Over such a relation as this, friend of mine, fraught with contingencies and evils so desperate, let us close the record for awhile.
Old Shute Park! A royally descending gift of demesne,--as such, sacred from the intrusion of despoiling hands, and therefore happily preserved to us undesecrated of Nature's abounding charms and native beauty.
Here we are, seated on one of its pleasant knolls, throned in luxuriant ferns, surrounded by magnificent trees, and a calm, sunny, summer evening. Overhead a congregation of noisy rooks are flapping about, quarrelling with us apparently for thus intruding on the solitude of their domain. Below, across the openings of a densely foliaged avenue, a shadowy train of flying horn and bounding hoof has passed noiseless as an apparition into the adjoining covert, where they presently assemble in timorous conclave, at safer distance, alert and watchful.
"Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown In largess on these old paternal trees, Thou with false hope or fear did'st never tease His heart that hoards thee; nor is childhood flown, From him, whose life no fairer boon hath known Than that which pleased him earliest, still should please: And who hath incomes safe from chance as these, Gone in a moment, yet for life his own?"
Such is the commentary Nature suggests, as we linger on this delightful acclivity. But what to us is the inspiration of the hour, whose minds are now busy in contemplation of the olden doings of her sons?
Look along that glade of venerable oaks, huge, gnarled, and twisted, the duration of whose lives may be reckoned by centuries, yet still hale, vigorous and leaf-arrayed, whose outward and visible aspect during the little cycle of mortal existence that at present looks upon them, has shewn no appreciable change, and will probably with unvarying regularity continue to display their perennial Spring garniture, to many succeeding generations, long after the eyes that now behold them have closed for ever.
Among them yonder is a veteran with a regal appellative--called after him, surnamed of Lackland,--"King John's Oak," with which monarch, tradition delivers it was in existence contemporary. And who is to say the legend is not correct, especially as every lineament of this aged grandee of the forest's appearance, goes to confirm it. Could a tongue be given thee, old tree, what a history mightest thou relate. Then, probably in the vigour of early youth, thou mayest have witnessed the _first_ Bonville, that claimed the ownership of this acclivity, pass cross-bow in hand under thy branches. His influential descendant who lies at rest in the valley of the far distance, and his still more celebrated but unfortunate grandson--both, when in the flesh,--with little doubt thou hast seen. Aye, even the little Lady Cicely--the _last_ hope of their unfortunate race,--may have toddled and prattled beneath thy shade, and afterward escorted by her noble husband, accompanied by his august relative, the moody and astute Henry VII., and followed by her fine family, rested beside or near thee, when that monarch and his host exercised their skill as bowmen in these delightful glades.