OAK-TREE. 101 



Depending from their boughs, which up and out 

 Fantastically grew, and made a gloom 

 E'en at the cheerful hour of bright noonday. 



This oak was called the Baven's tree, because a pair 

 of ravens had fixed their abode there for many years, 

 dwelling in conscious security on account of the natural 

 bulwark by which all access to their eyrie was prevented. 

 School-boys resorted there from one generation to another ; 

 grandsires told the striplings of the days in which they 

 lived, how their fathers and their fathers' fathers had sought 

 to climb the raven tree, in their boyhood's sports, and how 

 continually they had been foiled ; but such narrations 

 only served to excite the ardour of those to whom tliey 

 were addressed. Many attempts were made in consequence : 

 each was anxious to succeed, and vainly hoped to achieve 

 the enterprise in which his father had been disappointed. 

 But when arrived at the huge excrescence, it jutted out 

 so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads con- 

 fessed the undertaking to be too hazardous. The ravens 



