ourt. 15 



have settled again on the domestic incidents of the 

 family whether his lady was deceased, or whether he 

 had sent her with their young son and four daughters to 

 a place of greater security, cannot be ascertained. 

 Certain it is, that seeing a band of armed men ad- 

 vancing to the house, he fled for shelter into the forest 

 which skirted his domain. The forest could afford but 

 little aid in his distress. It was otherwise when its 

 crowding trees extended further than the eye could 

 reach, now sinking into the deep, deep glens, whose 

 circling banks, if such they might be termed, rose far 

 above its topmost boughs; now ascending those high 

 banks, and spreading over the vale country, sinking and 

 rising with the undulations of hill and dale, and, when 

 the wind howled among the branches, appearing like the 

 tossing waves of a restless sea. This had been; but 

 cultivation trenched upon the good green wood ; spaces 

 were even cleared, and its tall trees, for all the under- 

 wood was gone, afforded a ready access to whoever liked 

 to invade its beautiful recesses. One hope for safety 

 remained to the fugitive, and one only. The yew-tree 

 stood in all its beauty and luxuriance, near to the 

 summit of Stinchcombe wood, for such the old forest was 

 now called, and thither he fled for shelter. He was 

 seen to leave the house by a band of soldiers, and they 

 hastened in pursuit of him. They thought that he 

 would make for the nearest glen, or else that he would 

 seek to hide himself in some sheltered nook among the 



