His warning was a timely one. Graham, so long unused to the exercise of the craft, had not noticed how deeply he had cut into the stem. The straight tree seemed to hesitate, tossing its branches helplessly heavenward, and then with a creaking sound crashed through the surrounding underbrush, and with a dull thud measured its slender length upon the earth. For a moment its branches shook convulsively, and then all was quiet. It seemed as if all nature paused at the fall of so fair a thing: the birds were silent in the thicket; the babble of the water-fall grew faint; and the wood creatures stirred not in their burrows. A mighty breeze crept through the forest, rustling the surrounding trees, wailing through the open gap as if in requiem, and a light cloud floated over the face of the sun, throwing its shadowy pall on the spot. "That was well done, monsieur." And, at the sound of the man’s voice, the cloud floated by and the sun shone out once more, the wood birds took up their song again, the squirrel in the hollow of the white oak went on cracking her nut, and the brief mourning was over. That man must feel himself indeed beloved, who fancies that the world will pause as long beside his grave as does the forest at the fall of one of its children. Not until the branches had been lopped off and the long stem cut into lengths, did Graham cease his labor. The exercise did him good, and gave him an appetite for the breakfast which old John served him in the open air. He declared that the coffee was better than could be had at the _Café de Paris_; and assured John that neither Paris nor Vienna could produce such bread as that which the old man had baked in some mysterious manner in an oven of his own construction, made of flat stone sunk in the ground. Graham remembered that he had somewhere in the tower a bottle of rare old wine, which he sent John to fetch. "Bring my glass and your tin cup, John."