GRANITE AND SORREL 



O near was the sky that the high tops of 

 the forest seemed to support it on their 

 million fingers, to prick the storm-cloud 

 above, burst the great reservoirs and scatter 

 the rain. I passed under ancient timber of the 

 sort that indicates by its relations — tree to tree and 

 mass to mass — Nature's own planting rather than that 

 of man. Indeed, these spacious oaken forests were 

 sown before the Conquest, for here one stands under 

 the fruit of trees that first bourgeoned a thousand 

 years ago. 



I see them — those mediaeval oaks — in my mind's 

 eye, and they are sheltering a mail-clad knight and 

 his heavy steed. Who shall guess what brilliant train 

 followed him ? But hither he came, this Norman from 

 the victorious advent of his master ; for the First 

 William, who knew how to reward his servants, had 

 already wrested good miles of Devon from their 

 Saxon owners, that those who made him Conqueror 

 at Hastings might henceforth share his addition. To 

 Radulphus de la Pomerio, lord of the Norman " Castle 

 of the Orchard," accrued eight-and-fifty Devon lord- 

 ships ; and Beri, "the walled town," he chose as the 



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