William was left to his own courses, and to his chosen friend Ralph, a low-born Norman priest, beloved by the King partly for his qualities as a boon companion, partly for his ingenuity as an extortioner. He was universally known by the nickname of Flambard, or the Torch, and was bitterly hated by men of every class. He was once very nearly murdered by some sailors, who kidnapped him, and carried him on board a large ship. Some of them quarrelled about the division of his robes, a storm arose, and he so worked on their fears that they at length set him on shore, where William was so delighted to see him that he gave him the bishopric of Durham, the richest of all, because the bishop was also an earl, and was charged to defend the frontier against the Scots. He had promised to relax the forest laws, but this was only one of his promises made to be broken; and he became so much more strict in his enforcement of them than even the Conqueror, that he acquired the nickname of Ranger of the Woods and Keeper of the Deer. Dogs in the neighborhood of his forests were deprived of their claws, and there was a scale of punishments for poachers of any rank, extending from the loss of a hand, or eye, to that of life itself. In 1099, another Richard, an illegitimate son of Duke Robert of Normandy, was killed in the New Forest by striking his head against the branch of a tree; and a belief in a family fate began to prevail, so much so that Bishop Gundulf warned the King against hunting there; but William, as usual, laughed him to scorn, and in the summer of 1100 took up his residence in his lodge of Malwood, attended by his brother Henry, and many other nobles. On the last night of July a strange sound was heard--the King calling aloud on St. Mary; and when his attendants came into his chamber, they found him crossing himself, in terror from a frightful dream. He bade them bring lights, and make merry, that he might not fall asleep again; but there were other dreamers. With morning a monk arrived to tell that he had had a vision presaging the King’s death; but William brayed his own misgivings, and laughed, saying the man dreamt like a monk. “Give him a hundred pence, and bid him dream better luck next time.” Yet his spirits were subdued all the morning, and it was not till wine had excited him that he returned to his vein of coarse, reckless mirth. He called his hunters round him, ordered the horses, and asked for his new arrows--long, firm, ashen shafts. Three he stuck in his belt, the other three he held out to a favorite comrade, Walter Tyrrel, Lord de Poix, saying, “Take them, Wat, for a good marskman should have good arrows.” Some one ventured to remind him of his dream, but his laugh was ready. “Do they take me for a Saxon, to be frighted because an old woman dreams or sneezes?”