210 VOICES FEOM THE WOODLANDS. 



them, not as heretofore in wild and desert places, or alone 

 in the far-off wilderness, but in consecrated ground and 

 with religious rites, which bade the mourners not to sorrow 

 as those who have no hope. Yet still that quiet place 

 where the villagers laid their dead to rest, with its green 

 mounds and primitive-looking church, was at best but a 

 sad and solemn spot, even when the cheerful beams of a 

 summer sun shone bright upon it. How lone and awful, 

 when, at the witching hour of deep midnight, the solitary 

 church stood forth in its sepulchral whiteness, and not a 

 sound was heard except the rushing of the stream, the 

 murmur of the wind among the forest trees, or the startling 

 whoop of the solitary owl ! It was a spot reclaimed from 

 the forest ; for excepting the few acres which the Thane de 

 Lacie cleared, eastward and westward, as far as the eye 

 could reach, northward and southward too, extended one 

 vast sweep of woodland, with breaks of lawn and thicket, 

 and occasional spaces of common land which had evidently 

 been denuded, at remote periods, by Saxons, Picts, or 



