X<'ir Forest : its Hixtori/ <tn<1 its S 



of all men, and avenger of all wickedness, to punish the King. 

 The Saviour answered her, " You must be patient and wait : 

 due retribution will in time befall the wicked." The King read 

 it and laughed. " Does Serlo," he asked, " think that I believe 

 the visions of every snoring monk ? Does he take me for an 

 Englishman, who puts faith in the dreams of every old 

 woman?"* With this the party once more sets out into the 

 Forest, the woods still green with all their deep summer 

 foliage. 



So they hunted all that noon and afternoon. The sun was 

 now setting. Tiril and the King were alone.f A stag bounded 

 by : the King shot and slightly wounded the quarry. On, 

 though, it still bounded in the full light of the setting sun. 

 The King stood watching it, shading his eyes with his hands. 

 At that moment another deer broke cover. Tiril this time 

 shot, and the shaft lodged itself in the King's breast. J He 



* Vitalis : Histvria Eccl., pars, iii., lib. x., c*p. xii. In Migne's Putro- 

 logice Cursus, torn, clxxxviii. pp. 751, 752; where occurs (pp. 750, 751) a 

 most remarkable sermon, on the wrongs and woes of England, preached at 

 St. Peter's Abbey, Shrewsbury, on St. Peter's Day, by Fulchered, first 

 abbot of Shrewsbury, a man evidently of high purpose, ending with these 

 ominous words : ' The bow of God's vengeance is bent against the wicked. 

 The arrow, swift to wound, is already drawn out of the quiver. Soon will 

 the blow be struck ; but the mr.n who is wise to amend will avoid it." 

 Surely this is more than a general denunciation. On the very next day 

 William the Red falls. 



f Malme>bnry. as before quoted, p. 509. Vitalis, however, in Migne, 

 as before, p. 751, says there were some others. 



+ William of Malmesbury says nothing about the tree, from which 

 nearly all modern historians represent the arrow as glancing. Yitalis, as 

 before, p. 751, expressly states that it rebounded from the back of a beast 

 of chase (fera), apparently, by the mention of bristles (sete), a wild-boar. 

 Matthew Paris (Ed. Wats., torn. i. p. 54) first mentions the tree, but his 

 narrative is doubtful. 



94 



