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."
And there were Sexwulf and Ulf, Tosti and Elfwold, Ernulph and
Ordgar, Oslac and Osgood, Wulfsy and Ringulph, Frithgist and
Wulfgar--men whose names sounded rough and uncouth in Norman ears,
but were familiar enough to the natives.
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