Around them spread far and wide the umbrageous lanes and alleys of the New Forest, trees of every variety, oaks in greatest number, crowding the soil. As yet there were no trees of mighty girth. The forest was young. Few of its trees had more than a quarter-century of growth, except where more ancient woodland had been included. The place was solitary, tenanted only by the deer which had replaced man upon its soil, and by smaller creatures of wing and fur. Barely a human foot trod there, save when the king's hunting retinue swept through its verdant aisles and woke its solitary depths with the cheerful notes of the hunting-horn. The savage laws of the Conqueror kept all others but the most daring poachers from its aisles. Such was the stage set for the tragedy which we have to relate. The story goes that rough jests passed at Malwood-Keep between Tyrrell and the king, ending in anger, as jests are apt to. William boasted that he would carry an army through France to the Alps. Tyrrell, heated with wine, answered that he might find France a net easier to enter than to escape from. The hearers remembered these bitter words afterwards. On the night before the fatal day it is said that cries of terror came from the king's bed-chamber. The attendants rushed thither, only to find that the monarch had been the victim of nightmare. When morning came he laughed the incident to scorn, saying that dreams were fit to scare only old women and children. His companions were not so easily satisfied. Those were days when all men's souls were open to omens good and bad. They earnestly advised him not to hunt that day. William jested at their fears, vowed that no dream should scare him from the chase, yet, uneasy at heart, perhaps, let the hours pass without calling for his horse. Midday came. Dinner was served. William ate and drank with unusual freedom. Wine warmed his blood and drove off his clinging doubts. He rose from the table and ordered his horse to be brought. The day was young enough still to strike a deer, he said. The king was in high spirits. He joked freely with his guests as he mounted his horse and prepared for the chase. As he sat in his saddle a woodman presented him six new arrows. He examined them, declared that they were well made and proper shafts, and put four of them in his quiver, handing the other two to Walter Tyrrell. "These are for you," he said. "Good marksmen should have good arms." Tyrrell took them, thanked William for the gift, and the hunting-party was about to start, when there appeared a monk who asked to speak with the king. "I come from the convent of St. Peter, at Gloucester," he said. "The abbot bids me give a message to your majesty." "Abbot Serlon; a good Norman he," said the king. "What would he say?" "Your majesty," said the monk, with great humility, "he bids me state that one of his monks has dreamed a dream of evil omen. He deems the king should know it."