BIRCH. 207 



Britain ; but the beech grew there profusely, no other kind 

 of timber-tree was seen, except by chance, when, in a sunny 

 glade, amid the surrounding forest, an oak, or ash, or elm 

 sprang up from some acorn or mast which the wind had 

 planted. As the hills and vales were then, so are they now, 

 wild, solitary, and yet cheerful, with here and there a 

 cottage in the depth of a lone glen, for men began to fix 

 their habitations where heretofore there were no traces of 

 industry, and green meadows and fields of corn occasionally 

 met the eye. 



A church was built about the same time near the settle- 

 ment at Wicke, for the people to assemble in, or rather a 

 stone building of the simplest construction. It stood on 

 the only level portion of the clearing, and commanded an 

 extensive view of the wild and wooded district in the centre 

 of which the town was built. A piece of ground was also 

 appropriated for a burying-place, and when death had 

 entered the settlement, the dead were laid there. Their 

 friends liked to inter them on the south side of the sacred 



