He sat staring at the wall of his cell as he had stared at the judge,
the fatal tree still before him. Never before had he seen it in that
vivid way in which it appeared to him now, standing alone on the vast
green down, under the wide sky, its four separate boles leaning a little
way from each other, like the middle ribs of an open fan, holding up the
widespread branches, the thin, open foliage, the green leaves stained
with rusty brown and purple; and the ivy, rising like a slender black
serpent of immense length, springing from the roots, winding upwards,
and in and out, among the grey branches, binding them together, and
resting its round, dark cluster of massed leaves on the topmost boughs.
That green disc was the ivy-serpent's flat head and was the head of the
whole tree, and there it had its eyes, which gazed for ever over the
wide downs, watching all living things, cattle and sheep and birds and
men in their comings and goings; and although fast-rooted in the earth,
following them, too, in all their ways, even as it had followed him, to
break him at last.
POSTSCRIPT
I
DEAD MAN'S PLACK
One of my literary friends, who has looked at the Dead Man's Plack in
manuscript, has said by way of criticism that Elfrida's character is
veiled.
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