"OPIARV 



THERE are few trees that bear round them more 

 glamour of romance than our English oaks and 

 yews. " The gnarled and writhed thorn " recalls 

 the poets, when in May the white or pink blossom and 

 delicious scent tell that summer, so long awaited, has 

 really come at last. Beautiful as it is, however, there is 

 not about it the feeling of invulnerable strength that the 

 oak or yew inspires as we look up into the depths of 

 green leaf that the great overarching limbs cast round. 



Like Chaucer's pilgrims, who rode up Chantry fir- 

 woods to pray at little St. Martha's, and then sped on 

 towards Canterbury along the Merrow Downs, we 

 wonder as we go if Druids truly worshipped these same 

 big yews we see. Are they the actual ones which they 

 venerated, or only successors to that greatness ? What- 

 ever age they may have reached, the past lives in them 

 again for us. 



Then, in those enchanted woods of the Weald, still 

 designated " The Forest " and peopled with real fairies, 

 what stories the trees can tell ! We wend our way by 

 rough paths across commons that are a golden glory of 

 gorse, to be followed after by purple heather ; and, as 

 the light-foliaged, graceful birches become less scattered, 



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