them; but, as will appear by our history, this was not at that period
possible. The life of a king and many other lives were in jeopardy,
and the orphans remained at Arnwood, still under the care of their
elderly relation, at the time that our history commences.

The New Forest, my readers are perhaps aware, was first inclosed by
William the Conqueror as a royal forest for his own amusement--for in
those days most crowned heads were passionately fond of the chase; and
they may also recollect that his successor, William Rufus, met his
death in this forest by the glancing of an arrow shot by Sir Walter
Tyrrell. Since that time to the present day it has continued a royal
domain. At the period of which we are writing, it had an establishment
of verderers and keepers, paid by the crown, amounting to some forty
or fifty men. At the commencement of the civil war they remained at
their posts, but soon found, in the disorganized state of the country,
that their wages were no longer to be obtained; and then, when the
king had decided upon raising an army, Beverley, who held a superior
office in the Forest, enrolled all the young and athletic men who were
employed in the Forest, and marched them away with him to join the
king's army. Some few remained, their age not rendering their services
of value, and among them was an old and attached servant of Beverley,
a man above sixty years of age, whose name was Jacob Armitage, and who
had obtained the situation through Colonel Beverley's interest. Those
who remained in the Forest lived in cottages many miles asunder, and
indemnified themselves for the non-payment of their salaries by
killing the deer for sale and for their own subsistence.

The cottage of Jacob Armitage was situated on the skirts of the New
Forest, about a mile and a half from the mansion of Arnwood; and when
Colonel Beverley went to join the king's troops, feeling how little