ed thousand people.

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF THE RED KING.]

"Having conquered England, he sought enjoyment, and turned his
attention to field-sports and to hunting. He had sixty-eight royal
forests, full of stags and deer; but he permitted no one but himself
and the people of his court to hunt in them.

"At Winchester, he thought it would be a fine thing to have a great
hunting-park near his residence. There was a tract of country in the
county of Hampshire, very picturesque and beautiful, that he
determined to use for this purpose. But there were churches scattered
among the hills; and thousands of peasants dwelt here, who had rude
but happy homes.

"William cared little for the churches and less for the homes of the
peasants; so he sent soldiers to burn the former, and to drive the
people away from the latter.

"Nothing was done by the ruthless king to supply the wants of the
people, or to relieve their misery. They left their native hills with
wailing and weeping and wringing of hands, uttering imprecations on
the head of the Conqueror and upon his race.

"The stags multiplied, and the deer increased; and delightful to the
Norman was the New Forest, on the golden autumn days.

"One day, one of the king's sons, a fair-haired youth, named Richard,
went to hunt in this New Forest.

"He encountered a stag. The animal, maddened by the attack, rushed
upon the prince, and killed him.

"As the dead body was borne from the forest, broken and stained with
blood, the people said that this was a beginning of the reckoning God
would make with William, and that the New Forest would prove an
unquiet place to the Conqueror and to those of his blood.

"Foolish and superstitious stories began to be circulated. The people
said that the New Forest was haunted; that spirits were seen, by
moonlight, gliding among the dusky trees; that demons revelled there
when the tempest arose, and the lightnings flashed, and the rain
dashed on the great oaks. The old foresters did not wish to return to
it now. They talked of it in low whispers, as of a place accursed.

"At last William died. It was a bitter death. The Conqueror trembled
before that CONQUEROR to whom the princes of the earth must yield.

"It is said that, when he had reached the height of his fame, he
declared that he would surrender his crowns and kingdom to know again
'peace of mind, the love of a true friend, or the innocent sleep of a
child.'

"When his last ho