ning being given, and
attacked Hereward alone in his hall.

He had barely time to throw on his armor when his enemies burst in upon
him and assailed him with sword and spear. The fight that ensued was one
that would have gladdened the soul of a Viking of old. Hereward laid
about him with such savage energy that the floor was soon strewn with
the dead bodies of his foes, and crimsoned with their blood. Finally the
spear broke in the hero's hand. Next he grasped his sword and did with
it mighty deeds of valor. This, too, was broken in the stress of fight.
His shield was the only weapon left him, and this he used with such
vigor and skill that before he had done fifteen Normans lay dead upon
the floor.

Four of his enemies now got behind him and smote him in the back. The
great warrior was brought to his knees. A Breton knight, Ralph of Dol,
rushed upon him, but found the wounded lion dangerous still. With a last
desperate effort Hereward struck him a deadly blow with his buckler, and
Breton and Saxon fell dead together to the floor. Another of the
assailants, Asselin by name, now cut off the head of this last defender
of Saxon England, and holding it in the air, swore by God and his might
that he had never before seen a man of such valor and strength, and that
if there had been three more like him in the land the French would have
been driven out of England, or been slain on its soil.

And so ends the stirring story of Hereward the Wake, that mighty man of
old.

_THE DEATH OF THE RED KING._

William of Normandy, by the grace of God and his iron mace, had made
himself king of England. An iron king he proved, savage, ruthless, the
descendant of a few generations of pirate Norsemen, and himself a pirate
in blood and temper. England strained uneasily under the harsh rein
which he placed upon it, and he harried the country mercilessly, turning
a great area of fertile land into a desert. That he might have a
hunting-park near the royal palace, he laid waste all the land that lay
between Winchester and the sea, planting there, in place of the homes
destroyed and families driven out, what became known as the "New
Forest." Nothing angered the English more than this ruthless act. A law
had been passed that any one caught killing a deer in William's new
hunting-grounds should have his eyes put out. Men prayed for
retribution. It came. The New Forest proved fatal to the race of the
Conqueror. In 1081 his oldest son Rich