He looked on the woods which had once echoed to his father's horn: for miles and miles they extended in trackless mazes of underwood, swamp, and brake; and report already credited them with being the haunt of outlaws innumerable. "Where were all the fugitives from Aescendune?" thought our Wilfred; "did the woods conceal them?" Well, if so, the day might come when he would be glad to join them. While he was thus musing, the sun rose high in the heavens, and he heard the horns summon the hunters--he heard the loud baying of the hounds, but he heeded not--he loathed society that day, and satisfying his hunger with a crust of bread, obtained at the hut of a thrall, he wandered deeper into the forest. The day was hot, and he grew tired. He lay down at the foot of a tree, and at length slept. How long that slumber lasted he knew not, but he dreamt a strange and gruesome dream. He thought his ancestors--the whole line of them--passed before him in succession, all going into the depths of the wood, and that as each spectral form passed it looked at him with sorrow and pointed into the forest. At length, in his dream, his father came and stood by him, and pointed to the woods likewise. Meanwhile a lurid light was rising in the woods behind him, and a sense of imminent danger grew on the sleeper when strange outcries arose from the wood. He was on the border land, twixt sleeping and waking, and the outcries were not all imaginary. There was the voice of one who besought for mercy, and the laughter and scornful tones of those who refused it; and these, at least, were real, for they awoke the sleeper. The cry which aroused young Wilfred from his sleep was uttered in a tone of distress, which at once appealed to his manhood for aid. And it was a familiar voice--that of his own foster brother, the son of his old nurse, with whom, in the innocent days of childhood, he had sported and romped again and again; for distinctions of rank were far less regarded amongst the old English than amongst the Normans--they were "English all." The poor peasant lad had been so unfortunate as to bring down a hare with a heavy stick. The animal had risen just before him; the weapon was ready; the temptation too great. Forgetful of all but the impulse of the moment, he had flung the stick, and the hare fell. He was just rushing to seize his prize, when the three Norman pages came suddenly on the scene. "Here is a young English lout, killing a hare," shouted Etienne; "lay hold of him." And before the astonished Eadwin could fly, the son of his lord fulfilled his own command, and seized the culprit by the collar. "How didst thou dare, thou false thief, to kill one of our hares? Dost thou not know the penalty?"