(Qocnell Unioeraitg Cibcacg 
 
 Miftef M^.I, & A,0. Moors. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR4842.H5 1881 
 
 Hereward, the last of the English 
 
 3 1924 013 492 529 
 
PR ■ 
 
 ml 
 
The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013492529 
 
HEREWARD, 
 
 THE lAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
HEREWARD, 
 
 THE LAST OE THE ENGLISH. 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY, 
 
 ADTEOR OP "two TEAfiS AGO," m. 
 
 WSW EDITION. 
 
 ^tb fork; 
 MACMILLAN AITD CO. 
 
 1881. 
 
k H-0 K (■ 
 
 2-*^- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pads 
 
 PRELUDE 1 
 
 Ghafter 
 
 I. How Hereward was obtlawbd, and went North to seek 
 
 HIS Fortunes 11 
 
 II. How Hereward slew the Bear 86 
 
 III. How Hekewakd succored a Princess of Cornwall . . 46 
 
 IV. How Hereward took Service with Ranald, Kinq op Wa- 
 
 TERFORD 62 
 
 V. How Hereward succored the Princess of Cornwall a 
 
 second Time 73 
 
 VI. How Hereward was wrecked upon the Flanders Shore 80 
 
 Vn. How Hereward went to the War at Guisnes ... 92 
 VO. How a fair Lady exercised the Mechanical Art to win 
 
 Hereward's Love 97 
 
 IX. How Hereward went to the War in Scaldmariland . 102 
 
 X. How Hereward won the Magic Armor .... 108 
 
 XI. How the Hollanders took Hereward for a Magician 119 
 
 Xn. How Hereward turned Berserk 120 
 
 XIII. How Hereward won Mare Swallow .... 126 
 
 XIV. How Hereward rode into Bruges like a Begoar-Man . 133 
 XV. How Earl Tosti Godwinsson came to St. Omer . . 138 
 
 XVT. How Hereward was asked to slay an old Comrade . 147 
 XVII. How Hereward took the News from Stanford Beigg 
 
 AND Hastings 154 
 
 XVIII. How Earl Godwin's Widow came to St. Omek . . 163 
 
 XIX., How Hereward cleared Bourne op Frenchmen . . 176 
 XX. How Hereward was made a Knight after the Fashion 
 
 OF the English 187 
 
 XXI. How Ivo Taillebois marched out of Spalding Town . 198 
 
 XXU. How Hereward sailed for England once and for all . 206 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 XXIII. How Hekewaed gatheked an Abmt . • . .211 
 
 XXIV. How Archbishop Aldred died op Soekow. . . 226 
 XXV. How Hekewakd found a wiser Mau in England than 
 
 HiMSELE 230 
 
 XXVI. How Herbwaed fulfilled his Woeds to the Pkior 
 
 OP the Golden Bokough 239 
 
 XXVII. How. they held a gkeat Meeting in the Hall of Elt 258 
 
 XXVIII. How thet fought at Aldreth 263 
 
 XXIX. How Sir Dade brought News from Ely ... 269 
 XXX. How Heeeward plated the Potter ; and how he 
 
 CHEATED THE EiNO 275 
 
 XXXI. How they fought again at Aldreth .... 287 
 
 XXXII. How King William took Counsel of a Churchman . 293 
 
 XXXHI. How THE Monks of Ely did after their Kind. . 305 
 
 XXXIV. How Hereward went to the Greenwood . . . 314 
 
 XXXV. How Abbot Thorold was put to Ransom ... 323 
 
 XXXVI. How Alftruda wkote to Hereward .... 333 
 
 XXXVII. How Hereward lost Sword Brain-biteb . . . 352 
 
 XXXVni. How Heeeward came in to the King .... 356 
 
 XXXIX. How ToRFRiDA confessed rHAT SHE had been inspired 
 
 by the. Devil 363 
 
 XL. How Heeeward began to get his Soul's Prick . 368 
 
 Xl,I. How Earl Waltheof was made a Saint . . . 379 
 
 XLII. How Hereward got the Rest op his Soul's Price . 382 
 
 XLIIL How Deeping Fen was drained S84 
 
HEREWARD, 
 
 THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 PRELUDE, 
 
 The heroic deeds of Highlanders, both in these islands and 
 elsewhere, have beeii told in verse and prose, and not more often, 
 nor more loudly, than they deserve. But we must remember, 
 now and then, that there have been heroes likewise in the low- 
 land and in the fen. Why, however, poets have so seldom sung 
 of them ; why no historian, save Mr. Motley in his " Rise of the 
 Datch Republic," has condescended to tell the tale of their doughty 
 deeds, is a question not difficult to answer. 
 
 In the first place, they have been fewer in number. The low- 
 lands of the world, being the richest spots, have been generally 
 the soonest conquered, the soonest civilized, and therefore the 
 soonest taken out of the sphere of romance and wild adventure, 
 into that of order and law, hard work and common sense, as well 
 as — too often — into the sphere of slavery, cowardice, luxury, 
 and ignoble greed. The lowland populations, for the same reasons, 
 have been generally the first to deteriorate, though not on account 
 of the vices of civilization. The vices of incivilization are far 
 worse, and far more destructive of human life ; and it is just be- 
 cause they are so, that rude tribes deteriorate physically less than 
 polished nations. In the savage struggle for life, none but the 
 strongest, healthiest, cunningest, have a chance of living, prosper- 
 ing, and propagating their race. In the civilized state, on the 
 contrary, the weakliest and the silliest, protected by law, religion, 
 and humanity, have chance likewise, and transmit to their offspring 
 their own weakliness or silliness. In these islands, for instance, at 
 the time of the Norman Conquest, the average of man was doubt- 
 less superior, both in body and mind, to the average of man now, 
 simply because the weaklings could not have lived at all ; and tlie 
 rich and delicate beauty, in which the women of the Eastern 
 Counties still surpass all other races in these isles, was doubtless 
 far more common in proportion to the numbers of the population. 
 
 ^1 A 
 
2 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Another reason — and one which every Scot will understand — 
 why lowland heroes " carent vate sacro," is that the lowlands and 
 those who live in them are wanting in the poetic a -d romantic 
 elements. There is in the lowland none of that background of 
 the unknown, fan'atitic, magical, terrible, perpetually feeding curi- 
 osity and wonder, which still remains in the Scottish highlands ; 
 which, when it disappears from thence, will remain embalm ej for- 
 ever in the pages of Walter Scott. Against that half-magical 
 background his heroes stand out in vivid relief; and justly so. It 
 was not put there by him for stage purposes ; it was there as a 
 fact ; and the men of whom he wrote were conscious of it, were 
 moulded by it, were not ashamed of its influence. Nature among 
 the mountains is too fierce, too strong, for man. He cannot con- 
 quer her, and she awes him. He cannot dig down the cliffs, or 
 chain the storm-blasts ; and his fear of them takes bodily shape : 
 he begins to people the weird places of the earth with weird 
 beings, and sees nixes in the dark linns as he fishes by night, 
 dwarfs in the caves where he digs, half-trembling, morsels of cop- 
 per and iron for his weapons, witches and demons on tlie snow- 
 blast which overwhelms his herd and his hut, and in the dark 
 clouds which brood on the untrodden mountain-peak. He lives 
 in fear : and yet, if he be a valiant-hearted jnan, his fears do him 
 little harm. They may break out, at times, in witch-manias, with 
 all their horrible suspicions, and thus breed cruelty, which is the 
 child of fear: but on the whole they rather produce in man 
 thougbtfulness, reverence, a sense, confused yet precious, of the 
 boundless importance of the unseen world. His superstitions de- 
 velop his imagination ; the moving accidents of a wild life call 
 out in him sympathy and pathos ; and the mountaineer becomes 
 instinctively a poet. 
 
 The lowlander, on the other hand, has his own strength, his 
 own " virtues, " or manfulnesses, in the good old sense of the 
 word : but they are not for the most part picturesque or evt- n 
 poetical. 
 
 He finds out, soon enough for his weal and his bane, that he is 
 stronger than Nature: and right tyrannously and irreverently he 
 lords it over her, clearing, delving, diking, building, without fear 
 or shame. He knows of no natural force greater than himsulf, 
 save an occasional thunder-storm ; and against tliat, as he grows 
 more cunning, he insures his crops. Why should he reverence 
 Nature? Let him use her, and eat. One cannot blame him. 
 Man was sent into the world (so says the Scripture) to fill and 
 subdue the earth. But he was sent into the world for other pur 
 poses, which the lowlander is but too apt to forget. With tuo 
 awe of Nature, the awe of the unseen dies out in him. Meerui" 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 3 
 
 with no viuible superior, he is apt to become not merely unpoeti- 
 cal and irreverent, but somewhat of a sensualist and an atheist. 
 The sense of the beautiful dies out in him more and more. He 
 has little or nothing around him to refine or lift up his soul ; and 
 unless he meet with a religion, and with a civilization, which can 
 deliver him, he may sink into that duU brutality which is too 
 common among the lowest classes of the English lowlands ; and 
 remain for generations gifted with the strength and industry of 
 the ox, and with the courage of the lion, and, alas ! with the intel- 
 lect of the former, and the self-restraint of the latter. 
 
 But there may be a period in the history of a lowland race 
 when they, too, become historic for a while. There was such a 
 period for the men of the Eastern Counties ; for they proved it 
 by their deeds. 
 
 .When the men of Wesses, the once conquering race of Britain, 
 fell at Hastings once and for all, and struck no second blow, then 
 the men of the Danelagh disdained to yield to the Norman in- 
 vader. For seven long years they held their own, not knowing, 
 like^true Englishmen, when they were beaten ; and fought on 
 desperate, till there were none left to flght. Their bones lay white 
 on every island' in the fens; their corpses rotted on gallows 
 beneath every Norman keep ; their few survivors crawled into 
 monasteries, with eyes picked out, or hands and feet cut off; or 
 took to the wild wood as strong outlaws, like their successors and 
 representatives, Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John, Adam Bell, and 
 Clym of the Cleugh, and William of Cloudeslee. But they never 
 really bent their necks to the Norman yoke ; they kept alive in 
 their hearts that proud spirit of personal independence, which 
 they brought with them from the moors of Denmark and the 
 dales of Norway ; and they kept alive, too, though in abeyance 
 for a while, those free institutions which were without a doubt the 
 germs of our British liberty. 
 
 They were a changed folk since first they settled in that Dane- 
 lagh ; — since first in the days of King Beorhtric, " in the year 
 787, three ships "of Northmen came from Hasretha land, and the 
 King's reeve rode to the place, and would have driven them up 
 to the King's town, for he knew not what men they were: but 
 they slew him there and then " ; and after the Saxons and Angles 
 began to find out to their bitter bale what men they were, those 
 fierce Vikings out of the dark northeast. 
 
 But they had long ceased to burn farms, sack convents, torture 
 monks for gold, and slay every human being they met, in mere 
 Berserker lust of blood. No Barnakill could now earn his nick- 
 name by entreating his comrades, as they tossed the children on 
 iheir spear-points, to " Na kill the barns." Gradually they had 
 
4 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 settled down on the land, intermarried with the Anglei? and 
 Saxona, and colonized all England north and east of Watling 
 Street (a rough line from London to Chester), and the eastern 
 lowlands of Scotland likewise. Gradually they had deserted Thor 
 and Odin for " the White Christ " ; had their own priests and 
 bishops, and built their own minsters. The convents which the 
 fathers had destroyed, the sons, or at least the grandsons, rebuilt; 
 and often, casting away sword and axe, they entered them as 
 monks themselves; and Peterborough; Ely, and above all Crow- 
 land, destroyed by them in Alfred's time with a horrible destruc- 
 tion, had become their holy places, where they decked the altars 
 with gold and jewels, with silks from the far East, and furs from 
 the far North ; and where, as in sacred fortresses, they, and the 
 liberty of England with them, made their last unavailing stand. 
 
 For a while they had been lords of all England. The Anglo- 
 Saxon race was wearing out. The men of Wessex, priest-ridden, 
 and enslaved by their own aristocracy, quailed before the free 
 Norsemen, among whom was not a single serf. The God-de- 
 scended line of Cerdic and Alfred was worn out. Vain, incapable, 
 profligate kings, the tools of such prelates as Odo and Dunstan, 
 were no match for such wild heroes as Thorkill the tall, or Olaf 
 Trygvasson, or Swend Forkbeard. The Danes had gradually 
 colonized, not only their own Danelagh and Northumbria, but 
 great part of Wessex. Vast sums of Danegelt were yearly 
 sent out of the country to buy off the fresh invasions which were 
 perpetually threatened. Then Ethelred the Unready, Ethelred 
 Evil-counsel, advised himself to fulfil his name, and the curse 
 which Dunstan had pronounced against him at the baptismal font. 
 By his counsel the men of Wessex rose against the unsuspecting 
 Danes ; and on St. Brice's eve, A. D. 1002, murdered them all 
 with tortures, man, woman, and child. It may be that 4hey only 
 did to the children as the fathers had done to them : but the deed 
 was " worse than a crime ; it was a mistake." The Danes of the 
 Danelagh and of Northumbria, their brothers of Denmark and 
 Norway, the Orkneys and the east coast of Ireland, remained 
 unharmed. A mighty host of Vikings poured from thence into 
 England the very next year, under Swend Forkbeard and the 
 great Canute ; and after thirteen fearful campaigns came the great 
 battle of Assingdown in Essex, — where " Canute had the victory ; 
 and all the English nation fought against him ; and all the nobility 
 of the English race was there destroyed." 
 
