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Near the centre of it was a small island, with two old ash-trees, leaning toward each other, their pensive images reflected in the stirless water. The only cheery influence of this scene of antiquity, solitude, and neglect was that the house and landscape were warmed with the ruddy western beams.
He wondered whether he would ever see a tree again, ever smell tree-sap, or hear the wind sounding in the ash-trees like a river and in the firs like a sea. Trees He wondered whether any tree would ever come to life for him again. He looked on at the tree-felling. He saw slaughtered trees, trees that tottered, trees that staggered in each other's branches.
Soon after appeared a park, surrounded by low, crumbling walls, then a group of smoky roofs, and finally, surmounting a massive clump of ash-trees, two round towers with tops shaped like extinguishers. The coachman pointed them out to the young man with the end of his whip. "There is Vivey," said he, "and here is your property, Monsieur de Buxieres."
The young men and maidens, as was their wont, made ready for the May-day games; and Siegfried and his knights were asked to take part in the sport. On the smooth greensward, which they called Nanna's carpet, beneath the shade of ash-trees and elms, he who played Old Winter's part lingered with his few attendants.
He stood above the calm, narrow valley of Vivey; on the right, over the tall ash-trees, peeped the pointed turrets of the chateau; on the left, and a little farther behind, was visible a whitish line, contrasting with the surrounding verdure, the winding path to La Thuiliere, through the meadow-land of Planche-au-Vacher.
It was one of nature's moments of wild colour. The oak-trees above the hedgerows had not lost their leaves, and in the darting, rain-washed light from the setting sun, had a sheen of old gold with heart of ivy-green; the hail-stripped beeches flamed with copper; the russet tufts of the ash-trees glowed.
In a few minutes the pine woods, with its old Lumber Camp and Alan's fearsome cabin, were left behind; and then down along the flats where the big elms were, and the tall ash-trees, and the alders, the flying, panting line sped on in a final dash, for they could smell the river. In a moment more they were at the Deepole. O! that Deepole!
They soon began to hear the barking of the dogs, to which Montagnard and Charbonneau replied with emulative alacrity, and finally, through the mist, they distinguished the group of huntsmen from Auberive. The Belle-Etoile was a circular spot, surrounded by ancient ash-trees, and formed the central point for six diverging alleys which stretched out indefinitely into the forest.
They had now come to a rude altar, constructed on a piece of rock, in front of which was a small space of green turf: the whole spot was closely surrounded by beech and ash-trees; so closely, indeed, that the sun hardly made its way into it, and the rocks around it rising up through the grass afforded ample accommodation for the people.
He was of the stock of bronze, of the men sprung from ash-trees, the last left among the sons of the gods; and the son of Cronos gave him to Europa to be the warder of Crete and to stride round the island thrice a day with his feet of bronze.
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