WHERE THE GREEN LEAVES QUIVER. 201 
but a small remnant of a forest. But hard by, 
the London of our time has grown to colossal 
proportions. Four millions of people, pent up 
within its walls, pine for the cool expanse of the 
woodland, and for the free air of the wood. Times 
have changed. Much of the wood has become 
city; groves of Trees have become stacks of 
chimneys. The city has grown so large, and the 
wood has become so small that the struggle is 
unequal; and had the wood no valiant defenders 
the great mass of bricks and mortar would obli- 
terate the grass, the Trees, and the wild flowers. 
But it is not simply the almost irresistible advance 
of the city which threatens the existence of the 
smiling greenwood. Other agencies—secret, 
occult, determined, remorseless—have been at 
work. There are those, who, if they might, would 
have taken from us this wood, one of the few relics 
of the beautiful woodlands of the past. All honour 
then to its defenders ! 
* * & * * 
This second forest scene, witnessed, gentle 
reader, by the Author of this volume, is here 
described as a reminiscence of one of the nume- 
