one side insolence and pride, on the other, misery
and despair.

Many of the English fled to the woods for refuge, and were hunted
down, when their tyrants could accomplish their wishes, like beasts
of prey, stigmatised with the title of "robbers" or "outlaws."
Such, as we have seen, was the case at Aescendune; and after the
supposed death of Wilfred, no bounds were set to the cruelties and
oppressions of Hugo and his satellites; their dungeons were full,
their torture chamber in constant use, so long as there were
Englishmen to suffer oppression and wrong.

Autumn, the autumn of 1068, came with all its wealth of golden
store; the crops were safely housed in the barns, the orchards were
laden with fruit, the woods had put on those brilliant hues with
which they prepare for the sleep of winter--never so fair as when
they assume the garb of decay.

Wilfred of Aescendune was gone. His tragical fate had aroused
little sympathy amongst his Norman companions, hardened as they
were by familiarity with scenes of violence; the burning of the
abbey and the fiery fate of its inmates had been but a nine days'
wonder. Etienne and his fellow pages spoke of their lost companion
with little regard to the maxim, "nihil nisi bonum de mortuis," and
seemed, indeed, to think that he was well out of the way.

There were few English left to mourn him: the baron would trust
none in the castle, and the churls and thralls of the village had
perished or taken refuge in the greenwoods, which lay, like a sea
of verdure, to the north of the domain of Aescendune, where it was
shrewdly suspected they might be found, enjoying the freedom of the
forests, and making free with the red deer.

It was a primeval forest, wherein were trees which had witnessed
old Druids, silver knife in hand, cutting the mistletoe, or which
had stood in the vigour of youth when Caesar's legionaries had
hunted those same Druids to their last retreats. Giant oaks cast
their huge limbs abroad, and entwined in matrimonial love with the
silver beech; timid deer with their fawns wantoned in the shade
beneath, or wild swine munched the acorns. Here were slow sedgy
streams, now illumined, as by a ray of light, when some monster of
the inland waters flashed along after his scaly prey, or stirred by
a sudden plunge as the otter sprang from the bank. Sometimes the
brock took an airing abroad, and the wolf came to look after his
interests and see what he could snatch.

While, i