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A mossy rise under a beech-tree offered itself to Anne as a suitable throne for the regal woman that she was. He spread out her coat, and she made room for him beside her. He sat for a long time without speaking. The powers which were working that day for Majendie gave to him that subtle silence. He had, at most times, an inexhaustible capacity for keeping still.
Mavick and Philip, who sat together, kept up a lively chatter, lively because Philip was elated with the event of the day, and because the nap under the beech-tree in the open air had brightened the wits of one of the cleverest women Philip had ever met.
As it was dark, the sky being overcast, the woodcutters wanted to stop their work, putting off till next day the fall of an enormous beech-tree, but the master objected to this, and insisted that even at this hour they should lop and cut down this giant, which had overshadowed the crime.
On an evening soon after the thunderstorm, in a late twilight, with a half-moon high in the heavens, I came upon Diamond in the act of climbing by his little ladder into the beech-tree. "What are you always going up there for, Diamond?" I heard Nanny ask, rather rudely, I thought. "Sometimes for one thing, sometimes for another, Nanny," answered Diamond, looking skywards as he climbed.
These last words were spoken under the sheltering branches of a broad beech-tree which arched the entrance to the glen. It was now quite dark and the new, moon shone in the sky, but its weak rays served only to lend a strange appearance to the objects they occasionally touched through an aperture between the branches.
The little lady sat eating her toast, but losing no word that was said. She knew from his voice the young man was the same to whom she had called out of the beech-tree; but now she seemed to recognize him as the blacksmith whose hand she had bound up: what could a blacksmith do in a library? She was puzzled.
De Catinat laughed at the gloomy face of the American. "You shall not sleep there if you do not wish," said he. The other brightened at once and stepped across to the further window, which looked down upon the court-yard. "Ah," he cried. "There is a beech-tree there, mademoiselle, and if I might take my blanket out yonder, I should like it better than any room.
"'One evening, my own Thora, relieved from daily toil, I was sitting, as now, under that beech-tree, enjoying the cool evening air, heeding and listening to the sweet sights and sounds of life, and musing with softened spirit on all that had occurred to me since my dear parents' deaths, when I heard the gentle footstep of some one behind me.
He could recall without difficulty, and also without emotion now, a scene on this upper veranda and a moonlight night long ago, and he had no doubt he could find her name carved on a beech-tree in the wood near by; but it was useless to look for it, for her name had been changed.
And, as he leaned there, two Uhlans, mounted, lances advanced, came picking their way among the trees, turning their heads cautiously from side to side. Behind these two rode six others, apparently unarmed, two abreast. He saw at once that nothing could save him, for they were making straight for his beech-tree.
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