II.--A fine oak formerly stood by the way side, near Hornby Hall, about four miles from Penrith on the road to Appleby, which, from a pair of stag's horns being hung up in it, bore the name of Hart's-Horn Tree. It grew within the district which to this day is called Whinfell Forest. Concerning this tree there is a tradition, confirmed by Anne, Countess of Pembroke in her memoirs, that a hart was run by a single greyhound (as the ancient deer hound was called) from this place to Red-Kirk in Scotland, and back again. When they came near this tree the hart leaped the park paling, but, being worn out with fatigue, instantly died; and the dog, equally exhausted, in attempting to clear it, fell backwards and expired. In this situation they were found by the hunters, the dog dead on one side of the paling, and the deer on the other. In memory of this remarkable chase, the hart's horns were nailed upon the tree, whence it obtained its name. And as all extraordinary events were in those days recorded in rhymes, we find the following popular one on this occasion, from which we learn the name of the dog likewise:-- Hercules killed Hart-o-Grease, And Hart-o-Grease killed Hercules. This story appears to have been literally true, as the Scots preserve it without any variation, and add that it happened in the year 1333 or 1334, when Edward Baliol King of Scotland came to hunt with Robert de Clifford in his domains at Appleby and Brougham, and stayed some time with him at his castles in Westmorland. In course of time, it is stated, the horns of the deer became grafted, as it were, upon the tree, by reason of its bark growing over their root, and there they remained more than three centuries, till, in the year 1648, one of the branches was broken off by some of the army, and ten years afterwards the remainder was secretly taken down by some mischievous people in the night. "So now," says Lady Anne Clifford in her Diary, "there is no part thereof remaining, the tree itself being so decayed, and the bark so peeled off, that it cannot last long; whereby we may see time brings to forgetfulness many memorable things in this world, be they ever so carefully preserved--for this tree, with the hart's horn in it, was a thing of much note in these parts." The tree itself has now disappeared; but Mr. Wordsworth, "well remembered its imposing appearance as it stood, in a decayed state by the side of the high road leading from Penrith to Appleby." This remarkable chase must have been upwards of eighty miles, even supposing the deer to have taken the direct road.