To Rookwood’s head an omen dread of fast-approaching death.
Some think that tree instinct must be with preternatural power,
Like ‘larum bell Death’s note to knell at Fate’s appointed hour;
While some avow that on its bough are fearful traces seen,
Red as the stains from human veins commingling with the green.
Others, again, there are maintain that on the shattered bark
A print is made, where fiends have laid their scathing talons dark;
That, ere it falls, the raven calls thrice from that wizard bough;
And that each cry doth signify what space the Fates allow.
In olden days, the legend says, as grim Sir Ranulph view’d
A wretched hag her footsteps drag beneath his lordly wood,
His blood-hounds twain he called amain, and straightway gave her chase;
Was never seen in forest green, so fierce, so fleet a race!
With eyes of flame to Ranulph came each red and ruthless hound,
While mangled, torn—a sight forlorn!—the hag lay on the ground
E’en where she lay was turned the clay, and limb and reeking bone
Within the earth, with ribald mirth, by Ranulph grim were thrown.
And while as yet the soil was wet with that poor witch’s gore,
A lime-tree stake did Ranulph take, and pierced her bosom’s core
And, strange to tell, what next befel!—that branch at once took root,
And richly fed, within its bed, strong suckers forth did shoot.
From year to year fresh boughs appear—it waxes huge in size;
And with wild glee, this prodigy Sir Ranulph grim espies,
One day, when he, beneath that tree, reclined in joy and pride,
A branch was found upon the ground—the next, Sir Ranulph died.
And from that hour a fatal power has ruled that Wizard Tree,
To Ranulph’s line a warning sign of doom and destiny:
For when a bough is found, I trow, beneath its shade to lie,
Ere suns shall rise thrice in the skies a Rookwood sure shall die.
“And such an omen preceded Sir Piers’s demise?” said Luke, who had listened with some attention to his grandsire’s song.
“Unquestionably,” replied the sexton. “Not longer ago than Tuesday morning, I happened to be sauntering down the avenue I have just described. I know not what took me thither at that early hour, but I wandered leisurely on till I came nigh the Wizard Lime-Tree. Great Heaven! what a surprise awaited me! a huge branch lay right across the path. It had evidently just fallen; for the leaves were green and unwithered; the sap still oozed from the splintered wood; and there was neither trace of knife nor hatchet on the bark. I looked up among the boughs to mark the spot from whence it had been torn by the hand of Fate—for no human hand had done it—and saw the pair of ancestral ravens perched amid the foliage, and croaking as those carrion fowl are wont to do when they scent a carcase afar off. Just then a livelier sound saluted my ears. The cheering cry of a pack of hounds resounded from the courts, and the great gates being thrown open, out issued Sir Piers, attended by a troop of his roystering companions, all on horseback, and all making the welkin ring with their vociferations. Sir Piers laughed as loudly as the rest, but his mirth was speedily checked. No sooner had his horse (old Rook, his favourite steed, who never swerved at stake or pale before) set eyes upon this accursed branch, than he started as if the fiend stood before him, and, rearing backwards, flung his rider from the saddle. At this moment, with loud screams, the wizard ravens took flight. Sir Piers was somewhat hurt by the fall, but he was more frightened than hurt; and though he tried to put a bold face on the matter, it was plain that his efforts to recover himself were fruitless. Dr. Titus Tyrconnel and that wild fellow Jack Palmer (who has lately come to the hall, and of whom you know something) tried to rally him. But it would not do. He broke up the day’s sport, and returned dejectedly to the hall. Before departing, however, he addressed a word to me, in private, respecting you; and pointed, with a melancholy shake of the head, to the fatal branch. ‘It is my death-warrant,’ said he, gloomily. And so it proved; two days afterwards his doom was accomplished.”