It was an elm of peculiar form,
having two trunks, which sprang from the same root, and, after growing
side by side, mingled their branches together. He had selected it,
doubtless, as emblematical of his sister and himself. The names of
BYRON and AUGUSTA were still visible. They had been deeply cut in the
bark, but the natural growth of the tree was gradually rendering them
illegible, and a few years hence, strangers will seek in vain for this
record of fraternal affection.
Leaving the grove, I continued my ramble along a spacious terrace,
overlooking what had once been the kitchen garden of the Abbey. Below
me lay the monks' stew, or fish pond, a dark pool, overhung by gloomy
cypresses, with a solitary water-hen swimming about in it.
A little farther on, and the terrace looked down upon the stately scene
on the south side of the Abbey; the flower garden, with its stone
balustrades and stately peacocks, the lawn, with its pheasants and
partridges, and the soft valley of Newstead beyond.
At a distance, on the border of the lawn, stood another memento of Lord
Byron; an oak planted by him in his boyhood, on his first visit to the
Abbey. With a superstitious feeling inherent in him, he linked his own
destiny with that of the tree.
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