CHURCHYARD YEWS 215 



colouring never seen before, the result of so much wet 

 weather. For this alga, which plays so important a part 

 in nature's softening and beautifying effect on man's 

 work which is mentioned in no book unless it be some 

 purely technical treatise dealing with the lower vege- 

 table forms this alga, despite its aerial habit, is still in 

 essence a water-plant: the sun and dry wind burn its 

 life out and darken it to the colour of ironstone, so that 

 to any one who may notice the dark stain it seems a 

 colour of the stone itself; but when rain falls the colour 

 freshens and brightens as if the old grey stone had 

 miraculously been made to live. 



If never a word has been written about that red 

 colour with which Nature touches the old stones to 

 make them beautiful, a thousand or ten thousand 

 things have been said about the yew, the chief 

 feature and ornament of the village churchyard, and 

 many conjectures have we seen as to the reason 

 of the very ancient custom of planting this tree 

 where the dead are laid. The tree itself gives a 

 better reason than any contained in books. It says 

 something to the soul in man which the talking or 

 chattering yew omitted to tell the modern poet ; but 

 very long ago some one said, in the Death of Fergus, 

 "Patriarch of long-lasting woods is the yew; sacred 

 to forests as is well known." That ancient sacred 

 character, which survived the introduction of Chris- 

 tianity, lives still in every mind that has kept any 



