Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-03-20
The Reanrepa,re Oak.

But first ere the sun is set, stay few min
utes and look at the Beaurepaire oak, while /
tell you the little men know about 1t, not the
thonsandth part of what it could have told, If
trees could speak as well as breathe
The baroness did not exaggerate. The tree
was somewhat older than even this ancient
family. There was a chain of family docu-
ments several of which related incidents in
which this tree played part.
The oldest of these manuscripts was written
by a monk, younger son of the house, about
FIVE hundred years before our story. This
would not have helped as much, but, luckily
the good monk was at the pains 10 collect all
the oral traditions about it that had come
down from far more remote antiquity, and.
like sensible man, arrested and solidifed
them by the pen. He had superstitious rev.
erence for the tree; and probably this, too.
came down to him from his ancestors. as it
was certainly transmitted by him to the
chroniclers that succeed him.
The sum of ali is this.
The first Baron of Beaurepaire had pitched
his tent under fair oak that stood prope M
vunr-near brook. He afterwards built a
square tower hard by, and dug moat that
enclosed both tree and tower, and received
the waters of the brook aforesaid. These par
ticulars corresponded too exactly with the
present face of things and the intermediate
accounts, to leave doubt that this was the
same tree.
In these early DAYS, its size seems to have
been nothing remarkable, and this proves it
was still growing timber. But century and
a half before the monk wrote, it had become
famous in all the district for its girth; and in
the monks own day had ceased TO grow, but
showed no sign of decay. The mutilated arm
/ have mentioned was once a long, sturdy
bough, worn smooth as velvet in one part
from curious cause; it ran about high
ELL cs.x
knights and squires used to be forever vault
ing upon it. the former in armor; the monk,
when boy, had seen them do it thousand
times.
The heart of the tree began to go, and then
this heavy bOugh creaked suspiciOusly. In
those days, they did not prop sacred bough
with line of iron posts, as now.
They solved the difficulty by cutting this
one off within six feet of the trunk; two cen
turtles later, the tree being now nearly hollow,
a rude iron bracket was roughly nailed into
the STEM and. running out three feet support
ed the knights bough; for so the mutilated
limb was still called.
What had not this tree seen since first it
came, green and tender as the cabbage, above
the soil. and stood at the mercy of the first
hare or rabbit that should choose to cut
short forever its frail existence!
Since then, eagles had perched on its crown,
and wild boars fed, without fear of man,
upon its acOrns. Troubadours had sung be-
meath it to lords and ladies seated around or
walking on the grass. and commenting on the
minstrel's tales of love by exchange Of amor
Gus chances.
1t had seen a Norman Duke conquer Eng
land and English Kings invade France, and
be crowned at Paris 1t had seen a woman
put knights to the rout. and seen God insult
ed and the warrior virgin burned by envi-
Gus priests, with the consent of the ours she
had defended and the ours she had defeated.
Medieval sculptors had taken its leaves,
and. wisely trusting to nature. had adorn-
ed many church with those leaves cut in
stone.
Why. in its old age it had seen the rise of
printing, and the first dawn of national civil
iZation in Europe 1t fourished and decayed
in France but it grew in Gaul. And more
remarkable still, though by all accounts it is
likely to see the world to an end, it was
tree in ancient history; its old age awaits the
millennium; its first youth belonged to that
great tract of time which includes the birth of
Christ, the building of Rome, and the seige of
Troy.
The tree had mingled in the fortunes of the
family. 1t had saved their lives and taken
their lives. One Lord of Beaurepaire, holly
pursued by his feudal enemies, made for the
tree and hid himself, partly by great bOugh,
partly by thick screen of leaves. The foe
darted in made sure he had taken to the
house, ransacked it, and got into the cellar,
where, by good luck, was store of Malvoise:
and so the oak and the vine saved the quak-
ing Baron.
Another Lord of Beaurepaire besieged
in his castle, was shot dead on the ramparts
by cross-bOwman who had secreted him
self unobserved in this tree little before the
dawn.
A young heir of Beaurepaire, climbing for
a ravens nest to the top of this tree, whose
crown was much loftier than now, lost his
footing and fell, and died at the foot of the
tree. And his mother, in her anguish, babe
them cut down the tree that had killed her boy.
But the Baron cher husband) refused, and said
what in the English of the day would run
thus: ''Ytte VS. enough that lose mine SON
ne-I will not alsoe lose mine Ire In the
male. the solid sentiment of the proprietor
outweighed the temporary irritation of the
parent. Then the mother, we are told, brought
fifteen ellis of black velvet, and stretched q
pail from the knights bOugh across the west
side to another branch, and cursed the hand
that should remove it, and she herself ''wolde
never pass the Ire neither going or coming,
but went still about"
And when she died. and should have been
carried past the tree to the park, her doctor
did cry from a widow to the bearers, " GOe
about goe about " and they went about, and
all the company. And in time the velvet pail
rotted and was torn and driven away rdpidis
hldibria RENTS And when the hand Of nature,
and no human hand had thus floutcd and dis
persed the trapplngs of the mothers grief, two
pieces were picked up and preserved among
the family relics and the black velvet had
turned a rusty red. SO the Baroness did
nothing new in this family, when she hung her
chaplet on the knights bough. And in fact,
on the west side. about eighteen feet from the
ground there still mouldercd one corner of an
achievement an heir of Beaurcnpaire had
nailed there two centuries before, when his
predecessor died. For (said he) the chateau
is of Yesterday, but the tree has seen us all
come and go.n The inside of the tree was
clean gone; il was hollow as "A gum not
eight inches thick in any part and on its east
side yawnCd assure rs high as man and as
broad as n street door. Dard used To wheel
his wheelbarrow into the tree at trOt, and
there leave il In spite of excavation and
mutila.ion. not life only, but vigor, dwelt in
this wooden shell. The extreme ends of the
longer boughs were firewood, tOuchwood, and
the crown was gone, time out of mind. But
narrow the circle very little, to where the in
domiiable trunk could still shoot sap from its
cruise deep in earth, in there on every side
burst the green leaves in summer, countless as
the sand. The leaves carved centuries ago
from these very models though cut in stone
were most of them mouldered, blunted, notch
ed, deformed hut the delicate types came
back with every summer, perfect and lovely rs
when the tree was their elder brother, and
greener than ever. For (from what cause Ma
turc only knOws) the leaves were many shades
deeper and richer than any other tree could
show for a hundred miles rOund-a deep
green, fiery, yet soft. And then their multi
tude-the staircases Of foliage, rs you looked
up the tree, and could scarce catch Al glimpse
of the sky-an inverted abyss of color, a
mound, dome. of fake emeralds, that
quivered in the golden air
And now the sun sets; the green leaves are
black the moon rises her cold light shoots
across one-half that giant stem.