It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou'-West wind singing through Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon.
The children set out after dinner to find old Hobden, who had a three months' job in the Rough at the back of Pound's Wood. He had promised to get them a dormouse in its nest. The bright leaf Still clung to the beech coppice; the long chestnut leaves lay orange on the ground, and the rides were speckled with scarlet-lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by their own short cuts to the edge of Pound's Wood, and heard a horse's feet just as they came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up the vermin. The poor little fluffy bodies dangled from the branches - some perfectly good, but most of them dried to twisted strips.
'Three more owls,' said Dan, counting. 'Two stoats, four jays, and a kestrel. That's ten since last week. Ridley's a beast.'
'In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.' Sir Richard Dalyngridge reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride behind them. [This is the Norman knight they met the year before in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL. See 'Young Men at the Manor,' 'The Knights of the Joyous Venture,' and 'Old Men at Pevensey,' in that book.]
'What play do you make?'he asked.
'Nothing, Sir. We're looking for old Hobden,'Dan replied.'He promised to get us a sleeper.'
'Sleeper? A DORMEUSE, do you say?'
'Yes, a dormouse, Sir.'
'I understand. I passed a woodman on the low grounds. Come!'
He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that old Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and house-faggots before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver.
Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his lip.
'Look!' he whispered. 'Along between the spindle-trees.
Ridley has been there this half-hour.'
The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse.
'Huhh!' cried Una. 'Hobden always 'tends to his wires before breakfast. He puts his rabbits into the faggots he's allowed to take home. He'll tell us about 'em tomorrow.'
'We had the same breed in my day,' Sir Richard replied, and moved off quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the close-trimmed beech stuff.
'What did you do to them?' said Dan, as they repassed Ridley's terrible tree.
'That!' Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls.
'Not he!' said Puck. 'There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang a man for taking a buck.'
'I - I cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I on horseback while you are afoot?' He dismounted lightly, tapped Swallow on the chest, so that the wise thing backed instead of turning in the narrow ride, and put himself at the head of the little procession. He walked as though all the woods belonged to him. 'I have often told my friends,' he went on, 'that Red William the King was not the only Norman found dead in a forest while he hunted.'
'D'you mean William Rufus?'said Dan.
'Yes,' said Puck, kicking a clump of red toad-stools off a dead log.
'For example, there was a knight new from Normandy,' Sir Richard went on, 'to whom Henry our King granted a manor in Kent near by. He chose to hang his forester's son the day before a deer-hunt that he gave to pleasure the King.'
'Now when would that be?' said Puck, and scratched an ear thoughtfully.
'The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother Robert of Normandy at Tenchebrai fight. Our ships were even then at Pevensey loading for the war.'
'What happened to the knight?'Dan asked.
'They found him pinned to an ash, three arrows through his leather coat. I should have worn mail that day.'
'And did you see him all bloody?'Dan continued.
'Nay, I was with De Aquila at Pevensey, counting horseshoes, and arrow-sheaves, and ale-barrels into the holds of the ships.
The army only waited for our King to lead them against Robert in Normandy, but he sent word to De Aquila that he would hunt with him here before he set out for France.'
'Why did the King want to hunt so particularly?' Una demanded.
'If he had gone straight to France after the Kentish knight was killed, men would have said he feared being slain like the knight. It was his duty to show himself debonair to his English people as it was De Aquila's duty to see that he took no harm while he did it, But it was a great burden! De Aquila, Hugh, and I ceased work on the ships, and scoured all the Honour of the Eagle - all De Aquila's lands - to make a fit, and, above all, a safe sport for our King. Look!'
The ride twisted, and came out on the top of Pound's Hill Wood. Sir Richard pointed to the swells of beautiful, dappled Dallington, that showed like a woodcock's breast up the valley.
'Ye know the forest?' said he.
'You ought to see the bluebells there in Spring!' said Una.
'I have seen,' said Sir Richard, gazing, and stretched out his hand. 'Hugh's work and mine was first to move the deer gently from all parts into Dallington yonder, and there to hold them till the King came. Next, we must choose some three hundred beaters to drive the deer to the stands within bowshot of the King.
Here was our trouble! In the mellay of a deer-drive a Saxon peasant and a Norman King may come over-close to each other.
The conquered do not love their conquerors all at once. So we needed sure men, for whom their village or kindred would answer in life, cattle, and land if any harm come to the King. Ye see?'
'If one of the beaters shot the King,' said Puck, 'Sir Richard wanted to be able to punish that man's village. Then the village would take care to send a good man.'
'So! So it was. But, lest our work should be too easy, the King had done such a dread justice over at Salehurst, for the killing of the Kentish knight (twenty-six men he hanged, as I heard), that our folk were half mad with fear before we began. It is easier to dig out a badger gone to earth than a Saxon gone dumb-sullen.
