Woods, natural woods, are most beautiful. To wander all day long amongst bushes, hazels, oaks, thorns, of every hue and fruit--the haw, crab, and sloe--is most delightful. To lose one's-self, as it were, at every turn, and to be arrested by some new feature, ever and anon, as you thread your mazy course through the pathless wood, is a pleasure, the recollection of which still haunts and sweetens my dreams of early being--
"In life's morning march, When my bosom was young."
I don't like forests--they are too stiff and stately--they are like a tea-and-turn-out party--sombre, silent, and affected. They have not the easy negligence, the elegant simplicity, the "_simplex munditiis_," of woods. They are always on their high horses, and darken whilst they look down upon and despise the underwood. I had as rather associate with a conclave of high churchmen or consulting doctors, as with a regular, well-planted, and well-fenced plantation. Here man has played the tailor with nature; and, in cutting down her skirts, has deprived her of all that is graceful in drapery and folding. He has made a Bond Street exquisite of the subject. But, far and beyond all other inanimate objects, I have always been in love with single, individual, separate trees. You cannot be truly--as the song has it--in love with many _fair dames_ at one and the same time; I can never, on that account, bear to hear the song sung, which begins thus--
"I'm in love with twenty, I'm in love with twenty, And I adore as many more-- There's nothing like a plenty."
I absolutely quarrelled with an old friend for his frequent singing of this abominable and heretical song, and am scarcely reconciled to him to this hour, though he has long ago limited his love to one object--he has been married these thirty years. In the same spirit, and on the same principle, I affirm, that no child, boy, girl, man, or woman, can be truly in love with _two trees_ at one and the same time. Oh! I remember well the old ash-tree that occupied the corner of our kail-yard. There the same pyet built yearly her nest, and brought _out_ and _up_ her young. To be sure I _tithed_ them occasionally, and taught her offspring to imitate speaking most abominably; but still the old lady and gentleman returned to their tree and their branch, and even to the same cleft of the branch, annually; and my spirit rejoiced within me, as I lifted up mine eyes and beheld the black-and-white tail of the dam, as she sat, from morn to night, upon her beautifully-spotted, black-and-white eggs. There, underneath that very tree, I did sit and construct my first paper kite; there did I play from morn to night with the cat and her kitten; there did I shelter myself from the shower, and from the meridian heat; there did I repeat my morning and evening prayer (short, it is true, but pithy--it was the Lord's Prayer, with an additional petition in behalf of my only surviving parent, my mother); there did I count my slain on returning from fishing expeditions; and there, my dear departed friend and cousin, did you and I associate, eve after eve, in true and holy affection. Alas! the cold earth has closed over one of the kindest hearts and clearest heads I ever had occasion to know anything about; but God's will be done. We all hasten to the same place, however different our courses. Peace, my dear companion, to thy manes! We shall meet, I hope, anon. In the meantime, I was speaking of the old ash-tree at Auldwa's, which I have taken the liberty to transplant to Dunsyett. But our common friend, and the friend of many past generations, is now laid prostrate (as I am informed) with the earth. How is the mighty fallen, and the lofty laid low, and the strong one broken and smashed in his strength! The storm, the dreadful, unexampled storm, which lately swept over our island with a whirlwind's impetuosity and a hurricane's strength, has bent the gallant mast, and sunk the noble ship, and buried its thousands and thousands of fathers, and brothers, and husbands, and wives, and daughters in the deep sea. It has uptorn forests, scattered woods to the heavens, and (_inter alia_) has stooped from its altitude to lay my old and dear companion prostrate. How many tempests, my poor uprooted friend, hast thou not braved!--nay, when the fire of heaven split and splintered the adjoining oak and ash, thou didst escape unhurt. The awful tempest of winter 1794-5, deprived thee, indeed, of a branch or two; but thou wert still in the manhood of thy being, when the west wind blew as "'twad blaw its last"--and M'Diarmid's newspaper is enriched with thy remains.