Round Exton, and
Normanton, and that other Burley on the Hill; on through those Morkery
woods, which still retain the name of Hereward's ill-fated nephew; north
by Irnham and Corby; on to Belton and Syston (_par nobile_), and
southwest again to those still wooded heights, whence all-but-royal
Belvoir looks out over the rich green vale below, did Hereward and his men
range far and wide, harrying the Frenchman, and hunting the dun deer.
Stags there were in plenty. There remain to this day, in Grimsthorpe Park
by Bourne, the descendants of the very deer which Earl Leofric and Earl
Algar, and after them Hereward the outlaw, hunted in the Bruneswald.
Deep-tangled forest filled the lower claylands, swarming with pheasant,
roe, badger, and more wolves than were needed. Broken, park-like glades
covered the upper freestones, where the red deer came out from harbor for
their evening graze, and the partridges and plovers whirred up, and the
hares and rabbits loped away, innumerable; and where hollies and ferns
always gave dry lying for the night. What did men need more, whose bodies
were as stout as their hearts?
They were poachers and robbers; and why not? The deer had once been
theirs, the game, the land, the serfs; and if Godric of Corby slew the
Irnham deer, burned Irnham Hall over the head of the new Norman lord, and
thought no harm, he did but what he would with that which had been once
his own.
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