They ranged up the Bruneswald, dashing out to the war-cry of “A Wake! a Wake!” laying all waste with fire and sword, that is, such towns as were in the hands of Normans. And a noble range they must have had for gallant sportsmen. Away south, between the Nene and Welland, stretched from Stamford and Peterborough the still vast forests of Rockingham, nigh twenty miles in length as the crow flies, down beyond Rockingham town, and Geddington Chase. To the west, they had the range of the “hunting counties,” dotted still, in the more eastern part, with innumerable copses and shaughs, the remnants of the great forest, out of which, as out of Rockinghamshire, have been cut those fair parks and “Handsome houses, Where the wealthy nobles dwell”; past which the Lord of Burleigh led his Welsh bride to that Burghley House by Stamford town, well-nigh the noblest of them all, which was, in Hereward’s time, deep wood, and freestone down. Round Exton, and Normanton, and that other Burley on the Hill; on through those Morkery woods, which still retain the name of Hereward’s ill-fated nephew; north by Irnham and Corby; on to Belton and Syston (_par nobile_), and southwest again to those still wooded heights, whence all-but-royal Belvoir looks out over the rich green vale below, did Hereward and his men range far and wide, harrying the Frenchman, and hunting the dun deer. Stags there were in plenty. There remain to this day, in Grimsthorpe Park by Bourne, the descendants of the very deer which Earl Leofric and Earl Algar, and after them Hereward the outlaw, hunted in the Bruneswald. Deep-tangled forest filled the lower claylands, swarming with pheasant, roe, badger, and more wolves than were needed. Broken, park-like glades covered the upper freestones, where the red deer came out from harbor for their evening graze, and the partridges and plovers whirred up, and the hares and rabbits loped away, innumerable; and where hollies and ferns always gave dry lying for the night. What did men need more, whose bodies were as stout as their hearts? They were poachers and robbers; and why not? The deer had once been theirs, the game, the land, the serfs; and if Godric of Corby slew the Irnham deer, burned Irnham Hall over the head of the new Norman lord, and thought no harm, he did but what he would with that which had been once his own. Easy it was to dash out by night and make a raid; to harry the places which they once had owned themselves, in the vale of Belvoir to the west, or to the east in the strip of fertile land which sloped down into the fen, and levy black-mail in Rippinghale, or Folkingham, or Aslackby, or Sleaford, or any other of the “Vills” (now thriving villages) which still remain in Domesday-book, and written against them the ugly and significant,-- “In Tatenai habuerunt Turgisle et Suen IIII. Carrucas terae,” &c. “Hoc Ivo Taillebosc ibi habet in dominio,”--all, that is, that the wars had left of them.