EXTINCT FORESTS OF THE NORTHERN COUNTIES. 157 



whereby they came under the cognisance of the law. The 

 punishment which was their due was death. 



" But the hermit, being a holy man, and being at the 

 point of death, sent for the abbot and desired him to have 

 the guilty men brought before him. They came ; and he 

 thus addressed them : 



" ' I am sure to die of these wounds ' 



"The abbot, interrupting him, said, 'They shall die 

 for it.' 



" ' Not so/ replied the hermit, ' for I will freely forgive 

 them my death if they will promise to perform this 

 penance/ 



The men eagerly bid the dying man enjoin what he 

 would have them do. 



" ' You and yours/ replied he, ' shall hold your land of 

 the abbot of Whitby and his successors in this manner : 

 that upon Ascension-day even, you, or some of you, shall 

 come to the wood of Strayheads, which is in Eskdale-side, 

 and the same (Ascension-day) at sun-rising, and there shall 

 the officer of the abbot blow his horn, to the intent that 

 you may know how to find him, and deliver unto you, 

 William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven street-stowers, and 

 eleven yadders, to be cut with a knife of a penny-piece ; 

 and you, Ralph de Percy, shall take one-and-twenty of 

 each sort, to be cut in the same manner ; and you, Allot- 

 son, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut as aforesaid, and 

 to be taken on your backs and carried to the town of 

 Whitby, and to be there before nine o'clock of the same 

 day before mentioned ; and at the hour of nine o'clock, if 

 it be full sea, to cease their service, as long as till it be low 

 water ; and at nine o'clock of the same day, each of you 

 shall set your stakes at the brim of the water, each stake 

 a yard from another, and so yadder them with your yad- 

 ders ; and to stake them on each side with street-stowers, 

 that they stand three tides without removing by the fores 

 of the water. Each of you shall make at that hour in 

 every year, except it be full sea at that hour, which when 

 it shall happen to come to pass, the service shall cease. 



