Ash and Elm. 205 



and a slight movement of the grass : it is a snake 

 gliding away to its hole, with yellow-marked head 

 lifted above the gronnd over which his dull green 

 length is trailing. Stepping well over the moist 

 earth, and reaching the firmer ground, there the this- 

 tles grow great and tall, many up to the shoulder ; 

 it is a little more open here, the stoles having been 

 cut only two years ago, and they draw the this- 

 tles up. 



Sometimes the .young ash, shooting up after being 

 cut, takes fantastic shapes instead of rising straight. 

 The branch loses its roundness and flattens out to a 

 width of three or four inches, curling round at the top 

 like the conventional scroll ornament. These natural 

 scrolls are occasionally- himg up in farmhouses as cu- 

 riosities. The woodmen jocularly say that the branch 

 grew in the night, and so could not see its way. In 

 some places (where the poles are full-grown) the 

 upper branches rub against each other, causing a 

 ■weird creaking in a gale. The trees as the wind 

 rises find their voices, and the wood is full of strange 

 tongues. From each green thing touched by its fin- 

 gers the breeze draws a ditferent note : the bennets 

 on the hillside go ' sish, sish ; ' the oak in the copse 

 roars and groans ; in the firs there is a deep sighing ; 

 the aspen rustles. In winter the bare branches sing 

 a shrill ' sir-r-r.' 



The elm, with its rough leaf, does not grow in the 

 copse : it is a tree that prefers to stand clear on two 

 sides at least. Oak and beech are here ; on their 

 lower branches a few brown leaves will' linger all 

 through the Avinter. Where a huge bough has been 

 sawn from a crooked ill-grown oak a yellow bloated 



