220 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



that the wide forests yielded to pasturage for sheep and 

 cattle, and that the dwellings of civilized men uprose where 

 the savage had roamed with his bow and arrow. My 

 branches, gently waving in the wind, awakened in those 

 days no feelings of dread with truant urchins, for all might 

 be truants then, if so it pleased them. But at length a 

 scribe arose, who thus wrote concerning my ductile twigs : 

 "The civill uses whereunto the birch serveth are many, 

 as for the punishment of children both at home and abroad; 

 for it hath an admirable influence upon them, to quiet them 

 when they wax unruly, and, therefore, some call the tree 

 Make-peace." 



Alas ! since then how many looks askance have been 

 turned towards my branches by those who have felt their 

 influence ; the more especially when growing on a village 

 green, or beside one of those small dwellings where sat, in 

 olden times, a matron of no small importance, eyeing her 

 urchin throng and turning round her spinning-wheel. 



