Malvern Chase

Excerpt

I am one of that race which was English before William the Norman conquered our country. One of my ancestors followed Robert of Normandy to the wars of Palestine, and from plain John Birts changed his name to John de Brute. The Roman poet called the great Saxon race from whom we sprang "sea wolves that live on the pillage of the world," and I fear that this was too true of their earlier history; but when the land was conquered, they soon settled down around the villages of the forest glades, or by the banks of the rivers, each settlement being independent of its fellow settlement.