Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/480

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window to the side being built up. In a corner of this chamber is a small marble tablet let into the wall and inscribed:—

Sir Isaac Newton (Son of Isaac Newton
Lord of the Manor of Woolsthorpe) was born
in this room December 25th 1642.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night
God said, "Let Newton be" and all was light.

Pope.

Then we were taken to see Newton's tiny study, situated upstairs and on the same floor. Here is hung a drawing of the very tree from which Newton saw the apple fall. It is a curious-looking old gnarled tree, and I have taken the artist's license of introducing it in the foreground of my sketch, in place of a very ordinary tree of the same kind that really was growing on that spot. I seldom take such liberties, but in this exceptional case I thought a likeness of the famous old tree might be of interest, and, accompanied by an explanation, allowable. Though the original tree is dead, a graft, we were informed, was made from it, which is growing now in the orchard in the very spot that the old one grew; strangely enough it greatly resembles its historic predecessor.

Then we made our way back to Colsterworth, crossing the river Witham by a foot-bridge, the road traversing it by a ford. The bottom of the stream, we noticed, was paved with flat stones, so that the carts in driving through should not sink in the mud, an arrangement that I do not remember to have noted elsewhere. Before returning to our