 That same year saw the mysterious death of Edmund Iron- 
 side, the last man of Cerdic's race worthy of the name. For the 
 next twenty-five years, Danish -kings ruled from the Forth to 
 the Land's End. 
 
HEEEWARD. THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 5 
 
 A uoble figure he was, that great and wise Canute, the friend 
 of tL 3 famous Godiva, and Leofric, Godiva's husband, and Si- 
 ward Biorn, the conqueror of Macbeth : trying to expiate by jus- 
 tice and mercy the dark deeds of his bloodstained youth ; trying 
 (and not in vain) to blend the two races over which he ruled ; 
 rebuilding the churches and monasteries which his father had de- 
 stroyed; bringing back in state to Canterbury the, body of Arch- 
 bishop Elphege, — not unjustly called by the Saxons martyr and 
 saint, — whom Tall Thorkill's men had murdered with beef bones 
 and ox-skulls, because he would not give up to them the money 
 destined for God's poor ; rebuking, as every child has heard, his 
 housecarles' flattery by setting his chair on the brink of the ris- 
 ing tide ; and then laying his golden crown, in token of humility, 
 on the high altar of Winchester, never to wear it more. In 
 Winchester lie his bones unto this day, or what of them the civil 
 wars have left : and by him lie the bones of his son Hardicanute, 
 in whom, as in his half-brother Harold Harefoot before him, the 
 Danish power fell to swift decay, by insolence and drink and 
 civil war ; and with the Danish power England fell to pieces 
 likewise. 
 
 Canute had divided England into four great earldoms, each 
 ruled, under him, by a jarl, or earl, a Danish, not a Saxon title. 
 
 At his death in 1036, the earldoms of Northumbria and East 
 Anglia — the more strictly Danish parts — were held by a true 
 Danish hero, Siward Biorn, alias Digre the Stout, conqueror of 
 Macbeth, and son of the fairy bear ; proving his descent, men 
 said,' by his pointed and hairy ears. 
 
 Mercia, the great central plateau of England, was held by Earl 
 Leofric, husband of tBe famous Lady Godiva. 
 
 Wessex, which Canute had at first kept in his own hands, had 
 passed into those of the furious Earl Godwin, the then ablest 
 man in England. Possessed of boundless tact and cunning, 
 gifted with an eloquence which seems, from the accounts remain- 
 ing of it, to have been rather that of a Greek than an English- 
 man ; himself of high — perhaps of royal — Sussex blood (for the 
 story of his low birth seems a mere fable of his French enemies), 
 and married first to Canute's sister, and then to his niece, he was 
 fitted, alike by fortunes and by talents, to be the king-maker 
 which he became. 
 
 Such a system may have worked well as long as the brain of 
 a hero was there to overlook it all. But when that brain was 
 turned to dust, the history of England became, till the Norman 
 Conquest, little more than the history of the rivalries of the two 
 great houses of Godwin and Leofric. 
 
 Leofric had the first success in king-making. He, though 
 
6 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 bearing a Saxon name, was the champion o*" the Danish party 
 and of Canute's son, or reputed son, Harola Harefoot ; and he 
 succeeded, by the help of the " Thanes north of Thames," and the 
 " lithsmen of London," which city was more than half Danish in 
 those days, in setting his puppet on the throne. But the blood 
 of Canute had exhausted itself. Within seven years Harold 
 Harefoot and Hardicanute, who , succeeded him, had died as 
 foully as they lived; and Godwin's turn had come. 
 
 He, though married to a Danish princess, and acknowledging 
 his Danish connection by the Norse names which were borne by 
 his three most famous sons, Harold, Sweyn, and Tostig, consti 
 tuted himself the champion of the men of Wessex and the house 
 of Cerdic. He had murdered, or at least caused to be murdered, 
 horribly, Alfred the Etheling, King Ethelred's son and heir- 
 apparent, when it seemed his interest to support the claims of 
 Hardicanute against Harefoot ; he now found little difficulty in 
 persuading his victim's younger brother to come to England, and 
 become at once his king, his son-in-law and his puppet. 
 
 Edward the Confessor, if we are to believe the monks whom 
 he pampered, was naught but virtue and piety, meekness and 
 magnanimity,- — a model ruler of men. Such a model ruler he 
 was, doubtless, as monks would be glad to see on every throne ; 
 because while he rules his subjects, they rule him. No wonder, 
 therefore, that (according to William of Malmesbury) the happi- 
 ness of his times (famed as he was both for miracles and the 
 spirit of prophecy) " was revealed in a dream to Brithwin, Bishop 
 of Wilton, who made it public " ; who, meditating, in King Ca- 
 nute's time, on " the near extinction of the royal race of the Eng- 
 lish," was " rapt up on high, and saw St. Peter consecrating 
 Edward king. His chaste life also was pointed out, and the 
 exact period of his reign (twenty-four years) determined ; and, 
 when inquiring about his posterity, it was answered, ' The king- 
 dom of the English belongs to God. After you. He will provide 
 a king according to his pleasure.' " But those who will look at 
 the facts will see in the holy Confessor's character little but what 
 is pitiable, and in his reign little but what is tragical. 
 
 Civil wars, invasions, outlawry of Godwin and his sons by the 
 Danish party ; then of Alfgar, Leofric's son, by the Saxon party ; 
 the outlaws on either side attacking and plundering the English 
 shores by the help of Norsemen, Welshmen, Irish, and Danes, — 
 any mercenaries who could be got together; and then, — "In the 
 same year Bishop Aldred consecrated the minster at Glouces- 
 ter to the glory of God and of St. Peter, and then went to Jeru- 
 salem with such splendor as no man had displayed before him " ; 
 and so forth. The sum and substance of what was done in those 
 
HEREAVAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 7 
 
 " happy times ". may be well described in the words of the Anglo- 
 Saxon chronicler for the year 1058. " This year AHgar the earl 
 was banished ; but he came in again with violence, through aid 
 of Griffin (the king of North Wales, his brother-in-law). And 
 this year came a fleet from Norway. It is tedious to tell how 
 these matters went." These were the normal phenomena of a 
 reign which seemed, to the eyes of monks, a holy and a happy 
 - one ; because the king refused, whether from spite or supersti- 
 tion, to have an heir to the house of Cerdic, and spent his time be- 
 tween prayer, hunting, the seeing of fancied visions, the uttering 
 of fancied prophecies, an.d the performance of fancied miracles. 
 
 But there were excuses for him. An Englishman only in 
 name, — a Norman, not only of his mother's descent (she was aunt 
 of William the Conqueror), but by his early education on the 
 Continent, — he loved the Norman better than the Englishman ; 
 Norman knights and clerks filled his court, and often the high 
 dignities of his provinces, and returned as often as expelled ; the 
 Norman-French language became fashionable ; Norman customs 
 and manners the signs of civilization ; and thus all was prepar- 
 ing steadily for the great catastrophe, by which, within a year of 
 Edward's death, the Norman became master of the land. 
 
 Perhaps it ought to have been so. Perhaps by no other 
 method could England, and, with England, Scotland, and in due 
 time Ireland, have become partakers of that classic civilization 
 and learning, the fount whereof, for good and for evil, was Rome 
 and the Pope of Rome : but the method was at least wicked ; tlie 
 actors in it tyrannous, brutal, treacherous, hypocritical ; and the 
 conquest of England by William will remain to the end of time 
 a mighty crime, abetted — one may almost say made possible, as 
 too many such crimes have been before and since — by the in- 
 triguing ambition of the Pope of Rome. 
 
 Against that tyranny the free men of the Danelagh and of 
 Northumbi-ia rose. If Edward, the descendant of Cerdic, had 
 been little to them, William, the descendant of Eollo, was still 
 less. That French-speaking knights should expel them from 
 their homes, French-chanting monks from their convents, be- 
 cause Edward had promised the crown of England to William, 
 his foreign cousin, or because Harold Godwinsson of Wessex had 
 sworn on the relics of all the saints to be William's man, was 
 contrary to their common-sense of right and reason. 
 
 So they rose and fought: too late, itnx^iy be, and without unity 
 or purpose ; and they were worsted by an enemy who had both 
 unity and purpose ; whom superstition, greed, and feudal disci- 
 pline kept together, at least in England, in one compact body of 
 unscrupulous and terrible confederates. 
 
8 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 But theirs was a land worth fighting for, — a good land and 
 large : from Humber mouth inland to the Trent and merry Sher- 
 wood, across to Chester and the Dee, round by Leicester and tlie 
 five burghs of the Danes ; eastward again to Huntingdon and 
 Cambridge (then a poor village on the site of an old Roman 
 town) ; and then northward again into the wide fens, the land of • 
 the Girvii and the Eormingas, " the children of the peat-bog," 
 where the great central plateau of England slides into the sea, to 
 form, from the rain and river washings of eight shires, lowlands 
 of a fertility inexhaustible, because ever-growing to this day. 
 
 They have a beauty of their own, those great fens, even now, 
 when they are diked and drained, tilled and fenced, — a beauty 
 as of the sea, of boundless expanse and freedom. Much more 
 had they that beauty eight hundred years ago, when they were 
 still, for the most part, as God had made them, or rather was 
 making them even then. The low rolling uplands were clothed 
 in primeval forest : oak and ash, beech and elm, with here and 
 there, perhaps, a group of ancient pines, ragged and decayed, and 
 fast dying out in England even then ; thoiigh lingering still in 
 the forests of the Scotch highlands. 
 
 Between the forests were open wolds, dotted with white sheep 
 and golden gorse ; rolhng plains of rich though ragged turf, 
 whether cleared by the hand of man or by the wild fires which 
 often swept over the hills. And between the wood and the wold 
 stood many a Danish " town," with its clusters of low straggling 
 buildings round the holder's house, stone or mud below, and 
 wood above ; its high dikes round tiny fields ; its flocks of sheep 
 ranging on the wold ; its herds of swine in the forest ; and below, 
 a more precious possession still, — its. herds of mares and colts, 
 which fed with the cattle in the rich grass-fen. 
 
 For always, from the foot of the wolds, the green flat stretched 
 away, illimitable, to an horizon where, from the roundness of the 
 earth, the distant trees and islands were hulled down like ships 
 at sea. The firm horse-fen lay, bright green, along the foot of 
 the wold ; beyond it, the browner peat, or deep fen ; and amon" 
 it, dark velvet alder beds, long lines of reed-rond, emerald in 
 spring, and golden under the autumn sun ; shining river-reaches ; 
 broad meres dotted with a million fowl, while the cattle waded 
 along their edges after the rich sedge-grass, or wallowed in the 
 mire through the hot summer's day. Here and there, too, upon 
 the far horizon, rose a tall hue of ashen trees, marking some 
 island of firm rich soil. Here and there, too, as at Ramsey and 
 Crowland, the huge ashes had disappeared before the axes of the 
 monks, and a minster tower rose over the' fen, amid orchards, 
 gardens, cornfields, pastures, with here and there a tree left 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 9 
 
 standing for shade, — " Painted with flowers in the spring," with 
 "pleasant shores embosomed in still lakes," as the monk-chroni- 
 cler of lUmsey has it, those islands seemed to such as the monk 
 terrestrial paradises. 
 
 Overhead the arch of heaven spread more ample than else- 
 where, as over the open sea ; and that vastness gave, and still 
 gives, such " effects " of cloudland, of sunrise, and sunset, a* can 
 be seen nowhere else within these isles. They might well have 
 been star-worshippers, those Girvii, had their sky been as clear 
 as that of the East: but they were like to have worshipped the 
 clouds rather than the stars, according to the too universal law, 
 that mankind worship the powers which do them harm, rather 
 than the powers which do them good. 
 
 And therefore the Danelagh men, who feared not mortal sword 
 or axe, feared witches, ghosts. Pucks, Will-o'-the- Wisps, were- 
 wolves, spirits of the wells and of the trees, and all dark, capricious, 
 and harmful beings whom their fancy conjured up out of the wild, 
 wet, and unwholesome marshes, or the dark wolf-haunted woods. 
 For that fair land, like all things on earth, had its darker aspect. 
 The foul exhalations of autumn called up fever and ague, crippling 
 and enervating, and tempting, almost compelling, to that wild and 
 desperate drinking which was the Scandinavian's special sin. 
 Dark and sad were those short autumn days, when all the dis- 
 tances were shut off, and the air choked with foul brown fog and 
 drenching rains from off the eastern sea ; and pleasant the burst- 
 ing forth of the keen northeast wind, with all its whirling snow- 
 storms. For though it sent men hurrying out into the storraj to 
 drive the cattle in from the fen, and lift the sheep out of the snow- 
 wreaths, and now and then never to return, lost in mist and mire, 
 in ice and snow ; — yet all knew that after the snow would come 
 the keen frost and the bright sun and cloudless blue sky, and the 
 fenman's yearly holiday, when, work being impossible, all gave 
 themselves up to play, and swarmed upon the ice on skates and 
 sledges, and ran races, township against township, or visited old 
 friends full forty miles away ; and met everywhere faces as bright 
 and ruddy as their own, cheered by the keen wine of that dry 
 and bracing frost. 
 
