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The New Forest: its History and its Scenery.

of all men, and avenger of all wickedness, to punish the King. The Saviour answered her, "You must be patient and wait: due retribution will in time befall the wicked." The King read it and laughed. "Does Serlo," he asked, "think that I believe the visions of every snoring monk? Does he take me for an Englishman, who puts faith in the dreams of every old woman?"^[1] With this the party once more sets out into the Forest, the woods still green with all their deep summer foliage.

So they hunted all that noon and afternoon. The sun was now setting. Tiril and the King were alone.^[2] A stag bounded by: the King shot and slightly wounded the quarry. On, though, it still bounded in the full light of the setting sun. The King stood watching it, shading his eyes with his hands. At that moment another deer broke cover. Tiril this time shot, and the shaft lodged itself in the King's breast.^[3] He

↑ Vitalis: Historia Eccl., pars, iii., lib x., cap. xii., in Migne: Patrologicæ Cursus, tom, clxxxviii. pp. 751, 752; where occurs (pp. 750, 751) a most remarkable sermon, on the wrongs and woes of England, preached at St. Peter's Abbey, Shrewsbury, on St. Peter's Day, by Fulchered, first abbot of Shrewsbury, a man evidently of high purpose, ending with these ominous words:—" The bow of God's vengeance is bent against the wicked. The arrow, swift to wound, is already drawn out of the quiver. Soon will the blow be struck but the man who is wise to amend will avoid it." Surely this is more than a general denunciation. On the very next day William the Red falls.
↑ Malmesbury, as before quoted, p. 509. Vitalis, however, in Migne, as before, p. 751, says there were some others.
↑ William of Malmesbury says nothing about the tree, from which nearly all modern historians represent the arrow as glancing. Vitalis, as before, p. 751, expressly states that it rebounded from the back of a beast of chase (fera), apparently, by the mention of bristles (setæ), a wild-boar. Matthew Paris (Ed. Wats., tom. i. p. 54) first mentions the tree, but his narrative is doubtful.

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[1] Vitalis: Historia Eccl., pars, iii., lib x., cap. xii., in Migne: Patrologicæ Cursus, tom, clxxxviii. pp. 751, 752; where occurs (pp. 750, 751) a most remarkable sermon, on the wrongs and woes of England, preached at St. Peter's Abbey, Shrewsbury, on St. Peter's Day, by Fulchered, first abbot of Shrewsbury, a man evidently of high purpose, ending with these ominous words:—" The bow of God's vengeance is bent against the wicked. The arrow, swift to wound, is already drawn out of the quiver. Soon will the blow be struck but the man who is wise to amend will avoid it." Surely this is more than a general denunciation. On the very next day William the Red falls.

[2] Malmesbury, as before quoted, p. 509. Vitalis, however, in Migne, as before, p. 751, says there were some others.

[3] William of Malmesbury says nothing about the tree, from which nearly all modern historians represent the arrow as glancing. Vitalis, as before, p. 751, expressly states that it rebounded from the back of a beast of chase (fera), apparently, by the mention of bristles (setæ), a wild-boar. Matthew Paris (Ed. Wats., tom. i. p. 54) first mentions the tree, but his narrative is doubtful.

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