Chapter 21 - TEWKESBURY

The last shoot of that ancient tree

Was budding fair as fair might be;

Its buds they crop

Its branches lop

Then leave the sapless stem to die.

-SOPHOCLES (Anstice).

Harry Clifford lay fevered, and knowing little of what passed, for several days, only murmuring sometimes of his flock at home, sometimes of the royal hermit, and some