[35] “Romances of the West of England.”

[36] “A Strange and True Relation of one Mr. John Leech,” 1662.

[37] “Saunders’ Legends and Traditions of Huntingdonshire,” 1878, 1-3.

[38] London, printed for A. Bell, 1714.

CHAPTER X.

FAMILY DEATH OMENS.

    “Say not ’tis vain!  I tell thee, some
      Are warned by a meteor’s light,
    Or a pale bird flitting calls them home,
      Or a voice on the winds by night—­
    And they must go.  And he too, he,
    Woe for the fall of the glorious tree.” 
               —­MRS. HEMANS.

A curious chapter in the history of many of our old county families is that relating to certain forewarnings, which, from time immemorial, have been supposed to indicate the approach of death.  However incredible the existence of these may seem, their appearance is still intimately associated with certain houses, instances of which have been recorded from time to time.  Thus Cuckfield Place, Sussex, is not only interesting as a fine Elizabethan mansion, but as having suggested to Ainsworth the “Rookwood Hall” of his striking romance.  “The supernatural occurrence,” he says, “forming the groundwork of one of the ballads which I have made the harbinger of doom to the house of Rookwood, is ascribed, by popular superstition, to a family resident in Sussex, upon whose estate the fatal tree—­a gigantic lime, with mighty arms and huge girth of trunk—­is still carefully preserved.”  In the avenue that winds towards the house the doom-tree still stands:—­

    “And whether gale or calm prevail, or threatening cloud hath fled,
      By hand of Fate, predestinate, a limb that tree will shed;
    A verdant bough, untouched, I trow, by axe or tempest’s breath,
      To Rookwood’s head, an omen dread of fast approaching death.”

“Cuckfield Place,” adds Ainsworth, “to which this singular piece of timber is attached, is the real Rookwood Hall, for I have not drawn upon imagination, but upon memory, in describing the seat and domains of that fated family.”  A similar tradition is associated with the Edgewell Oak, which is said to indicate the coming death of an inmate of Castle Dalhousie by the fall of one of its branches; and Camden in his “Magna Britannia,” alluding to the antiquity of the Brereton family, relates this peculiar fact which is reported to have been repeated many times:  “This wonderful thing respecting them is commonly believed, and I have heard it myself affirmed by many, that for some days before the death of the heir of the family the trunk of a tree has always been seen floating in the lake adjoining their mansion;” a popular superstition to which Mrs. Hemans refers in the lines which head the present chapter.  A further instance of a similar kind is given by Sir Bernard Burke, who informs us that opposite the dining-room at Gordon Castle is a large