Within a little while, Sir Foulke d'Oilly assumed his rights territorial and seigneurial; but he removed not in person to Waltheofstow, continuing to reside in his own larger and more magnificent castle of Fenton in the Forest, within a few miles' distance, and committing the whole management of his estates and governance of his serfs to a hard, stern, old man-at-arms, renowned for his cruel valor, whom he installed as the seneschal of the fief, with his brother acting as bailiff under him, and a handful of fierce, marauding, free companions, as a garrison to the castle. The retainers of the old lord were got rid of peacefully, their dues of pay being made up to them, and themselves dismissed, with some small gratuity. One by one the free tenants threw up the farms which they rented, or resigned the fiefs which they held on man-service; and, before Sir Philip had been a month cold in his grave, not a soul was left in the place, of its old inhabitants, except the miserable Saxon serfs, to whom change of masters brought no change of place; and who, regarded as little better than mere brutes of burden, were scarce distinguished one from the other, or known by name, to their new and vicarious rulers. On them fell the most heavily the sudden blow which had deprived them of a just, a reasonable, and a merciful lord, as justice and mercy went in those days, and consigned them defenseless and helpless slaves, to one among the cruellest oppressors of that cruel and benighted period--and, worse yet than that, mere chattels at the mercy of an underling, crueller even than his lord, and wanting even in the sordid interest which the owner must needs feel in the physical welfare of his property. Woe, indeed, woe worth the day, to the serfs of Waltheofstow, when they fell into the hands of Sir Foulke d'Oilly, and tasted of the mercies of his seneschal, Black Hugonet of Fenton in the Forest! It was some considerable time before the news of this foul murder reached the ears of Sir Yvo de Taillebois; and when it did become known to him, and measures were taken by him to reclaim the manor of Waltheofstow, in virtue of the mortgage he had redeemed, it was found that so many prior claims, and that to so enormous an extent, were in existence, as to swallow up the whole of the estates, leaving Sir Yvo a loser of the nineteen thousand zecchins which he had advanced, with nothing to show in return for his outlay beyond the freedom of Kenric and his family.