be lost easily. He had heard who the youth was, from hearing of
the search that was made after him; but, it died away, and the
youth was forgotten.

'The annual round of changes in the tree had been repeated ten
times since the night of the burial at its foot, when there was a
great thunder-storm over this place. It broke at midnight, and
roared until morning. The first intelligence he heard from his old
serving-man that morning, was, that the tree had been struck by
Lightning.

'It had been riven down the stem, in a very surprising manner, and
the stem lay in two blighted shafts: one resting against the
house, and one against a portion of the old red garden-wall in
which its fall had made a gap. The fissure went down the tree to a
little above the earth, and there stopped. There was great
curiosity to see the tree, and, with most of his former fears
revived, he sat in his arbour--grown quite an old man--watching the
people who came to see it.

'They quickly began to come, in such dangerous numbers, that he
closed his garden-gate and refused to admit any more. But, there
were certain men of science who travelled from a distance to
examine the tree, and, in an evil hour, he let them in!--Blight and
Murrain on them, let them in!

'They wanted to dig up the ruin by the roots, and closely examine
it, and the earth about it. Never, while he lived! They offered
money for it. They! Men of science, whom he could have bought by
the gross, with a scratch of his pen! He showed them the garden-