 Such was the Fenland ; hard, yet cheerful ; rearing a race of 
 hard and cheerful men ; showing their power in old times in 
 valiant fighting, and for many a century since in that valiant 
 industry which has drained and embanked the land of the Girvii, 
 till it has become a very " Garden of the Lord." And the Scots- 
 man who may look from the promontory of Peterborough, the 
 " golden borough " of old time ; or from the tower of Crowland, 
 while Hereward and Torfrida sleep in the ruined nave beneath ; 
 1* 
 
10 HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 or from the heights of that Isle of Ely which was so long " the 
 camp of refuge " for English freedom ; over the labyrinth of dikes 
 and lodes, the squares of rich corn and verdure, — will confess 
 that the lowland, as well as, the highland, can at times breed 
 gallant men.* 
 
 * The story of Hereward (often sung by minstrels and old-wives in succeed- 
 ing generations) may be found in the " Metrical Chronicle of Geoffrey Gaimar," 
 and in the prose " Life of Hereward" (paraphrased from that written by Leofric, 
 his house-priest), and in the valuable fragment " Of the family of Hereward." 
 These have all three been edited by Mr. T. Wright. Tlie account of Hereward 
 in Ingulf seems taken, and that carelessly, from the same source as the Latin 
 prose, " De Gestis Herewardi." A few curious details may be found in Peter of 
 Blois's continuation of Ingulf; and more, concerning the sack of Peterborough, 
 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. I have followed the contemporary authorities as 
 closely as I could, introducing little but what was necessary to reconcile dis- 
 crepancies, or to illustrate the history, manners, and sentiments of the time. — 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOW HEKEWARD WAS OUTLAWED, AND WENT NORTH TO SEEK 
 HIS FORTUNES. 
 
 Known to all is Lady Godiva, the most beautiful as well as 
 the most saintly woman of her day ; who, " all her life, kept at 
 her own expense thirteen poor folk wherever she went ; who, 
 throughout Lent, watched in the church at triple matins, namely, 
 one for the Trinity, one for the Cross, and one for St. Mary ; who 
 every day read the Psalter through, and so persevered in good 
 and holy works to her life's end," — the " devoted friend of St. 
 Mary, ever a virgin," who enriched monasteries without number, 
 — Leominster, Wenlock, Chester, St. Mary's Stow by Lincoln, 
 Worcester, Evesham ; and who, above all, founded the great 
 monastery in that town of Coventry, which has made her name 
 immortal for another and a far nobler deed ; and enriched it so 
 much " that no monastery in England possessed such abundance 
 of gold, silver, jewels, and precious stones," beside that most 
 precious jewel of all, the arm of St. Augustine, which not Lady 
 Godiva, but her friend, Archbishop Ethelnoth, presented to Cov- 
 entry, "having bought it at Pavia for a hundred talents of silver 
 and a talent of gold."* 
 
 . Less known, save to students, is her husband, Leofric the great 
 Earl of Mercia and Chester, whose bones lie by those of Godiva 
 in that same minster of Coventry ; how " his counsel was as if 
 one had opened the Divine oracles " ; very " wise," says the 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, " for God and for the world, which was a 
 blessing to all this nation " ; the greatest man, save his still greater 
 rival. Earl Godwin, in Edward the Confessor's court. 
 
 Less known, again, are the children of that illustrious pair : 
 Algar, or Alfgar, Earl of Mercia after his father, who died, after 
 a short and stormy life, leaving two sons, Edwin and Morcar, the 
 fair and hapless young earls, always spoken of together, as if they 
 had been twins ; a daughter, AJdytha, or Elfgiva, married first 
 (according to some) to Griffin, King of North Wales, and certainly 
 afterwards to Harold, King of England ; and another, Lucia (as 
 
 * William of Malmesbury. 
 
12 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 the Normans at least called her), whose fate was, if possiblb, 
 more sad than that of her brothers. 
 
 Their second son was Hereward, whose history this tale sets 
 forth ; their third and youngest, a boy whose name is unknown. 
 
 They had, probably, another daughter beside ; married, it may 
 be, to some son of Leofric's stanch friend old Siward Biorn, the 
 Viking Earl of Northumberland, and conqueror of Macbeth ; and 
 the mother, may be, of the two young Siwards, the " white " and 
 the " red," who figure in chronicle and legend as the nephews of 
 Hereward. But this pedigree is little more than a conjecture. 
 
 Be these things as they may, Godiva was the greatest lady in 
 England, save two: Edith, Harold's sister, the nominal wife of 
 Edward the Confessor ; and Githa, or Gyda, as her own Danes 
 called her, Harold's mother, niece of Canute the Great. Great 
 was Godiva ; and might have been proud enough, had she been 
 inclined to that pleasant sin. And even then (for there is a 
 skeleton, they say, in every house) she carried that about her 
 which might well keep her humble ; namely, shame at the mis- 
 conduct of Hereward, her son. 
 
 Her favorite residence, among the many manors and " viUas," 
 or farms which Leofric possessed, was neither the stately hall at 
 Loughton by Bridgenorth, nor the statelier castle of Warwick, 
 but the house of Boume in South Lincolnshire, between the great 
 woods of the Bruneswald and the great level of the fens. It may 
 have been her own paternal dowry, and have come down to her 
 in right of her Danish ancestors, and that great and " magnificent " 
 Jarl Oslac, from whom she derived her all-but-royal blood. This 
 is certain, that Leofric, her husband, went in East Anglia by the 
 name of Leofric, Lord of Bourne ; that, as Domesday Book testi- 
 fies, his son Alfgar, and his grandson Morcar, held large lands 
 there and thereabout. Alfgar's name, indeed, still lives in the 
 village of Algar-Kirk ; and Lady Godiva, and Algar after her, 
 enriched with great gifts Crowland, the island sanctuary, and 
 Peterborough, where Brand, either her brother or Leofric's, was a 
 monk, and in due time an abbot. 
 
 The house of Bourne, as far as it can be reconstructed by 
 imagination, was altogether unlike one of the tall and gloomy 
 Norman castles which twenty years later reared their evil donjons 
 over England. It was much more like a house in a Chinese 
 painting; an irregular group of low buildings, almost all of one 
 story, stone below and timber above, with high-peaked roofs, — at 
 least in the more Danish country, — affording a separate room, or 
 rather house, for each different need of the family. Such a one 
 may be seen in the illuminations of the century. In the centre of 
 the building is the hall, with door or doors opening out into the 
 
■ HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 13 
 
 court ; and sitting thereat, at the top of a flight of steps, the lord 
 and lady, dealing clothes to the na;ked and bread to the hungry. 
 On one side of the hall is a chapel ; by it a large room or " bower " 
 for the ladies ; behind the hall a round tower, seemingly the strong 
 place of the whole house ; on the other side a kitchen ; and stuck 
 on to bower, kitchen, and every other principal building, lean-to 
 after lean-to, the uses of which it is impossible now to discover. 
 The house had grown with the wants of the family, ■_ — as many 
 good old English houses have done to this day. Round it would 
 be scattered barns and stables, in which grooms and herdsmen 
 slept side by side with their own horses and cattle ; and outside 
 all, the " yard," " garth," or garden-fence, high earth-bank with 
 palisades on top, which formed a strong defence in time of war. 
 Such was most probably the " villa," " ton," or " town " of Earl 
 Leofric, the Lord of Bourne, the favorite residence of Godiva, — ■ 
 once most beautiful, and still most holy, according to the holiness 
 of tltose old times. 
 
 Now on a day — about the year 1054 — while Earl Siward 
 was helping to bring Birnam wood to Dunsinane, to avenge his 
 murdered brother-in-law, Lady Godiva sa,t, not at her hall door, 
 dealing food and clothing to her thirteen poor folk, but in her 
 bower, with her youngest son, a two-years' boy, at her knee. She 
 was listening with a face of shame and horror to the complaint of 
 Herluin, Steward of Peterborough, who had fallen in that after- 
 noon with Hereward and his crew of " housecarles." 
 
 To keep a following of stout housecarles, or men-at-arms, was 
 the pride as well as the duty of an Anglo-Danisli Lord, as it wasj 
 till lately, of a Scoto-Danish Highland Laird. And Hereward, 
 in imitation of his father and his elder brother, must needs have 
 his following from the time he was but fifteen years old. All the 
 unruly youths of the neighborhood, sons of free " holders," who 
 owed some sort of military service to Earl Leofric; Geri his 
 cousin ; Winter, whom he called his brother-in-arms ; the Wul- 
 frics, the Wulfards, the Azers, and many another wild blade, had 
 banded themselves round a young nobleman more unruly than 
 themselves. Their names were already a terror to all decent folk, 
 at wakes and fairs, alehouses and village sports. They atoned, 
 be it remembered, for their early sins by making those names in 
 after years a terror to the invaders of their native land : but as 
 yet their prowess was limited to drunken brawls and faction- 
 fights ; to upsetting old women at their work, levying blax;k-mail 
 from quiet chapmen on the high road, or bringing back in triumph, 
 sword in hand and club on shoulder, their leader Hereward from 
 Bome duel which his insolence had provoked. 
 
 But this time, if the story of the sub-prior was to be believed. 
 
14 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Hereward and his housecarles had taken an ugly stride forward 
 toward the pit. They had met him riding along, intent upon his 
 psalter, in a lonely path of the Bruneswald, — " whereon your son, 
 most gracious lady, bade me stand, saying that his men were 
 thirsty and he had no money to buy ale withal, and none so likely 
 to help him thereto as a fat priest, — for so he scandalously termed 
 me, who, as your ladyship knows, am leaner than the minster 
 bell-ropes, with fasting Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the 
 year, beside the vigils of the saints, and the former and latter 
 Lents. 
 
 " But when he saw who I was, as if inspired by a malignant 
 spirit, he shouted out my name, and bade his companions throw 
 me to the ground." 
 
 " Throw you to the ground ? " shuddered the Lady Godiva. 
 
 " In much mire, madam. After which he took my palfrey, 
 saying that heaven's gate was too lowly for men on horseback to 
 get in thereat ; and then my marten's fur gloves and cape \v4iich 
 your gracious self bestowed on me, alleging that the rules of my 
 order allowed only one garment, and no furs save catskins and 
 such like. And lastly — I tremble while I relate, thinking not of 
 the loss of my poor money, but the loss of an immortal soul — • 
 took from me a purse with sixteen silver pennies, which I had 
 collected from our tenants for the use of the monastery, and said, 
 blasphemously, that I and mine had swindled your ladyship, and 
 therefore him, your son, out of many a fair manor ere now ; and 
 it was but fair that he should tithe the rents thereof, as he should 
 never get the lands out of our claws again ; with more of the 
 like, which I blush to repeat, — and so left me to trudge hither in 
 the mire." 
 
 " Wretched boy ! " said the Lady Godiva, and hid her face in 
 her hands ; " and more wretched I, to have brought such a son 
 into the world ! " > 
 
 The monk had hardly finished his doleful story, when there 
 was a pattering of heavy feet, a noise of men shouting and laugh- 
 ing outside, and a voice, above all, calling for the monk by name, 
 which made that good man crouch behind the curtain of Lady 
 Godiva's bed. The next moment the door of the bower was 
 thrown violently open, and in walked, or rather reeled, a noble 
 lad eighteen years old. His face was of extraordinary beauty, 
 save that the lower jaw was too long and heavy, and that his 
 eyes wore a stiange and almost sinister expression, from the fact 
 that the one of them was gray and the other blue. He was 
 short, but of immense breadth of chest and strength of limb ; 
 while his delicate hands and feet and long locks of golden hair 
 marked him of most noble, and even, as he really was, of ancient 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 15 
 
 royal race. He was dressed in a gaudy costume, resembling on 
 the whole that of a Highland chieftain. His knees, wrists, and 
 throat were tattoed in bright blue patterns ; and he carried 
 Bword and dagger, a gold ring round his neck, and gold rings 
 on his wrists. He was a lad to have gladdened the eyes of any 
 mother : but there was no gladness in the Lady Godiva's eyes as 
 she received him ; nor had there been for many a year. She 
 looked on him with sternness, — with all but horror ; and he, his 
 face flushed with wine, which he had tossed off as he passed 
 through the hall to steady his nerves for the coming storm, 
 looked at her with smiling defiance, the result of long estrange- 
 ment between mother and son. 
 
 " Well, my lady," said he, ere she could speak, " I heard that 
 this good fellow was here, and came home as fast as I could, to 
 see that he told you as few lies as possible." 
 
 " He has told me," said she, " that you have robbed the Church 
 of God." 
 
 " Robbed him, it may be, an old hoody crow, against whom I 
 have a grudge of ten years' standing." 
 
