"It's a romance," said the wild rose-bush. "I'll tell it to every bird that settles on me, so that it may be sung all over the world."
"It's exactly as I told you," said the elder-bush.
"When all is said and done, it was I, in a measure, who prepared the romance," said the blackbird. "But, honestly speaking, I prefer things as they were in the old days. Then one could sit here in peace and quiet. Now we run the risk every moment of somebody or other coming and sticking up his head and saying, 'Well, I never!' or 'Did you ever?' or 'O-oh!' or 'A-ah!'"
"Never in my born days have I known anything like it," said the nearest poplar. "Did you hear how the squire talked of his proud and stately poplars? We, who have stood guard along the road to his manor-house, summer and winter, year after year, all equally straight and still ... quite ordinary poplars, he called us! And then that disgusting, vulgar willow-tree!... That rotten old stump!... And he's a relation of ours into the bargain!... For shame!"
"For shame!... Shame!... Shame!" whispered the poplars along the avenue.
11
One winter's day, a storm came, till all the trees in the wood creaked and crashed. The wind howled and tore down the avenue and all the proud poplars swayed like rushes. The snow drifted till sky and earth became one.
"Now I can hold out no longer," said the old willow-tree.
Then he snapped, right down by his root. The iron hoop which he wore round his head went clattering down the frozen road. The railing tumbled over. The garden up at the top was scattered by the wind in every direction: the black-currant-bush and the strawberry-plant, the mountain-ash and the little oak, the dandelions and the violets all blew away; and nobody knows what has become of them since.
The earth-worm lay just below and wriggled: