ke as if the metropolis of England lay a
hundred miles distant. Even to this day patches of such land, in the
neighbourhood of Norwood, may betray what the country was in the old
time:--when a mighty forest, "abounding with wild beasts"--"the bull and
the boar"--skirted the suburbs of London, and afforded pastime to king
and thegn. For the Norman kings have been maligned by the popular notion
that assigns to them all the odium of the forest laws. Harsh and severe
were those laws in the reign of the Anglo-Saxon; as harsh and severe,
perhaps, against the ceorl and the poor man, as in the days of Rufus,
though more mild unquestionably to the nobles. To all beneath the rank
of abbot and thegn, the king's woods were made, even by the mild
Confessor, as sacred as the groves of the Druids: and no less penalty
than that of life was incurred by the lowborn huntsman who violated their
recesses. [24]

Edward's only mundane passion was the chase; and a day rarely passed, but
what after mass he went forth with hawk or hound. So that, though the
regular season for hawking did not commence till October, he had ever on
his wrist some young falcon to essay, or some old favourite to exercise.
And now, just as William was beginning to grow weary of his good cousin's
prolix recitals, the hounds suddenly gave tongue, and from a sedge-grown
pool by the way-side, with solemn wing and harsh boom, rose a bittern.

"Holy St. Peter!" exclaimed the Saint-king, spurring his palfrey, and
loosing his famous Peregrine falcon [25]. William was not slow in
following that animated example, and the whole company rode at half speed
across the rough forest-land, straining their eyes upon the soaring
quarry, and the large wheels of the falcons. Riding thus, with his eyes
in the air, Edward was nearly pitched over his palfrey's head, as the
animal stopped suddenly, checked by a high gate, set deep in a half
embattled wall of brick and rubble. Upon this gate sate, quite unmoved
and apathetic, a tall ceorl, or labourer, while behind it was a gazing
curious group of men of the same rank, clad in those blue tunics of which
our peasant's smock is the successor, and leaning on scythes and flails.
Sour and ominous were the looks they bent upon that Norman cavalcade.
The men were at least as well clad as those of the same condition are
now; and their robust limbs and ruddy cheeks showed no lack of the fare
that supports labour. Indeed, the working man of tha