 " Wretched, wretched boy ! What wickedness next ? Know 
 you not, that he who robs the Church robs God himself? " 
 
 " And he who harms God's people," put in the monk from be- 
 hind the chair, "harms his Maker." 
 
 "His Maker?"- said the lad, with concentrated bitterness. 
 " It would be a gay world, if the Maker thereof were in any way 
 like unto you, who call yourselves his people. Do you remem- 
 ber who told them to set the peat-stack on fire under me ten years 
 ago ? Ah, ha, Sir Monk, you forget that I have been behind the 
 screen, — that I have been a monk myself, or sKbuld have been 
 one, if my pious lady mother here had had her will of me, as she 
 may if she likes of that doll there at her knee. Do you forget 
 why I left Peterborough Abbey, when Winter and I turned all 
 your priest's books upside down in the choir, and they would 
 have flogged us, — me, the Earl's son, — me, the Viking's son, — 
 me, the champion, as T will be yet, and make all lands ring with 
 the fame of my deeds, as they rung with the fame of my fore- 
 fathers, before they became the slaves of monks ; and how, when 
 Winter and I got hold of the kitchen spits, and up to the top of 
 the peat-stack, and held you all at bay there, a whole abbeyfnl 
 of cowards there, against two seven years' children ? It was you 
 bade set the peat-stack alight under us, and so bring us down ; 
 and would have done it, too, had it not been for my Uncle Brand, 
 the only man that I care for in this wide world. Do you think 
 I have not owed you a grudge ever since that day, monk ? And 
 do you think I will not pay it ? Do you think I woidd not have 
 
16 HEKEWARD, THK LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 burned Peterliorough minster over your head before now, had it 
 not been for Uncle Brand's sake ? See that I do not do it yet. 
 See that when there is another Prior in Borough you do not find 
 Hereward the Berserker smoking you out some dark night, as he 
 would smoke a wasps' nest. And I will, by — " 
 
 " Hereward, Hereward ! " cried his mother, " godless, god-for- 
 gotten boy, what words are these ? Silence, before you burden 
 your soul with an oath which the devils in hell will accept, and 
 force you to keep ! " and she sprung up, and, seizing his arm, laid 
 her hand upon his mouth. 
 
 Hereward looked at her majestic face, once lovely, now care- 
 worn, and trembled for a moment. Had there been any tender- 
 ness in it, his history might have been a very different one ; but 
 alas! there was none. Not that she was in herself untender; 
 but that her great piety (call it not superstition, for it was then 
 the only form known or possible to pure and devout souls) was 
 so outraged by this, or even by the slightest insult to that clergy 
 whose willing slave she had become, that the only method of 
 reclaiming the sinner had been long forgotten, in genuine horror 
 at his sin. " Is it not enough," she went on, sternly, " that you 
 should have become the bully and the rufBan of all the fens ? — 
 that Hereward the leaper, Hereward the wrestler, Hereward the 
 thrower of the hammer — sports, after all, only fit for the sons of 
 slaves — should be also Hereward the drunkard, Hereward the 
 common fighter, Hereward the breaker of houses, Hereward the 
 leader of mobs of boon companions which bring back to us, in 
 shame and sorrow, the days when our heathen forefathers rav- 
 aged this land with fire and sword ? Is it not enough for me 
 that my son should be a common stabber — ?" 
 
 " Whoever called me stabber to you, lies. If I have killed 
 men, or had them killed, I have done it in fair fight." 
 
 But she went on unheeding, — "Is it not enough, that, after 
 having squandered on your fellows all the money that you could 
 wring from my bounty, or win at your brutal sports, you should 
 have robbed your own father, collected his rents behind his back, 
 taken money and goods from his tenants by threats and blows ; 
 but that, after outraging them, you must add to all this a worse 
 sin likewise, — outraging God, and driving me — me who have 
 borne with you, me who have concealed all for your sake — to 
 tell your father that of which the very telling will turn my hair 
 to gray ? " 
 
 " So you will tell my father ? " said Hereward, coolly. 
 
 " And if I should not, this monk himself is bound to do so, or 
 bis superior, your Uncle Brand." 
 
 " My Uncle Brand will not, and your monk dare not." 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 17 
 
 ~ Then I must. I have loved you long and weH ; but there is 
 one thing which I must love better than you : and that is, my 
 conscience and my Maker." 
 
 " Those are two things, my lady mother, and not one ; so you 
 had better not confound them. As for the latter, do you not 
 think that He who made the world is well able to defend his own 
 property, — if the lands and houses and cattle and money which 
 these men wheedle and threaten and forge out of you and my 
 father are really his property, and not merely their plunder? 
 As for your conscience, my lady mother, really you have done so 
 many good deeds in your life, that it might be beneficial to you to 
 do a bad one once in a way, so as to keep your soul in a whole- 
 some "state of humility." 
 
 The monk groaned aloud. Lady Godiva groaned ; but it was 
 inwardly. There was silence for a moment. Both were abashed 
 by the lad's utter shamelessness. 
 
 " And you will tell my father ? " said he again. " He is at the 
 old miracle-worker's court at Westminster. He will tell the mir- 
 acle-worker, and I shall be outlawed." 
 
 " And if you be, wretched boy, whom have you to blame but 
 yourself? Can you expect that the king, sainted even as he is 
 before his death, dare pass over such an atrocity towards Holy 
 Church?" 
 
 " Blame ? I shall blame no one. Pass over ? I hope he will 
 not pass over it. I only want an excuse like that for turning 
 kempery-man, — knight-errant, as those Norman puppies call it, 
 — like Regnar Lodbrog, or Frithiof, or Harold Hardraade ; and 
 try what man can do for himself in the world with nothing to 
 help him in heaven and earth, with neither saint nor angel, 
 friend or counsellor, to see to him, save his wits and his good 
 sword. So send off the messenger, good mother mine : and I 
 will promise yon I will not have him ham-strung on the way, as 
 some of my housecarles would do for me if I but held up my 
 hand ; and let the miracle-monger fill up the measure of his folly, 
 by making an enemy of one more bold fellow in the world." 
 
 And he swaggered out of the room. 
 
 And when he was gone, the Lady Godiva bowed her head in- 
 to her lap and wept long and bitterly. Neither her maidens nor 
 the priest dare speak to her for nigh an hour ; but at the end of 
 that time she hfted up her head, and settled her face again, till it 
 was like that of a marble saint over a minster door ; and called 
 for ink and paper, and wrote her letter ; and then asked for a 
 trusty messenger who should carry it up to Westminster. 
 
 " None so swift or sure," said the house steward, " as Martin 
 Lightfoot." 
 
18 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Lady Godiva shook her head. " I mistrust that man," slie 
 said. " He is too fond of my poor — of the Lord Hereward." 
 
 "He is a strange one, my lady, and no one knows whence 
 he came, and, I sometimes fancy, wliither he may go either; 
 but ever since my lord threatened to 'hang him for talking with 
 my youiig master, he has never spoken to him, nor scarcely, 
 indeed, to living soul. And one thing there is makes him or 
 any man sure, as long as he is well paid ; and that is, that he 
 cares for nothing in heaven or earth save himself and. what he 
 can get." 
 
 So Martin Lightfoot was sent for. He came in straight into 
 the lady's bedchamber, after the simple fashion of those days. 
 He was a tall, lean, bony man, as was to be expected from his 
 nickname, with a long hooked nose, a scanty brown beard, and a 
 high conical head. His only garment was a shabby gray woollen 
 tunic, which served him both as coat and kilt, and laced brogues 
 of untanned hide. He might have been any age from twenty to 
 forty ; but his face was disfigured with deep scars and long expo- 
 sure to the weather. He dropped on one knee, holding his 
 greasy cap in his hand, and looked, not at his lady's face, but at 
 her feet, with a stupid and frightened expression. She knew 
 very little of him, save that her husband had picked him up upon 
 the road as a wanderer some five years since ; and that he had 
 been employed as a doer of odd jobs and runner of messages, 
 and that was supposed, from his taciturnity and strangeness, to 
 have something uncanny about him. 
 
 " Martin," said the lady, " they tell me that you are a silent 
 and a prudent man." 
 
 " That am I. 
 
 ' Tongue speaketh bane, 
 Though she herself hath nane.' " 
 
 " I shall try you : do you know your way to London ? " 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " To your lord's lodgings in Westminster ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " How long shall you be going there with this letter ? " 
 
 " A day and a half." \ 
 
 " When shall you be back hither ? " 
 
 " On the fourth day." 
 
 " And you will go to my lord and deliver this letter safely ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Majesty." 
 
 " Why do you call me Majesty ? The King is Majesty." 
 
 " You are my Queen." 
 
 " What do you mean, man ? " 
 
 " You can hang me." 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 19 
 
 " I hang thee, poor soul ! Who did I ever hang, or hurt for a 
 moment, if I could help it ? " 
 
 " But the Earl may." 
 
 " He will neither hang nor hurt thee if thou wilt take this 
 lefter safely, and bring me back the answer safely." 
 
 " They will kill me." 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " They," said Martin, pointing to the bower maidens, — young 
 ladies of good family who stood round, chosen for their good 
 looks, after the fashion of those times, to attend on great ladies. 
 There was a cry of angry and contemptuous denial, not unmixed 
 with something like laughter, which showed that Martin had but 
 spoken the truth. Hereward, in spite of all his sins, was the dar- 
 ling of his mother's bower ; and there was not one of the damsels 
 but would have done anything short of murder to have prevented 
 Martin carrying the letter. 
 
 " Silence, man ! " said Lady Godiva, so sternly that Martin 
 saw that he had gone too far. " How know'st such as thou what 
 is in this letter ? " 
 
 " Those others will know," said Martin, sullenly, without an- 
 swering the last question. 
 
 « Who ? " 
 
 " His houseearles outside there." 
 
 " He has promised that they shall not touch thee. But how 
 knowest thou what is in this letter ? " 
 
 " I will take it," said Martin : he held out his hand, took it 
 and looked at it, but upside down, and without any attempt to 
 read it. 
 
 " His own mother," said he, after a while. 
 
 " What is that to thee ? " said Lady Godiva, blushing and kin- 
 dling. 
 
 " Nothing : I had no mother. But God has one ! " 
 
 " What meanest thou, knave ? AVilt thou take the letter or 
 no?" 
 
 " I will take it." And he again looked at it without rising off 
 his knee. " His own father, too." 
 
 " What is that to thee, I say again ? " 
 
 " Nothing : I have no father. But God's Son has one ! " 
 
 " What wilt thou, thou strange man ? " asked she, puzzled and 
 half-frightened ; " and how earnest thou to know what is in this 
 letter ? " 
 
 " Who does not know ? A city that is set on a hill cannot be 
 hid. On the fourth day from this I will be back." 
 
 And Martin rose, and putting the letter solemnly into the purse 
 at his girdle, shot out of the door with clenched teeth, as a man 
 
20 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 upon a fixed purpose which it would lighten his heart to cari-y 
 out. He ran rapidly through the large outer hall, past the long 
 oak table, at wliich HereWard and his boon companions were 
 drinking and roistering ; and as he passed the young lord he 
 cast on him a look so full of meaning, that though Hereward 
 knew not what the meaning was, it startled him, and for a mo- 
 ment softened him. Did this man who had sullenly avoided him 
 for more than two years, whom he had looked on as a clod or a 
 post in the field beneath his notice, since he could be of no use to 
 him, — did this man still care for him? Hereward had reason 
 to know better than most that there was something strange and 
 uncanny about the man. Did he mean him well ? Or had he 
 some grudge against him, which made him undertake this journey 
 willingly and out of spite ? — possibly with the will to make bad 
 worse. For an instant Hereward's heart misgave him. He 
 would stop the letter at all risks. " Hold him ! " he cried to his 
 comrades. 
 
 But Martin turned to him, laid his finger on his lips, smiled 
 kindly, and saying " You promised ! " caught up a loaf from the 
 table, slipped from among them like an eel, and darted out of the 
 door, and out of the close. They followed him to the great gate, 
 and there stopped, some cursing, some laughing. To give Martin 
 Lightfoot a yard advantage was never to come up with liim 
 again. Some called for bows to bring him down with a parting 
 shot. But Hereward forbade them ; and stood leaning against 
 the gate-post, watching him trot on like a lean wolf over the 
 lawn, till he was lost in the great elm-woods which fringed the 
 southern fen. 
 
 " Now, lads," said Hereward, " home with you all, and make 
 your peace with your fathers. In this house you never drink ale 
 again." 
 
 They looked at him, surprised. 
 
 " You are disbanded, my gallant army. As long as I could 
 cut long thongs out of other men's hides, I could feed you like 
 earl's sons: but now I must feed myself; and a dog over his 
 bone wants no company. Outlawed I shall be before the week 
 is out ; and unless you wish to be outlawed too, you will obey 
 orders, and home." 
 
 " We will follow 3'ou to the world's end," cried some. 
 
 " To the rope's end, lads : that is all you will get in my com- 
 pany. Go home with you, and those who feel a calling, let them 
 turn monks ; and those who have not, let them learn 
 
 ' For to plough and to sow. 
 And to reap and to mow, 
 And to be a farmer's boy.' 
 Good night." 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 21 
 
 And he went in, and shut the great gates after hiui, leaving 
 them astonished. 
 
 To take his advice, and go home, was the simplest thing to be 
 done. A few of them on their return were soundly thrashed, 
 and deserved it; a few were hidden by their mothers for a week, 
 in hay-lofts and hen-roosts, till their fathers' anger had passed 
 away. But only one turned monk or clerk, and that was Leofric 
 the Unlucky, godson of the great earl, and poet-in-ordinary to 
 the band. 
 
 The next morning at dawn Hereward mounted his best horse, 
 armed himself ii-om liead to foot, and rode over to Peterbor- 
 ough. 
 
 When he came to the abbey-gate, he smote thereon with his 
 lance-but, till the porter's teeth rattled in his head for fear. 
 
 " Let me in ! " he shouted. " I am Hereward Leofricsson. I 
 must see my Uncle Brand." 
 
 "0 my most gracious lord!" cried the porter, thrusting his 
 head out of the wicket, " what is this that you have been doing 
 to our Steward ? " 
 
 " The tithe of what I will do, unless you open the gate ! " 
 
 "O my lord!" said the porter, as he opened it, "if our Lady 
 and St. Peter would but have mercy on your fair face, and con- 
 vert your soul to the fear of God and man — " 
 
 " She would make me as good an old fool as you. Fetch my 
 uncle, the Prior." 
 
 The porter obeyed. The son of Earl Leofric was as a young 
 lion among the sheep in those parts ; and few dare say him nay, 
 certainly not the monks of Peterborough ; moreover, the good 
 porter could not help being strangely fond of Hereward, — as 
 was every one whom he did not insult, rob, or kill. 
 
 Out came Brand, a noble elder : more fit, from his eye and 
 gait, to be a knight than a monk. He looked sadly at Here- 
 ward. 
 
 " ' Dear is bought the honey that is licked off the thorn,' quoth 
 Hending," said he. 
 
 " Hending bought his wisdom by experience, I suppose," said 
 Hereward, '' and so must L So I am just starting out to see the 
 world, uncle." 
 
 " Naughty, naughty boy ! If we had thee safe here again for 
 a week, we would take this hot blood out of thee, and send thee 
 home in thy right mind." 
 
 " Bring a rod and whip me, then. Try, and you shall have 
 your chance. Every one else has had, and this is the end of 
 their labors." 
 
 " By the chains of St. Peter," quoth the monk, " that is jus) 
 
22 ' HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 what thou needest. Hoist thee on such another fool's back, trufs 
 thee up, and lay it on lustily, till thou art ashamed. To treat 
 thee as a man is only to make thee a more heady blown-up ass 
 than thou art already." 
 
 " True, most wise uncle. And therefore my still wiser parents 
 are going to treat me like a man indeed, and send me out into 
 the world to seek my fortunes ! " 
 
 " p:h ? " 
 
 " They are going to prove how thoroughly they trust me to 
 take care of myself, by outlawing me. Eh ? say I in return. Is 
 not that an honor, and a proof "that I have not«hown myself a 
 fool, though I may have a madman ? " 
 
 " Outlaw you ? O my boy, my darling, my pride ! Get off 
 your horse, and don't sit there, hand on hip, like a turbaned Sara- 
 cen, defying God and man ; but come down and talk reason to 
 me, for the sake of St. Peter and all saints." 
 
 Hereward threw himself off his horse, and threw his arms 
 round his uncle's neck. 
 
 " Pish ! Now, uncle, don't cry, do what you will, lest I cry 
 too. Help me to be a man while I live, even if I go to the black 
 place when I die." 
 
 " It shall not be ! "... . and the monk swore by all the relies 
 in Peterborough minster. 
 
 " It must be. It shall be. I like to be outlawed. I want to 
 be outlawed. It makes one feel like a man. There is not an 
 earl in England, save ray father, who has not been outlawed in 
 his time. My brother Alfgar will be outlawed before he dies, if 
 he has the spirit of a man in him. It is the fashion, my uncle, 
 and I must follow it. So hey for the meriy greenwood, and the 
 long ships, and the swan's bath, and all the rest of it. Uncle, 
 you will lend me fifty silver pennies ? " 
 
 " I ? I would not lend thee one, if I had it, which I have not. 
 And yet, old fool that I am, I believe I would." 
 
 " I would pay thee back honestly. I shall go down to Con 
 stantinople to the Varangers, get my Polotaswarf* out of the 
 Kaiser's treasure, and pay thee back five to one." 
 
 " What does this son of Belial here ? " asked an austere voice. 
 
 " Ah ! Abbot Leofric, my very good lord. I have come to ask 
 hospitality of you for some three days. By that time T shall be 
 a wolf's head, and out of the law : and then, if you will give me 
 ten minutes' start, you may put your bloodhounds on my track, 
 and see which runs fastest, they or I. You are a gentleman, and 
 
 • See " The Heimskringla," Harold Hardraade's Saga, for the meaning ol 
 this word. 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 23 
 
 a man of honor j so I ti-ust to you to feed my horse fairly the 
 meanwhile, and not lo let your monks poison me." 
 
 The Abbot's face relaxed. He tried to look as solemn as he 
 could ; but he ended in bursting into a very great laughter, and 
 Bwearing likewise. 
 
 "The insolence of this lad passes the miracles of all saints. 
 He robs St. Peter on the highway, breaks into his abbey, insults 
 him to his face, and then asks him for hospitality ; and — " 
 
 « And gets it," quoth Hereward. 
 
 ^ " What is to be done with him. Brand, my friend ? If we turn 
 him out — " 
 
 " Which we cannot do," said Brand, looking at the well-mailed 
 and armed lad, " without calling in half a dozen of our men-at- 
 arms." 
 
 "In which case there would be blood shed, and scandal made 
 in the holy precincts." 
 
 " And nothing gained ; for yield he would not till he was killed 
 outright, which God forbid ! " 
 
 " Amen. And if he stay here, he may be persuaded to repent- 
 ance." 
 
 " And restitution." 
 
 " As for that," quoth Hereward (who had remounted his horse 
 from prudential motives, and set him athwart the gateway, so that 
 there was no chance of the doors being slammed behind him), "if 
 either of you will lend me sixteen pence, I will pay it back to 
 you and St. Peter before I die, with interest enough to satisfy 
 any Jew, on the word of a gentleman and an earl's son." 
 
 The Abbot burst again into a great laughter. " Come in, thou 
 graceless renegade, and we will see to thee and thy horse ; and 
 I will pray to St. Peter ; and I doubt not he will have patience 
 with thee, for he is very merciful ; and after all, thy parents have 
 been exceeding good to us, and the righteousness of the father, 
 like his sins, is sometimes visited on the children." 
 
 Now, why were the two ecclesiastics so uncanonically kind to 
 this wicked youth ? 
 
 Perhaps because both the old bachelors were wishing from 
 •their hearts that they had just such a son of their own. Aijd 
 beside, Earl Leofric was a very great man indeed ; and the wind 
 might change ; for it is an unstable world. 
 
 " Only, mind, one thing," said the naughty boy, as he dismount- 
 ed, and halloed to a lay-brother to see to his horse, — " don't let 
 me see the face of that Herluin." 
 
 "And why? You have wronged him, and he will forgive you, 
 doubtless, like a good Christian as he is." 
 
 " That is his concern. But if I see him, I cut off his head. 
 
24 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 And, as Uncle Brand knows, I always sleep with my sword under 
 my pillow." 
 
 " O that such a mother should have borne such a son . ■* 
 groaned the Abbot, as they went in. 
 
 On the fifth day came Martin Lightfoot, and found Hereward 
 in Prior Brand's private cell. 
 
 " Well ? " asked Hereward, coolly. 
 
 " Is he — ? Is he — ? " stammered Brand, and could not finish 
 his sentence. 
 
 Martin nodded. 
 
 Hereward laughed, — a loud, swaggering, hysterical laugh. 
 
 " See what it is to be born of just and pious parents. Come, 
 Master Trot-alone, speak out and tell us all about it. Thy lean 
 wolfs legs have run to some purpose. Open thy lean wolfs 
 mouth and speak for once, lest I ease thy legs for the rest of thy 
 life by a cut across the hams. Find thy lost tongue, I say ! " 
 
 " Walls have ears, as well as the wild-wood," said Martin. 
 
 " We are safe here," said the Prior ; " so speak, and tell us the 
 whole truth." 
 
 " Well, when the Earl read the letter, he turned red, and pale 
 again, and then naught but, ' Men, follow me to the King at 
 Westminster.' So we went, all with our weapons, twenty or 
 more, along the Strand, and up into the King's new hall ; and 
 a grand hall it is, but not easy to get into, for the crowd of monks 
 and beggars on the stairs, hindering honest folks' business. And 
 there sat the King on a high settle, with his pink face and white 
 hair, looking as royal as a bell-wether new washed ; and on either 
 side of him, on the same settle, sat the old fox and the young 
 wolf" 
 
 " Godwin and Harold? And where was the Queen?" 
 
 " Sitting on a stool at his feet, with her hands together as if she 
 were praying, and her eyes downcast, as demure as any cat. And 
 so is fulfilled the story, how the sheep-dog went out to get mar- 
 ried, and left the fox, the wolf, and the cat to guard the flock." 
 
 " If thou hast found thy tongue," said Brand, '• thou art like 
 enough to lose it again by slice of knife, talking such ribaldry 
 of dignities. Dost not know" — and he sank his voice — "that 
 Abbot Leofric is Earl Harold's man, and that Harold himself 
 made him abbot ? " 
 
 " I said, walls have ears. It was you who told me that wo 
 were safe. However,. I will bridle the unruly one." And he 
 went on. " And your father walked up the hall, his left hand 
 on his sword-hilt, looking an earl all over, as he is." 
 
 " He is that," said Hereward, in a low voice. 
 
 " And he bowed ; and the most magnificent, powerful, and vir- 
 
HEEEWAED THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 25 
 
 tuous Godwin would have beckoned him up to sit on the high set- 
 tle ; but he looked straight at the King, as if there were never a 
 Godwin or a Godwinsson on earth, and cried as he stood, — 
 
 " ' Justice, my Lord the ICng ! ' 
 
 " And at that the King turned pale, and said, ' Who ? What ? 
 O miserable world ! O last days drawing nearer and nearer ! O 
 earth, full of violence and blood ! Who has wronged thee now, 
 most dear and noble Earl ? ' 
 
 " ' Justice against my own son.' 
 
 " At that the fox looked at the wolf, and the wolf at the fox ; 
 and if they did not smile it was not for want of will, I- warrant. 
 But your father went on, and told all his story ; and when he 
 came to your robbing master monk, — ' O apostate 1 ' cries the 
 bell-wether, ' O spawn of Beelzebub ! excommunicate him, with 
 bell, book, and candle. May he be thrust down with Korah, Ba- 
 laam, and Iscariot, to the most Stygian pot of the sempiternal 
 Tartarus.' 
 
 " And at that your father smiled. ' That is bishops' work,' 
 says he ; ' and I want king's work from you, Lord King. Outlaw 
 me this young rebel's sinful body, as by law you can ; and leave 
 his sinful soul to the priests, — or to God's mercy, which is like 
 to be more than theirs.' 
 
 " Then the Queen looked up. ' Your own son, noble Earl ? 
 Think of what you are doing, and one whom all say is so gallant 
 and so fair. O persuade him, father, — persuade him, Harold 
 my brother, — or, if you cannot persuade him, persuade the King 
 at least, and save this poor youth from exile.' " 
 
 " Puss Velvet-paw knew well enough," said Hereward, in a 
 low voice, " that the way to harden my father's heart was to set 
 Godwin and Harold on softening it. They ask my pardon from 
 the King ? I would not take it at their asking, even if my father 
 would." 
 
 " There spoke a true Leofricsson," said Brand, in spite of him- 
 self. 
 
 " ' By the — ' (and Martin repeated a certain very solemn 
 oath), said your father, 'justice I will have, my Lord King. Who 
 talks to me of my own son ? You put me into my earldom tc 
 see justice done and law obeyed ; and how shall I make others 
 keep within bound if I am not to keep in my own flesh and blood ? 
 Here is this land running headlong to ruin, because every noble- 
 man — ay, every churl who owns a manor, if he dares — must 
 needs arm and saddle, and levy war on his own behalf, and harry 
 and slay the king's lieges, if he have not garlic to his roast goose 
 every time he chooses,' — and there your father did look at God- 
 win, once and for all; — 'and shall I let my son follow the fashion, 
 2 
 
26 HKREWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 
 
 and do his best to leave the land open and weak for Norseman, 
 or Dane, or Frenchman, or whoever else hopes next to mount the 
 throne of a king who is too holy to leave an heir behind hira ?'" 
 
 " Ahoi ! Martin the silent ! Where learnt you so suddi-nly the 
 trade of preaching ? I tliouglit you kept your wind for your 
 running this two years past. You would make as good a talker 
 among the Witan as Godwin himself. You give it us all, word 
 for word, and voice and gesture withal, as if you were King 
 Edward's French Chancellor." 
 
