Page:Under the greenwood tree (1872 Volume 2).pdf/215

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CHAPTER II.

Under the Greenwood Tree.

The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's premises was closed with an ancient beech-tree, horizontally of enormous extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes of rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from year to year; quaint tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and countless families of moles and earthworms had crept about its roots. Beneath its shade spread a

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