All that winter Hugo de Malville had mourned in hopeless grief the loss of his boy—­his only child; but at length grief deepened into one bitter thirst—­a thirst for revenge.

That the Dismal Swamp protected the objects of his hatred from his sword he felt well assured; and had the frost been keen enough to render the marshes penetrable, he would have risked all in a desperate attempt to root out the vermin, as he called the poor natives, from the woods.

But frost alternated with thaw, and snow with rain, and no attempt was likely to be attended with success; so he waited and added compound interest to his thirst for vengeance.

At length set in the dry and fierce winds of which we have spoken, and he felt secure of his prey at last; so preparations were at once made for a grand battle in the marshes.

The keen winds continued, and the scouts reported that the swamp was drier than they had ever seen it before.  At length April arrived, and with its earliest days—­days of bright sunshine—­it was decided to delay no longer, but to explore the marshes with the whole force of the barony, strengthened by recruits from the castles of the neighbouring Norman nobles who willingly lent their aid, and hastened to share the sport dearest of all to the Norman mind.

But one thing was necessary to secure success—­a guide, and how to procure one was the riddle which puzzled Hugo, both by day and night.

No Norman could help them; but might not some Englishmen serve, not as willing tools, but under the compulsion of force and the dread of torture?

There were no English in the domains of the baron; all had fled into the forest who were yet alive.  There were, it is true, native woodmen in other parts of the wilderness; but they were not vassals of Hugo, and one and all had repeatedly disclaimed knowledge of that part of the forest which was to be explored.

In his perplexity Hugo offered great rewards to anyone who would discover any of the former people of Aescendune and bring them before him.

Leaving Hugo and his friends to concert their murderous plans, we must invite the reader to accompany us once more to freedom’s home, the Dismal Swamp.

A council was being held at this selfsame time, which materially assisted the schemes of the baron, although not greatly to his ultimate gratification.

It was held around the fire in the same farmhouse in which poor Eadwin had met his death, and which had now become the headquarters of the outlaws whom Norman tyranny had made.

Wilfred, young although he was, presided—­for was he not the representative of the ancient lords of Aescendune, and those gathered around him the descendants of the men whom his fathers had often led to victory?

On his right sat Haga, the oldest retainer of his house, a man who at the beginning of the century had actually fought with Alfgar against the Danes; on his left, Boom, the ancient forester of the Aescendune woods—­as moderns would say, “the head keeper.”