She had seen these serfs, rudely attired indeed, and employed in rugged, laborious, and menial occupations; but, then, it was clear that their boorish demeanor, stolid expression, and apparent lack of capacity or intelligence for any superior employment, seemed to indicate them as persons filling the station in society for which nature had adapted them. Well-clad, sufficiently clothed, warmly lodged--in all outward things perhaps equal, if not superior, to the peasantry of most European countries in the present day--never, except in extreme and exceptional cases, cruelly or severely treated, since it was ever the owner's interest to regard the well-doing of his serfs, it had never occurred to her that the whole race was in itself, from innate circumstances, and apart from extraordinary sorrows or sufferings, hopeless, miserable, and conscious of unmerited but irretrievable degradation. Had she considered the subject, she would of course have perceived and admitted that sick or in health, sorrowful or at ease, to be compelled to toil on, toil on, day after day, wearily, at the bidding and for the benefit of another, deriving no benefit from that toil beyond a mere subsistence, was an unhappy and forlorn condition. Yet, how many did she not see of her own conquering countrymen of the lower orders, small landholders in the country, small artisans and mechanics in the boroughs, reduced to the same labors, and nearly to the same necessity. With the personal condition or habits of the serfs, the ladies and even the lords of the great Norman families had little acquaintance, little means even of becoming acquainted. The services of their fortalices, all but those menial and sordid offices of which those exalted persons had no cognizance, were discharged by domestics, higher or lower in grade, the highest being of gentle blood, and, in very noble houses, even of noble blood, of their own proud race; and the Saxons, whether bond-servants of the soil, or, what was of rare occurrence at that time, free tenants on man service, were employed in the fields or in the forest, under the bailiff or overseer, who ruled them at his own discretion, and punished them, if punishment were needed, with the stocks, the gyves, or the scourge, without consulting the lord, and of course without so much as the knowledge of the lady. Even if, by hazard, it did reach the dainty ears of some fair chatelaine, that Osrick or Edmund had undergone the lash for some misdoing or short-coming, she heard of it much as a modern lady would read of the committal of a pickpocket or drunkard to the treadmill, or of a vagrant hussy to pick hemp; wondering why those low creatures would do such wicked things, and sorrowfully musing why such punishments should be necessary--never suspecting the injustice of the law, or doubting the necessity of the punishment.