, and maintained
their freedom in the greenwoods, when the usurping barons had
reduced the people elsewhere to slavery. Hence their exploits were
sung by every minstrel, and received with enthusiasm.

"History," says Thierry, "has not understood these outlaws; it has
passed them over in silence, or else, adopting the legal acts of
the time, it has branded them with names which deprive them of all
interest--such as 'rebels,' 'robbers,' 'banditti.'

"But let us not," continues the historian, "be misled by these
odious titles; in all countries, subjugated by foreigners, they
have been given by the victors to the brave men who took refuge in
the mountains and forests, abandoning the towns and cities to such
as were content to live in slavery."

Such were our refugees in the Dismal Swamp.

xi See "Alfgar the Dane."

xii "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him
drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head."

xiii Martyrdom of St. Edmund, King of East Anglia.

This saintly king fought against the Danes, under Hinguar and
Hubba, in defence of his country. Being defeated, he was taken
prisoner by the enemy, who offered him his life, and restoration to
his kingdom, if he would renounce Christianity, and become
tributary. Upon his refusal he was tied naked to a tree, cruelly
scourged, and then shot slowly to death with arrows, calling upon
the name of Christ throughout his protracted martyrdom, Who
doubtless did not fail His servant in his hour of extreme need.

The strangest part of the story has yet to be told. An old oak was
pointed out as the tree of the martyrdom until very recent years.
Sceptics, of course, doubted the fact; but when the tree was blown
down in a violent storm, a Danish arrowhead was found embedded in
the very centre of the trunk, grown over, and concealed for nearly
a thousand years--the silent witness to the agonies of a martyr.
The martyrdom took place A.D. 870, the year before Alfred ascended
the throne. In the churches of Norfolk and Suffolk the picture of
St. Edmund, pierced with arrows, is often seen on old rood screens.

xiv Norman Torture Chamber.

We read in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of the barons in Stephen's
days.

"They greatly oppressed the wretched people by making them work at
their castles, and when the castles were finished they filled them
with devils and evil men. Then they took those whom they suspected
to have any goods, by night and by