Soon Herne appeared, a ghostly figure with huge antlers, and commanded his fellow-keepers to assemble at the oak the next midnight with horses and hounds equipped for the chase. They had to obey, and night after night, led by the ghostly huntsman, the party swept through the forest. Their wild doings naturally quickly reached the ears of the King, and he summoned the keepers, demanding an explanation. In terror they confessed how they had plotted Herne’s ruin, and the King, furious at their impious action, caused all of them to be hanged upon Herne’s oak. But the ghostly chase still went on, they say, and even to this day in the dark midnight hours some people believe you may hear, far away in the Great Park, the distant sound of a huntsman’s horn, and see flashing through the trees the ghostly chase led by an antlered man on a huge black horse. Herne’s oak has gone now. It stood in the Home Park, a grim withered riven stump near the footpath to Datchet, until some fifty or sixty years ago; and few cared to pass it at midnight. But Windsor Park in daytime has nothing eerie about it. It, and the wide bracken-covered, sandy forest country that surrounds it, is delightful in Spring, or on a hot summer’s day. Or in autumn, when the leaves and bracken are turning, one must go far to find a more beautiful district. The whole country is steeped in history and romance. From Windsor, with its magnificent castle--and just across the river, historic Eton--the forest district stretches away south and west for miles. Here, although so close to London, one may find the solitude and rest that many travel far afield to seek--and fail to find. [Illustration: _Windsor Forest._] [Illustration: Ghost of a lady reaching for a floating basin, in a paneled chamber.] THE GHOST OF BISHAM ABBEY. This legend begins with the story of a rather dull little boy who found his lessons very trying--and, perhaps, the glistening Thames, which he could see from his schoolroom window, very attractive--in the days when Tudor sovereigns reigned in England. His name was Hobby, and his home was Bisham Abbey, which still stands by the riverside just opposite Great Marlow. And because the child could not write in his copy-book without making blots, he was whipped so severely that, as the old tale goes, he died. But that is only the beginning of the story. It was his mother, Lady Hobby, who chastised the child. When you see her portrait, as you still may at Bisham, you cannot believe she meant to be so cruel. She must have been sorry for her harshness; at any rate she has been punished for it, for she can find no rest in death. Though over three hundred years have passed since they placed her in her grave, her ghost still floats through the panelled chambers of Bisham, so they say.