146 



THE HAZEL. 



which the people used to pick up at the bottom 

 of the tower, its situation not admitting of their 

 being gathered either from the bottom or from 

 the top. On one occasion two boys, brothers, 

 determined, at all hazards, to get at the nuts; they 

 accordingly mounted to the top of the tower, one 

 of them held the other by the feet over the battle- 

 ments, and the latter gathered them, though it 

 can scarcely be said at his ease. If both these 

 stories are correct, Phillips himself must have 

 been the venturesome youth, and perhaps was 

 ashamed, when he had grown older and wiser, to 

 mention that he had ventured his neck for so mean 

 a booty as a handful of nuts. 



Nuts were, in ancient times, in great demand 

 on Allhallow Eve, Oct. 31st, which, from that 

 circumstance, was sometimes called Nut-crack 

 Night." A nut was chosen to bear the name of 

 each unmarried person in the company, and placed 

 close to the fire until it ignited ; and it was pre- 

 tended that the way in which it burned prognos- 

 ticated certain events in the life of the person 

 whose name it bore. Burns says that the same 

 custom was observed in Scotland; and in Ireland, 

 this and other antiquated customs sometimes afford 

 amusement to parties of young people at the pre- 

 sent day. 



The Hazel rarely attains such a size as makes 

 it important in the landscape ; it is nevertheless 

 valuable when fulness of foliage is desired, re- 

 taining its leaves until almost every other tree has 

 been dismantled, and assuming a bright warm 

 yellow before they fall, which gives to autumn a 

 lingering beauty, that it would otherwise want. 

 Even when the leaves have fallen, the tree is not 