 Martin smiled. " I am like Falada the horse, my lords, who 
 . could only speak to his own true princess. Why I held my tongue 
 of late was only lest they should cut my head off for talking, as 
 they did poor Falada's." 
 
 " Thou art a very crafty knave," said Brand, " and hast had 
 slcrk-learning in thy time, I can see, and made bad use of it. I 
 misdoubt vei-y much that thou art some runaway monk." 
 
 " That am I not, by St. Peter's chains ! " said Martin, in an 
 eager, terrified voice. " Lord Hereward, I came hither as your 
 father's messenger and servant. You will see me safe out of this 
 abbey, like an honorable gentleman ! " 
 
 " I will. All I know of him, uncle, is that he used to tell me 
 stories, when I was a boy, of enchanters, and knights, and dragons, 
 and such like, and got into trouble for filling my head with such 
 fancies. Now let him tell his story in peace." 
 
 " He shall ; but I misdoubt the fellow very much. He talks as 
 if he knew Latin ; and what business has a foot-running slave to 
 do that ? " 
 
 So Martin went on, somewhat abashed. " ' And,' said your 
 father, 'justice I will have, and leave injustice, and the overlook- 
 ing of it, to those who wish to profit thereby.' 
 
 "And at that Godwin smiled, and said to the King, 'The 
 Earl is wise, as usual, and speaks like a very Solomon. Your 
 Majesty must, in spite of your own tenderness of heart, have 
 these letters of outlawry made out,' 
 
 '■Then all our men murmured, — and I as loud as any. But 
 old Surturbrand the housecarle did more ; for out he stepped to 
 your father's side, and spoke right up before the King. 
 ^ " ' Bonny times,' he said, < I have lived to see, when a lad of 
 Earl Oslao's blood is sent out of the land, a beggar and a wolfs 
 head, for playing a boy's trick or two, and upsetting a shaveling 
 priest! We managed such wild young colts better, we Vikings 
 who conquered the Danelagh. If Canute had had a son like 
 Hereward — as would to God he had had ! — he would have dealt 
 with him as old Swend Forkbeard (God grant I meet hira in 
 Valhalla, in spile of all priests !) did by Canute himself when he 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 27 
 
 was young, and kicked and plunged awhile at being first bitted 
 and saddled.' 
 
 "' What does the man say?' asked the King, for old Snrtnr- 
 brand was talking bi'oad Danish. 
 
 " ' He is a housecarle of mine, Lord King, a good man and 
 true ; but old age and rough Danish blood has made him forget 
 that he stands before kings and earls.' 
 
 "'By — , Earl!' says Surturbrand, I have fought knee to 
 knee beside a braver king than that tliere, and nobler earls than 
 ever a one here ; and was never afraid, like a free Dane, to speak 
 my mind to them, by sea or land. And if the King, with his 
 French ways, does not understand a plain man's talk, the two 
 earls yonder do right well, and I say, — Deal by this lad in the 
 good old fashion. Give hira half a dozen long ships, and what 
 crews he can get together, and send him out, a-s Canute would 
 have done, to seek his fortune like a Viking; and if he comes 
 home with plenty of wounds, and plenty of plunder, give him an 
 earldom as he deserves. Do you ask your Countess, Earl God- 
 win, — she is of the right Danish blood, God bless her 1 thouo'h 
 she is your wife, — and see if she does not know hpw to bring a 
 naughty lad to his senses.' 
 
 " Then Harold the Earl said : ' The old man is right. King, 
 listen to what he says.' And he told him all, quite eagerly." 
 
 " How did you know that? Can you understand French ?" 
 
 " I am a, poor idiot, give me a halfpenny," said Martin, in a 
 doleful voice, as he threw into his face and whole figure a look 
 of helpless stupidity and awkwardness, which set them both 
 laughing. 
 
 But Hereward checked himself. " And you think he was in 
 earnest ? " 
 
 " As sure as there are holy crows in Crowland. But it was of 
 no use. Your father got a parchment, with an outlandish Nor- 
 man seal hanging to it, and sent me off with it that same night 
 to give to the lawman. So wolfs head you are, my lord, and 
 there is no use crying over spilt milk." 
 
 " And Harold spoke for me ? It will be as well to tell Ab- 
 bot Leofric that, in case he be inclined to turn traitor, and refuse 
 to open the gates. Once outside them, I care not for mortal 
 man." 
 
 " My poor boy, there will be many a one whom thou hast 
 wronged only too ready to lie in wait for thee, now thy life is 
 in every man's hand. If the outlawry is published, thou hadst 
 best start to-njght, and get past Lincoln before morning." 
 
 " I shall stay quietly here, and get a good night's rest ; and 
 then ride out to-morrow morning in the face of the whole shire. 
 
28 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 No. not a word! You would not have me sneak away like a 
 coward ? " 
 
 Brand smiled and shrugged his shoulders : being very much 
 of the same mind. 
 
 " At least, go north." 
 
 " And why north ? " 
 
 " You have no quarrel in Northumberland, and the King's writ 
 runs very slowly there, if at all. Old Siward Digre may stand 
 your friend." 
 
 " He ? he is a fast friend of my fathei^s." 
 
 " What of that ?" the old Viking will like you none the less 
 for having shown a touch of his own temper, fto to him, I say, 
 and tell him that I sent you." 
 
 " But he is fighting the Scots beyond the Forth." 
 
 " So much the better. There will be good work for you to do. 
 And Gislebert of Ghent is up there too, I hear, trying to settle 
 himself among the Scots. He is j'our mother's kinsman ; and 
 as for your being an outlaw, he wants hard hitters and hard 
 riders, and all is fish that comes to his net. Find him out, too, 
 and tell him I sent you." 
 
 "You are a good old uncle," said Hereward. "Why were 
 you not a soldier ? " 
 
 Brand laughed somewhat sadlJ^ 
 
 " If I had been a soldier, lad, where would you have looked 
 for a friend this day ? No. God has done what was merciful 
 with me and my sins. May he do the same by thee and thine." 
 
 Hereward made an impatient movement. He disliked any 
 word which seemed likely to soften his own hardness of heart. 
 But he kissed his uncle lovingly on both cheeks. 
 
 " By tlie by, Martin, — any message from my lady mother?" 
 
 " None ! " 
 
 " Quite right and pious. I am an enemy to Holy Church and 
 therefore to her. Good night, uncle." 
 
 " Ht'y ? " aked Brand ; " where is that footman, — Martin you 
 call him ? I must have another word with him." 
 
 But Martin was gone. 
 
 "No matter. I shall question him sharply enough to-morrow, 
 I wariant." 
 
 And Hereward went out to his lodging; while the good Prior 
 went to his prayers. 
 
 When. Hereward entered his room, Martin started out of the 
 darkness, and followed him in. Then he shut to the door care- 
 fully, and pulled out a bag. 
 
 " Tliere was no message from my lady : but there was this." 
 
 The bag was full of money. 
 
HKREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 29 
 
 « "Why did you not fell me of this before ? " 
 
 " Never show money before, a monk." 
 
 " Villain ! would you mistrust my uncle?" 
 
 " Any man with a shaven crown. 8t. Peter is his God and 
 Lord and conscience ; and if he saw but the shine of a penny, 
 for St. Peter he would want it." 
 
 " And he shall have it," quoth Hereward ; and flung out of the 
 room, and into his uncle's. 
 
 " Uncle, I have money. I am come to pay back what I took 
 from the Steward,' and as much more into the bargain." And he 
 told out eight-and-thirty pieces. 
 
 " Thank God and all his saints ! " cried Brand, weeping abun- 
 dantly for joy ; for he had acquired, by long devotion, the doniim 
 lachrymarum, — that lachrymose and somewhat hysterical tem- 
 perament common among pious monks, and held to be a mark of 
 grace. 
 
 " Blessed St. Peter, thou art repaid ; and thou wilt be mer- 
 ciful!" 
 
 Brand believed, in common with all monks then, that Here- 
 ward had robbed, not merely the Abbey of Peterborough, but, 
 ■what was more, St. Peter himself; thereby converting into an 
 implacable and internecine foe the chief of the Apostles, the rock 
 on which was founded the whole Church. 
 
 " Now, uncle," said Hereward, " do me one good deed in return. 
 Promise me that, if you can help it, none of my poor house- 
 carjes shall suffer for my sins. I led them into trouble. I am 
 punished. I have made restitution, — at least to St. Peter. See 
 that my father and mother, if they be the Christians they call 
 themselves, forgive and forget all offences except mine." 
 
 " I will ; so help me all saints and our Lord. O my boy, my 
 boy, thou shouldst have been a king's thane, and not an outlaw ! " 
 
 And he hurried off with the news to the Abbot. 
 
 When Hereward returned to his room, Martin was gone. 
 
 " Farewell, good men of Peterborough," said Hereward, as he 
 leapt into the saddle next morning. " I had made a vow against 
 you, and came to try you ; to see whether you would force me 
 to fulfil it or not. But you have been so kind that I have half 
 repented of it ; and the evil shall not come in the days of Abbot 
 Leofric, nor of Brand the Prior, though it may come in the days 
 of Heriuin the Steward, if he live long enough." 
 
 " What do you mean, you incarnate fiend, only fit to worship 
 Thor and Odin ? " asked Brand. 
 
 " That I would burn Goldcnborough, and Heriuin the Steward 
 within it, ere I die. I fear I shall do it: I fear I must do it. 
 Ten years ago come Lammas, Heriuin bade light the peat-stack 
 under me. Do you recollect ?" 
 
30 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 "And SO he did, the hound!"' quoth Brand. "I had forgot- 
 ten that." 
 
 " Little Hereward never forgets foe or friend. Ever since, on 
 Lammas night, — hold still, horse ! — I dream of fire and flame, 
 and of Goldenborough in the glare of it. If it is written in the 
 big book, happen it must; if not, so much the better for Golden- 
 borough, for it is a pretty place, and honest Englishmen in it. 
 Only see that there be not too many Frenchmen crept in when I 
 come back, beside our French friend Herluin ; and see, too, that 
 there be not a peat-stack handy : a word is enough to wise men 
 hke you. Good by ! " 
 
 " God help thee, thou sinful boy ! " said the Abbot. 
 
 " Hereward, Hereward ! Come back ! " cried Brand. 
 
 But the boy had spurred his horse through the gateway, and 
 was far down the road. 
 
 " Leofric, ray friend," said Brand, sadly, "this is my sin, and 
 no man's else. And heavy penance will I do for it, till that lad 
 returns in peace." 
 
 " Your sin ? " 
 
 " Mine, Abbot. I persuaded his mother to send him hither to 
 be a monk. Alas ! alas ! How long will men try to be wiser 
 than Him who maketh men ? " 
 
 " I do not understand thee," quoth the Abbot. And no more 
 he did. 
 
 It was four o'clock on a May morning, when Hereward set 
 out to see the world, with good armor on his back, good weapon 
 by his side, good horse between his knees, and good money in his 
 purse. What could a lad of eighteen want more, who under the 
 harsh family rule of those times had known nothing of a father's, 
 and but too little of a mother's, love? He rode away northward 
 through the ■ Bruneswald, over the higher land of Lincolnshire, 
 through primeval glades of mighty oak and ash, holly and thorn, 
 swarming with game, which was as highly preserved then as 
 now, under Canute's severe forest laws. The yellow roes stood 
 and stared at him knee-deep in the young fern ; the pheasant 
 called his hens Out to feed in the dewy grass ; the blackbird and 
 thrush sung out from every bough ; the wood-lark trilled above 
 the liigh oak-tops, and sank down on them as his song sank down. 
 ;\nd Hereward rode on, rejoicing in it all. It was a fine world 
 in the Bruneswald. What was it then outside ? Not to him, as 
 to us, a world circular, sailed round, circumscribed, mapped, bot- 
 anized, zoologized ; a tiny planet about which everybody knows, 
 or thinks they know everything : but a world inKnite, magical, 
 supernatural, — because unknown; avast flat plain reaching no 
 one knew whence or where, save that the mountains stood on the 
 
xiiincwjiKLf, liiji L,A&i ui) TiiJi; ENGLISH. 31 
 
 four corners thereof to keep it steady, and the four winds of 
 heaven blew out of them ; and in the centre, which was to him 
 the Bruneswald, such things as he saw ; but beyond, things un- 
 speakable, — dragons, giants, rocs, ores, witch-whales, griffins, 
 chimeras, satyrs, enchanters, paynims, Saracen Emirs and Sul- 
 tans, Kaisers of Constantinople, Kaisers of Ind and of Cathay, 
 and beyond them again of lands as yet unknown. At the very 
 least he could go to Brittany, to the forest of Brocheliaunde, 
 where (so all men said) fairies might be seen bathing in the 
 fountains, and possibly be won and wedded by a bold and dex- 
 terous knight after the fashion of Sir Gruelan.* What was 
 there not to be seen and conquered? Where would he go? 
 Where would he not go ? For the spirit of Odin the Goer, the 
 spirit which has sent his children round the world, was strong 
 within him. He would go to Ireland, to the Ostmen, or Irish 
 Danes men at Dublin, Waterford, or Cork, and marry some 
 beautiful Irish Princess with gray eyes, and raven locks, and 
 saffron smock, and great gold bracelets from her native hills. 
 No ; he would go off to the Orkneys, and join Bruce and Ea- 
 nald, and the Vikings of the northern seas, and all the hot blood 
 which had found even Norway too hot lo hold it ; and sail 
 through witch-whales and icebergs to Iceland and Greenland, 
 and the sunny lands which they said lay even beyond, across the 
 all but unknown ocean. . He would go up the Baltic to the Joms- 
 burg Vikings, and fight against Lett and Esthonian heathen, and 
 pierce inland, perhaps, through Puleyn and the bison forests, to 
 the land from whence came the magic swords and the old Persian 
 coins which he had seen so often in the halls of his forefathers. 
 No ; he would go South, to the land of sun and wine ', and see 
 the magicians of Cordova and Seville ; and beard Mussulman 
 hounds worshipping their Mahomets ; and perhaps bring home 
 an Emir's daughter, — 
 
 " With more gay gold about her middle, 
 Than would buy half Northumberlee." 
 
