elonged to the unknown; but it would not do to disturb
so redoubtable a personage in his den; he might discharge a pistol, or
something worse, at my head. I went to bed, therefore, and lay awake
half the night in a terrible nervous state; and even when I fell
asleep, I was still haunted in my dreams by the idea of the stout
gentleman and his wax-topped boots.

I slept rather late the next morning, and was awakened by some stir
and bustle in the house, which I could not at first comprehend; until
getting more awake, I found there was a mail-coach starting from the
door. Suddenly there was a cry from below, "The gentleman has forgot
his umbrella! look for the gentleman's umbrella in No. 13!" I heard an
immediate scampering of a chamber-maid along the passage, and a shrill
reply as she ran, "Here it is! here's the gentleman's umbrella!"

The mysterious stranger then was on the point of setting off. This was
the only chance I should ever have of knowing him. I sprang out of
bed, scrambled to the window, snatched aside the curtains, and just
caught a glimpse of the rear of a person getting in at the coach-door.
The skirts of a brown coat parted behind, and gave me a full view of
the broad disk of a pair of drab breeches. The door closed--"all
right!" was the word--the coach whirled off:--and that was all I ever
saw of the stout gentleman!

FOREST TREES.

"A living gallery of aged trees."

One of the favourite themes of boasting with the Squire, is the noble
trees on his estate, which, in truth, has some of the finest that I
have seen in England. There is something august and solemn in the
great avenues of stately oaks that gather their branches together high
in air, and seem to reduce the pedestrians beneath them to mere
pigmies. "An avenue of oaks or elms," the Squire observes, "is the
true colonnade that should lead to a gentleman's house. As to stone
and marble, any one can rear them at once--they are the work of the
day; but commend me to the colonnades that have grown old and great
with the family, and tell by their grandeur how long the family has
endured."

The Squire has great reverence for certain venerable trees, gray with
moss, which he considers as the ancient nobility of his domain. There
is the ruin of an enormous oak, which has been so much battered by
time and tempest, that scarce any thing is left; though he says
Christy recollects when, in his boyhood, it was healthy and
nourishing, until