up
its hue. His education had been by no means neglected, but it had been
of a strange sort; every thing he had learned was, as it were, for
immediate use, and of a superficial but attractive character. The
advocates of a classical curriculum would have shaken their heads at
what Richard Yorke did know, almost as severely as at his lack of
knowledge. He had read a good deal of all kinds of literature, including
much garbage; he could play a little on the piano, and speak French
with an excellent accent. In a word, he had learned every thing that had
pleased him, as well as a little Latin and some mathematics, which had
not. He knew English history far better than most young Englishmen; but
the sight of tomb or ruin had never made his heart pulse faster with an
evoked idea by a single beat. Historical associations had no charm for
him. This mighty oak, for example, under the shadow of which he now
stands sentry, and which he had transferred so deftly to his portfolio,
has no longer any interest for him. He has "done it," and its use and
pleasure are therefore departed in his eyes. He knows quite well that
though it is called the Squire's, in token, probably, of some wholesale
slaughter of wild-ducks effected by Carew from its convenient cover,
that this tree is hundreds of years old--the oldest in all the chase. He
has read the "Talking Oak," for indeed he can quote Tennyson by the
yard, and in dulcet voice; and it would have been natural enough, one
would think, in such a time and place, that some thoughts of what this
venerable monarch of the forest must have witnessed would perforce come
into his mind. The same moonlight that now shines down between its
knotted naked branches must have doubtless lit on many a pair of lovers,
for it was ever a favorite place for tryst in by-gone years. The young
monk, perhaps, may here (when Crompton was an abbey) have given double
absolution, to himself and to the girl who confessed to him her love.
Roundhead maiden and Cavalier gallant must many a time have forgotten
their political differences beneath this oak, as yet a tree not sacred
to royalty; nay, perhaps even those of. York and Lancaster may here have
been compounded for, in one red rose of a blush. Bluff Harry had haply
hunted beneath its once wide-spreading arms, and certainly the martyr
king had done so, with a score of generations of men of all sorts, dead
and gone, God alone knows whither. Though no more the bugle sounded,