boys like me live and die for nine hundred and twenty-five years. What a very poor little insect you must think me!

Oak. You don't know me yet, or you would not say so. Do you think I am so stupid as not to see how much more there is in the life of a man, than in the life of a tree? Do you think I can have stood here all my days, my old feet growing stiffer and stiffer, and more firmly rooted in the ground every year, and not feel what a number of things you can learn and do, only by moving towards them? In Queen Elizabeth's days, when I was pretty old, there came under my boughs a poet making verses. He looked up at me very gravely, and then he sat down and wrote some verses on his tablets, and afterwards read them aloud. The lines began in this way :—

"It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make men better be,

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall at last, a log, dry, bald, and sear."

And then he went on to say that it is gathering up all the virtue and strength of goodness he can, that makes a man's life worth living for. I felt he was right then, and I feel

it now.

Boy. But don't you do good, Mr. Oak? Don't you gather up sweet dews? and don't you enjoy the sun and moon, and all the beautiful things round you?

Oak. Heartily, my boy. I take what I can get that is, whatever comes to me, and am thankful for all. I give shelter to tired travellers, and am told that I am a beauty, even in my old age; but all England's story, all the changing kings, and all the troubles and joys of the people who have lived these eight centuries, have not been able to move me out of my place. I cannot go abroad. I can learn only just the lessons that come to me here, and I can do only the good that may be done within the space your eye can overlook.

Boy. Well, you're a grand old fellow; pray who was the poet you are talking off?

Oak. I did not know at the time, but I heard afterwards he was called Ben Jonson. A writer of plays and masques, very well known at court.

Boy. What is the first thing you remember of yourself?

Oak. If you ask me that, I must indeed begin; but I believe I must first tell you about this place where you and I are holding speech; and then, next time you come, you shall hear of me and my own story. I, of course, can hardly help knowing this wood, and all belonging to it, thoroughly.

Boy. "This wood?" what do you mean? There is no wood here, there are hardly any trees.

Oak. I forgot. It was what I remembered that I seemed to see. It was all one thick forest as far as your eye can

take in. Here and there, there was a small grassy glade, a beautiful circular space, covered with green turf, where the deer used to come and lie down, and there were woodman's huts scattered about in the forest. There were many kinds of trees-not oaks only, but beeches, and great quantities of holly, which made the whole wood fresh and green in the winter as well as summer; there were green tracks through the forest, wide enough for the clumsy little carts drawn by oxen to go; and there were often sounds of the axe, for the underwood was cut down between times for firing, for the Saxon Thane, or Ceorl, or Abbot, according as the ownership of the land might be. Hereabouts we were all under very good masters. These lands were Abbey lands in Saxon times, and though the Normans afterwards got Abbey and forest and all into their possession, we still belonged to the Church. I tell you this, my boy, at the first, because you will find as I go on that my coming into the world on the Church lands made a great difference in my life, and that I heard and saw much which I should have known nothing about but for the Abbey.

Boy. You mean what they call the Abbey Farm now, where there are some broken walls with ivy growing over them?

Oak. I do. That was a splendid place once. I shall have much to tell you about it. Well, this, at all events, was a fine forest, but it did not all belong to the Abbey, for about half-a-mile further on there was a Saxon gentleman, living in a great rambling house; and toward the north, but some miles away, rose up, years afterwards, a Norman Castle. I heard in the days of my youth, that King Alfred was fond of this forest, that he had a sort of hermitage in the heart of it, and used to come, when he wanted to be quite alone, for purposes of study and meditation. After

Alfred's time a Royal Palace was built about three miles off, which was given to a Norman noble after the conquest; and a great Duke afterwards pulled it down, and built a fine mansion, making a park, and stocking it with deer. This place, too, brought me much company; for several Kings and Queens of England visited the great noble who owned it. As my head was not then above ground, I, of course only tell you this from hearsay, but I believe the fact, and I know also that Edward the Confessor loved the wood very much. He was a great hunter, though people talked about William of Normandy, as if no one had ever been fond of hunting before him. Yet hardly anyone could be more anxious about the deer than King Edward was; only, being a mild man, he would not be nearly so severe in his punishments of those who harmed them, as William and William Rufus were. Sometimes I have overheard conversations between Saxon and Norman people, it might be when I was about eighty years old. They still were extremely jealous of one another, and used to quarrel stoutly about the laws. I remember a Norman knight telling a Saxon to his face, that the Saxons were the greatest thieves on the face of the earth; and when the Saxon asked him why he thought so, the Norman answered, because when William of Normandy came to England, he found so many of the countrymen who had but one hand, and the loss of one hand was the Saxon's punishment for theft. But indeed I thought at the time that there might be a mistake about this matter, for it seems that the Saxons reckoned hardly any crime to be so bad as stealing; and they made it matter of the heaviest punishment, and looked more sharply after thieves than any other people did. Other nations might have quite as bad a habit, but their laws did not single out this one fault for such cruel punishment.

6

Boy. To cut off a hand! what a serious thing! How little a working-man could do with but one hand!

Oak. Still less with but one foot also. Yet at one time the Saxon laws extended so far as this against robbers of all sorts; and what do you think of one of those old laws decreeing that "no one should lose his life for stealing less than twelve pence? Unless, indeed," it added, "he flies, or

defends himself."

Boy. Well, but if stealing was thought so ill of, what did the Saxons do when a man or woman received bodily hurt from another?

Oak. All sorts of things. The loss of an eye or leg was paid for by fifty shillings, a very high fine indeed. The little finger cost eleven shillings, and the middle finger four shillings. If a man cut off another man's beard, he had twenty shillings to pay. Then, it seems, twenty-six shillings went to a pound, and twelve pence to a shilling; but there were some pennies larger than others, and five of these went to a shilling. And just let me tell you, that when the Norman and Saxon were talking together here in this wood, I have heard them say that an old sheep and her lamb could be bought for one shilling in Edward the Confessor's days, so that really you may see that a fifty shilling fine was a great sum; fifty sheep and fifty lambs would cost a great deal now, I believe.

Boy. A great deal. Papa is now going to buy a flock of sheep; he says he expects to have a good many pounds

to pay.

Oak. Well, a shilling then was worth as much as twelve

now.

Boy. You old thing, who would have thought that I should have come into the wood to learn the prices of sheep from you ? But, do you know, I am afraid you are growing