Doubtless men have been set to see that none from the Saxon homesteads carry the warning to the woods.

The distance is not beyond your reach, for you have often wandered there, and on foot you can evade the eye of the watchers; but one thing, my son, you must promise, and that is, that in no case, should the earl and his bands meet with the outlaws, will you take part in any fray or struggle." "That will I willingly, mother," he said.

"I have no cause for offense against the castle or the forest, and my blood and my kin are with both.
I would fain save shedding of blood in a quarrel like this.

I hope that the time may come when Saxon and Norman may fight side by side, and I may be there to see." A few minutes later, having changed his blue doublet for one of more sober and less noticeable color, Cuthbert started for the great forest, which then stretched to within a mile of Erstwood.

In those days a large part of the country was covered with forest, and the policy of the Normans in preserving these woods for the chase tended to prevent the increase of cultivation.
The farms and cultivated lands were all held by Saxons, who although nominally handed over to the nobles to whom William and his successors had given the fiefs, saw but little of their Norman masters.