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The importance of the
family had thus dwindled, but they still retained the old Saxon
manor-house, with a couple of farms and a grove large enough to
afford pannage to a hundred pigs--"sylva de centum porcis," as
the old family parchments describe it. Above all, the owner of
the soil could still hold his head high as the veritable Socman
of Minstead--that is, as holding the land in free socage, with
no feudal superior, and answerable to no man lower than the king.
Knowing this, Alleyne felt some little glow of worldly pride as
he looked for the first time upon the land with which so many
generations of his ancestors had been associated. He pushed on
the quicker, twirling his staff merrily, and looking out at every
turn of the path for some sign of the old Saxon residence. He
was suddenly arrested, however, by the appearance of a wild-looking
fellow armed with a club, who sprang out from behind a tree and
barred his passage. He was a rough, powerful peasant, with cap
and tunic of untanned sheepskin, leather breeches, and
galligaskins round legs and feet.


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