Utlages, forestiers, latrunculi (robberlets), sicarii, cutthroats,
sauvages, who prided themselves upon sleeping on the bare ground; they
were accursed by the conquerors, and beloved by the conquered. The Norman
viscount or sheriff commanded to hunt them from hundred to hundred, with
hue and cry, horse and bloodhound. The English yeoman left for them a keg
of ale, or a basket of loaves, beneath the hollins green, as sauce for
their meal of "nombles of the dere."
"For hart and hind, and doe and roe,
Were in that forest great plentie,"
and
"Swannes and fesauntes they had full good
And foules of the rivere.
There fayled never so lytell a byrde,
That ever was bred on brere."
With the same friendly yeoman "that was a good felawe," they would lodge
by twos and threes during the sharp frosts of midwinter, in the lonely
farm-house which stood in the "field" or forest-clearing; but for the
greater part of the year their "lodging was on the cold ground" in the
holly thickets, or under the hanging rock, or in a lodge of boughs.
And then, after a while, the life which began in terror, and despair, and
poverty, and loss of land and kin, became not only tolerable, but
pleasant. Bold men and hardy, they cared less and less for
"The thornie wayes, the deep valleys,
The snowe, the frost, the rayne,
The colde, the hete; for dry or wete
We must lodge on the plaine,
And us above, none other roofe,
But a brake bushe, or twayne.
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