88 The New Forest ' its History and its Scenery. 



without the feelings of the neighbourhood being outraged. 

 And the story, gathering strength in proportion as the Conqueror 

 and his son William the Red were hated by the conquered, 

 at last assumed the tragical form which the Chroniclers have 

 handed down to us, and modern historians repeated. 



William's cruelty, however, lay not certainly in afforesting 

 the district : it consisted rather in the systematic way in which 

 he strove to reduce the English into abject slavery ; in the 

 fresh tortures with which he loaded the Danish Forest Laws ; 

 and in making it far better to kill a man than a deer. For 

 these exactions was it that his family paid the penalty of their 

 lives ; and the retribution befel them there, where the super- 

 stitious West- Saxon would, above all others, have marked out 

 as the spot fitted for their deaths. 



View in Gibb's Hill Wood. 