 Or he would go up the Straits, and on to Constantinople and the 
 great Kaiser of the Greeks, and join the Varanger Guard, and 
 perhaps, like Harold Hardraade in his own days, after being cast 
 to the lion for carrying off a fair Greek lady, tear out the mon- 
 ster's tongue with his own hands, and show the Easterns what 
 a Viking's son could do. And as he dreamed of the infinite 
 world and its infinite wonders, the enchanters he might meet, the 
 
 * Wsice, author of the " Roman 3e Kou," went to Brittany a generation later, 
 to see tnose same fairies: but had no sport; and sang, — 
 " Fol, i alai, fol m'en revins ; 
 Folie quis, por fol me tins " 
 
32 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 jewels he might find, the adventures he might essay, he held 
 that he must succeed in al), with hope and wit and a strong 
 arm ; and forgot altogether that, mixed up with the cosmogony 
 of an infinite fiat plain called the Earth, tliei-e was joined also 
 the belief in a fiat roof above called Heaven, on which (seen 
 at times in visions through clouds and stars) sat saints, angels, 
 and archangels, forevermore harping on their golden harps, and 
 knowing neither vanity nor vexation of spirit, lust nor pride, 
 murder nor war; — and underneath a floor, the name whereof 
 was Hell; the mouths whereof (as all men knew) might be 
 seen on Hecla and ^tna and Stromboli ; and the fiends heard 
 within, tormenting, amid fire, and smoke, and clanking chams, 
 the souls of the eternally lost. 
 
 As he rode on slowly though cheerfully, as a man who will not 
 tire his horse at the beginning of a long day's journey, and knows 
 not where he shall pass the night, he was aware of a man on foot 
 coming up behind him at a slow, steady, loping, wolf-like trot, 
 which in spite of its slowness gained ground on him so fast, that 
 he saw at once that the man could be no common runner. 
 
 The man came up ; and behold, he was none other than Martin 
 Lightfoot. 
 
 " What ! art thou here ? " asked Hereward, suspiciously, and 
 half cross at seeing any visitor from the old world which he had 
 just cast off. " How gottest thou out of St. Peters last night? " 
 
 Martin's tongue was hanging out of his mouth like a running 
 hound's, but he seemed, like a hound, to perspire through his 
 mouth, for he answered without the least sign of distress, without 
 even pulling in his tongue, — 
 
 " Over the wall, the moment the Prior's back was turned. I 
 was not going to wait till I was chained up. in some rat's-hole with 
 a half-hundred of iron on my leg, and flogged till I confessed that 
 I was what I am not, — a runaway monk." 
 
 " And why art here ? " 
 
 " Because I am going with you." 
 
 " Going with me ? " said Hereward ; " what can I do for thee ? " 
 
 " I can do for you," said Martin. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Groom your horse, wash your shirt, clean your weapons, find 
 your inn, fight your enemies, cheat your friends, — anything and 
 Everything. You are going to see the world. I am going with 
 you." 
 
 " Thou canst be my servant ? A right slippery one, I expect," 
 Baid Hereward, looking down on him with some suspicion. 
 
 " Some are not the rogues they seem. I can keep my secrets 
 and yours too." 
 
HKKEWAKU, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 33 
 
 " Before I can trust thee with my secrets, I shall expect to 
 know some of thine," said Hereward. 
 
 Martin Lightfoot looked up with a cunning smile. " A servant 
 can always know his master's secrets if he likes. But that is no 
 reason a master should know his servant's." 
 
 '• Thou shalt tell me thine, man, or I shall ride off and leave 
 thee." 
 
 " Not so easy, my lord. Where that heavy horse can go, 
 Martin Lightfoot can follow. But I will tell you one secret, 
 which I never told to living man. I can read and write like any 
 clerk." 
 
 " Thou read and write ? " 
 
 "Ay, good Latin enough, and Irish too, what is more. And 
 now, because I love you, and because you I will serve, willy nilly, 
 I will tell you all the secrets I have, as long as my breath lasts, 
 for my tongue is rather stiff after that long story about the bell- 
 wether. I was born in Ireland, in Waterford town. My mother 
 was an English slave, one of those that Earl Godwin's wife — 
 not this one ■ that is now, Gyda, but the old one, King Canute's 
 sister — used to sell out of England by the score, tied together 
 with ropes, boys and girls from Bristol town. Her master, my 
 father that was (I shall know him again), got tired of her, and 
 wanted to give her away to one of his kernes. She would not 
 have that ; so he hung her up hand and foot, and beat her that 
 she died. There was an abbey hard by, and the Church laid on 
 him a penance, — all that they dared get out of him, — that he 
 should give me to the monks, being then a seven-years' boy. 
 Well, I grew up in that abbey ; they taught me my fa fa mi fa : 
 but I liked better conning of ballads and hearing stories of ghosts 
 and enchanters, such as I used to tell you. I '11 tell you plenty 
 more whenever you 're tired. Then they made me work ; and that 
 I never could abide at all. Then they beat me every day ; and 
 that I could abide still less ; but always I stuck to my book, for 
 one thing I saw, — that learning is power, my lord ; and that the 
 reason why the monks are masters of the land is, they are schol- 
 ars, and you fighting men are none. Then I fell in love (as 
 young blood will) with an Irish lass, when I was full seventeen 
 years old ; and when they found out that, they held me down on 
 the floor and beat me till I was wellnigh^dead. They put me in 
 prison for a month ; and between bread-and-wafer and darkness 
 I went nigh foolish. They let me out, thinking I could do no 
 more harm to man or lass ; and when I found out how profitable 
 fblly was, foolish I remained, at least as foolish as seemed good 
 to me. But one night I got into the abbey church, stole there- 
 from that which I have with me now, and which shall serve you 
 '2* C 
 
34 HEBEWAED, THE LAST OF THE El!?GLISH. 
 
 and me in good stead yet, — out and away aboard a ship among 
 the buscaiies, and off into the Norway sea. But after a voyage or 
 two, so it befell, I was wrecked in the Wash by Botulfston Deeps, 
 and, begging my way inland, met with your father, and took ser- 
 vice vvith him, as I have taken service now with you." 
 
 " Now, what has made thee take service with me ? " 
 
 " Becau-e you are you." 
 
 '• Give me none of your parables and dark saying?, but speak 
 out like a man. What canst see in me that thou shouldest share 
 an outlaw's fortune with me?" 
 
 "I had run away from a monastery, so had you ; I hated the 
 monks, so did you ; I liked to tell stories, : — since I found good 
 to shut my mouth I tell them to myself all day long, sometimes 
 all night too. When I found out you liked to hear, them, I loved 
 you all the more. Then they told me not to speak to you ; I 
 held my tongue. I bided my time. I knew you would be out- 
 lawed some day. I knew you would turn Viking and kempery- 
 man, and kill giants and enchanters, and win yourself honor and 
 glory ; and I knew I should have my share in it. I knew you 
 would need me some day ; and you need me now, and here I am ; 
 and if you try to cut me down with your sword, I will dodge you, 
 and follow you, and dodge you again, till I force you to let me be 
 your man, for with you I will live and die. And now I can talk 
 no more." 
 
 " And with me thou shalt live a^d die," said Hereward, pulling . 
 np his horse, and frankly holding out his hand to his new friend. 
 
 Martin Lightfoot took his hand, kissed it, licked it almost as a 
 dog would have done. " I am your man," he said. " Amen ; 
 and true man I will prove to you, if you will prove true to me." 
 And he dropped quietly back behind Hereward's horse, as if the 
 business of his life was settled, and his mind utterly at rest. 
 
 " There is one more likeness between us," said Hereward, after 
 a flaw minutes' thought. " If I have robbed a church, thou hast 
 robbed one too. What is this precious spoil which is to serve me 
 and thee in such mighty stead ? " 
 
 Martin drew from inside his shirt and under his waistband a 
 small battle-axe, and handed it up to Hereward. It was a tool 
 the like of which in shape Hereward had seldom seen, and 
 never its equal in beauty. The handle was some fifteen inches 
 long, made of thick strips of black whalebone, curiously bound 
 with silver, and butted with narwhal ivory. This handle was 
 evidently the work of some cunning Norseman of old. But who 
 was the maker of the blade ? It was some eight inches long, 
 with a sharp edge on one side, a sharp crooked pick on the other ; 
 of the finest steel, inlaid with strange characters .in gold, the work 
 
ntKJivvAKL), laH LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 35 
 
 probably of some Circassian, Tartar, or Persian ; sucb a battle- 
 axe as Eustuni or Zolirab may have wielded in fight upon the 
 banks of Oxus ; one of those magic weapons, brought, men 
 knew not how, out of the magic East, which were hereditary in 
 many a Norse family and sung of in many a Norse saga. 
 
 " Look at it," said Martin Lightfoot. " There is magic on it. 
 It must bring us luck. Whoever holds that must kill his man. 
 It will pick a lock, of steel. It will crack a mail corslet as a nut- 
 hatch cracks a nut. It will hew a lance in two at a single blow. 
 Devils and spirits forged it, — I know that ; Virgilius the En- 
 chanter, perhaps, or Solomon the Great, or whosoever's name is 
 on it, graven there in letters of gold. Handle it,- feel its bal- 
 ance ; but no, — do not handle it too much. There is a devil in it, 
 who would make you kill me. Whenever I play with it I long 
 to kill a man. It would be so easy, — so easy. Give it me back, 
 my lord, give it me back, lest the devil come through the handle 
 into your palm, and possess you." 
 
 Hereward laughed, and gave him back his battle-axe. But he 
 had hardly less doubt of the magic virtues of such a blade than 
 had Martin himself. 
 
 " Magical or not, thou wilt not have to hit a man twice with 
 that, Martin, my lad. So we two outlaws are both well armed ; 
 and having neither wife nor child, land nor beeves to lose, ought 
 to be a match for any six honest men who may have a grudge 
 against us, and sound reasons at home for running away." 
 
 And so those two went northward through the green Brunes- 
 wald, and northward again through merry Sherwood, and were 
 not seen in that land again for many a year. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW HEREWARD SLEW THE BEAR. 
 
 Op Herevvard's doings for the next few months naught is known. 
 He may veiy likely have joined Siward in the Scotch war. He 
 may have looked, wondering, for the first time in his life, upon 
 the hones of the old world, where they rise at Dunkeld out of the 
 lowlands of the Tay ; and have trembled lest the black crags of 
 Birnam should topple on his head with all their pines. He may 
 have marched down from that famous leaguer with the Gospatricks 
 and Dolfins, and the rest of the kindred of Crinan (abthane or 
 abbot, — let antiquaries decide), — of Dunkeld, and of Duncan, 
 and of Siward, and of the outraged Sibilla. He may have helped 
 himself to bring Birnam Wood to Dunsinane, " on the day of the 
 Seven Sleepers," and heard Siward, when his son Asbiorn's corpse 
 was carried into camp,* ask only, " Has he all his wounds in 
 front ? " He may have seen old Siward, after Macbeth's defeat 
 (not death, as Shakespeare relates the story), go back to Northum- 
 bria "with such booty as no-man had obtained before," — a proof, 
 if the fact be fact, that the Scotch lowlands were not, in the 
 eleventh century, the poor and barbarous country which some 
 have reported them to have been. 
 
 All this is not only possible, but probable enough, the dates 
 considered : the chroniclers, however, are silent. They only ^ay 
 that Hereward was in those days beyond NorthumberlaJid with 
 Gisebert of Ghent. 
 
 Giseberf, Gislebert, Gilbert, Guibert, Goisbricht, of Ghent, 
 who afterwards owned, by chance of war, many a fair manor 
 about Lincoln city, was one of those valiant Flemings who set- 
 tled along the east and northeast coast of Scotland in the eleventh 
 century. They fought with the Celtic princes, and then married 
 witli their daughters ; got to themselves lands " by the title-deed 
 of the sword " ; and so became — the famous " Freskin the Flem- 
 ing " especially — the ancestors of the finest aristocracy, both 
 physically and intellectually, in the world. They had their con- 
 
 * Shakespeare makes young Siward his son. He, too, waa slain in the bat- 
 tle : but he was Siward's nephew. 
 
HEKEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 37 
 
 nections, moreover, with the Norman court of Rouen, through (ho 
 Duchess Matilda, daughter of theii- old Seigneur, Baldwin, Mar- 
 quis of Flanders ; their connections, too, with the English Courf, 
 through Counters Judith, wife of Earl Tosti Godwinsson, another 
 daughter of Baldwin's. Their friendship was sought, their en- 
 mity feared, far and wide throughout the north. They seem to 
 have been civilizers and cultivators and traders, — with the in- 
 stinct of true Flemings, — as well as conquerors; they were in 
 those very days bringing to order and tillage the rich lands of the 
 northeast, from the Frith of Moray to that of Forth; and forming 
 a rampart for Scotland against the invasions of Sweyn, Hardra- 
 ade, and all the wild Vikings of the northern seas. 
 
 Amongst them, in those days, Gilbert of Ghent seems to have 
 been a notable personage, to judge from the great house which 
 he kept, and the "milites tyrones," or squires in training for the 
 honor of knighthood, who fed at his table. Where he lived, the 
 , chroniclers report not. To them the country " ultra Northum- 
 briam," beyond the Forth, was as Russia or Cathay, where 
 
 " Geographers on pathless clowns 
 Put elephants for want of towns." 
 
 As indeed it was to that French map-maker who, as late as the 
 middle of the eighteenth century (not having been to Aberdeen 
 or Elgin), leaves all the country north of the Tay a blank, with 
 ihe inscription : " Terre inculte et sauvage, hahitee par les Hig- 
 landers." 
 
 Wherever Gilbert lived, however, he heard that Hereward 
 was outlawed, and sent for him, says the story. And there he 
 lived, doubtless happily enough, fighting Highlanders and hunt- 
 ing deer, so that as yet the pains and penalties of exile did not 
 press very hardly upon him. The handsome, petulant, good- 
 humored lad had become in a few weeks the darling of Gilbert's 
 ladies, and the envy of all his knights and gentlemen. Here 
 ward the singer, harp-player, dancer, Plereward the rider and 
 hunter, was in all mouths ; but he himself was discontented at 
 having as yet fallen in with no adventure worthy of a man, and 
 looked curiously and longingly at the menagerie of wild beasts 
 enclosed in strong wooden cages, which Gilbert kept in one 
 corner of the great court-yard, not for any scientific purposes, 
 but to try with them, at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, the 
 mettle of the young gentlemen who were candidates for the 
 honor of knighthood. But after looking over the bulls and stags, 
 wolves and bears, Hereward settled it in his mind that there was 
 none worthy of his steel, save one huge white bear, whom no 
 man Lad yet dared to face, and whom Heieward, indeed, had 
 
38 HtKEWARD, THK LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 never seen, hidden as he was all day within the old oven-shaped 
 Pict's house of stone, which had been turned into his den. 
 There was a mystery about the uncanny brute which charmed 
 Hercwai-d. He was said to be half-human, perhaps wholly hu- 
 man ; to be the son of the Fairy Bear, near Ivinsman, if not 
 uncle or cousin, of Siward Digre. He had, like his fairy father, 
 iron claws ; he had human intellect, and understood humau 
 speech, and the arts of war, — at least so all in the place be- 
 lieved, and not as absurdly as at first sight seems. 
 
 For the brown bear, and much more the white, was, among 
 the Northern nations, in himself a creature magical and super- 
 human. " He is God's dog," whispered the Lapp, and called 
 him " the old man in the fur cloak," afraid to use his right name, 
 even inside the tent, for fear of his overhearing and avenging 
 the insult. " He has twelve men's strength, and eleven men's 
 wit," sang the Norseman, and prided himself accordingly, like 
 a true Norseman, on outwitting and slaying the enchanted 
 monster. 
 
 Terrible was the brown bear : but more terrible " the white 
 sea-deer," as the Saxons called him ; the hound of Hrymir, the 
 whale's bane, the seal's dread, the rider of the iceberg, the sailer 
 of the floe, who ranged for his prey under the six months' night, 
 lighted by Surtur's fires, even to the gates of Muspelheim. To 
 slay him was a feat worthy of Beowulf's self ; and the greatest 
 wonder, perhaps, among all the wealth of Crowland, was the 
 twelve white bear-skins which lay before the altars, the gift of 
 the great Canute. How Gilbert had obtained his white bear, 
 and why he kept him there in durance vile, was a mystery over 
 which men shook their heads.' Again and again Hereward asked 
 his host to let him try his strength against tlie monster of the 
 North. Again and again the shrieks of the ladies, and Gilbert's 
 own pity for the stripling youth, brought a refusal. But Here- 
 ward settled it in his heart, nevertheless, that somehow or other, 
 when Christmas time came round, he would extract from Gilbert, 
 drunk or sober, leave to fight that bear ; and then either make 
 himself a name, or die like a man. 
 
 Meanwhile Hereward made a friend. Among all the ladies 
 of Gilbert's household, however kind they were inclined to be 
 to him, he took a fancy but to one, — and that was to a little 
 girl of eight years old. Alftruda was her name. He liked to 
 amuse himself with this child, without, as he fancied, any danger 
 of falling in love ; for alroady his dreams of love were of the 
 highest and most fantastic ; and an Emir's daughter, or a Prin- 
 cess of Constantinople, were the very lowest game at which he 
 meant to fly. Alftruda was beautiful, too, exceedingly, and pre- 
 
iiiiiij'-wAtijj, irii'. i^Aoi Oi< itiE ENGLISH. 3ft 
 
 cocious, and, it may be, vain enough to repay his attentions in 
 good earnest. Moreover she was English as he was, and royal 
 likewise ; a relation of Elfgiva, daughter of Ethelred, once King 
 of England, who, as all know, married Uchtred, prince of North" 
 umberland and grandfiither of Gospatrick, Earl of Northumber- 
 land, and ancestor of all the Dunbars. Between the English 
 lad then and the English maiden grew up in a few weeks an 
 innocent friendship, which had almost become more than friend 
 ship, through the intervention of the Fairy Bear. 
 
 For as Hereward was coming in one afternoon from hunting, 
 hawk on fist, with Martin Lightfoot trotting behind, crane arid 
 heron, duck and hare, slung over his shoulder, on reaching the 
 court-yard gates he was aware of screams and shouts within, 
 tumult and terror among man and beast. Hereward tried to 
 force his horse in at the gate. The beast stopped and turned, 
 snorting with fear ; and no wonder ; for in the midst of the 
 court-yard stood the Fairy Bear; his white mane bristled up 
 till he seemed twice as big as any of the sober brown bear.-* 
 which Hereward yet had seen : his long snake neck and cruel 
 visage wreathed about in search of prey. A dead horse, its back 
 broken by a single blow of the paw, and two or three writhing 
 dogs, showed that the beast had turned (like too many of his 
 human kindred) " Berserker." The court-yard was utterly emp- 
 ty : but from the ladies' bower came shrieks and shouts, not only 
 of women, but of men ; and knocking at the bower door, adding 
 her screams to those inside, was a little white figure, which Here- 
 ward recognized as Alftruda's. They had barricaded themselves 
 inside, leaving the child out ; and now dared not open the door, 
 as the bear swung and rolled towards it, looking savagely right 
 and left for a fresh victim. 
 
 Hereward leaped from his horse, and, drawing his sword, rushed 
 forward with a shout which made the bear turn round. 
 
 He looked once back at the child ; then round again at Here- 
 ward : and, making up his mind to take the largest morsel first, 
 made straight at him with a growl which there was no mii-taking. 
 
 He was within two paces ; then he rose on his hind leg;!, a head 
 and shoulders taller than Hereward, and lifted the iron talons 
 high in air. Hereward knew that there was but one spot at 
 which to strike; and he struck true and strong, before the iron 
 paw could fall, right on the muzzle of the monster. 
 
 He heard the dull crash of the steel; he felt the sword jammed 
 tight. He shut his eyes for an instant, fearing lest, as in dreams, 
 his blow had come to naught; lest his sword had turned aside, or 
 melted like water in his hand, and the next moment would find 
 him crushed to earth, blinded and stunned. Something tugged 
 
40 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 at his sword. He opened his eyes, and saw the huge carcasa 
 bend, reel, roll slowly over to one side dead, tearing out of his 
 hand the sword, which was firmly hxed into the skull. 
 
 Hereward stood awhile staring at the beast like a man aston- 
 ished at what he himself had done. He had had his first advent- 
 ure, and he liad conquered. He was now a champion in his own 
 right, — a hero of the heroes, — one who might take rank, if he 
 went on, beside Beowulf, Frotho, Ragnar Lqdbrog, or Harald 
 Hadraade. He had done this deed. What was there after this 
 which he miglit not do 'i And he stood there in the fulness of 
 his pride, detiant of earth and heaven, while in his heart arose 
 the thought of that old Viking who cried, in the pride of his 
 godlessness : " I never on earth met him whom I feared, and why 
 sliould I fear Hira in heaven ? If I met Odin, I would fight with 
 Odin. If Odin were the stronger, he would slay me ; if I were 
 the stronger, I would slay him." And there he stood, staring, and 
 dreaming over renown to come, — a true pattern of the half- 
 savage hero of those rough times, capable of all vices except 
 cowardice, and capable, too, of all virtues save humility. 
 
 " Do you not see," said Martin Lightfoot's voice, close by, 
 " that there is a fair lady trying to thank you, while you are so 
 rude or so proud that you will not vouchsafe her one look ? " 
 
 It was true. Little Alftruda had been clinging to him for five 
 minutes past. He took the child up in his arms and kissed her 
 with pure kisses, which for a moment softened his hard heart; 
 then, setting her down, he turned to Martin. 
 
 " I have done it, Martin." 
 
 " Yes, you have done it ; I spied you. What will the old folks 
 at home say to this ? " 
 
 " What care I ? " 
 
 Martin Lightfoot shook his head, and drew out his kjiife. 
 
 " What is that for?" said Hereward. 
 
 " When the master kills the game, the knave can but skin it 
 We may sleep warm under this fur in many a cold night by sea 
 and moor." 
 
 " Nay," "said Hereward, laughing ; " when the master kills the 
 game he must first carry it home. Let us take him and set hira 
 up against the bower door there, to astonish the brave knights 
 inside." And stooping down, he attempted to lift the hun-e car- 
 cass ; but in vain. At last, with Martin's help, he got it fairly on 
 his shoulders, and the two dragged their burden to the bower and 
 dashed it against the door, shouting with all their might to those 
 within to open it. 
 
 Windows, it must be remembered, were in those days so few 
 and far between that the folks inside had remained quite unaware 
 of what was going on without. 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 41 
 
 The door was opened cautiously enough ; and out looked, to 
 the shame of knighthood be it said, two or three knights who had 
 taken shelter in the bower with the ladies. Whatever they were 
 going to say the ladies forestalled, for, rushing out across the 
 prostrate bear, they overwhelmed Hereward with praises, thanks, 
 and, after the straightforward custom of those days, with substan- 
 tial kisses. 
 
 *' You must be knighted at once," cried they. " You have _ 
 knighted yourself by that single blow." 
 
 "A pity, then," said one of the knights to the others, "that 
 he had not given that accolade to himself, instead of to the 
 bear." 
 
 " Unless some means are found," said another, " of taking down 
 this boy's conceit, life will soon be not worth having here." 
 
 " Either he must take ship," said a third, " and look for ad- 
 ventures elsewhere, or I must." 
 
 Martin Lightfoot heard those words ; and knowing that envy 
 and hatred, like all other vices in those rough-hewn times, were 
 apt to take very startling and unmistakeable shapes, kept his eye 
 accordingly on those three knights. 
 
 " He must be knighted, — he shall be knighted, as soon as Sir 
 Gilbert comes home," said all the ladies in chorus. 
 
 "I should be sorry to think," said Hereward, with the blunder- 
 ing mock humility of a self-conceited boy, " that I had done any- 
 thing worthy of such an honor. I hope to win my spurs by 
 greater feats than these." 
 
 A burst of laughter from the knights and gentlemen followed. 
 
 " How loud the young bantam crows after his first little 
 scuffle!" 
 
 " Hark to him ! What will he do next ? Eat a dragon ? Fly 
 to the moon ? Marry the Sophy of Egypt's daughter ? " 
 
 This last touched Hereward to the quick, for it was just what 
 he thought of doing ; and his blood, heated enough already, beat 
 quicker, as some one cried, with the evident intent of picking a 
 quarrel : " That was meant for us. If the man who killed the 
 bear has not earned knighthood, what must we be, who have not 
 killed him ? You understand his meaning, gentlemen, — don't for- 
 get it!" 
 
 Hereward looked down, and setting his foot on th bear's head, 
 wrenched out of it the sword which he had left till now, with 
 pardonable pride, fast set in the skull. 
 
 . Martin Lightfoot, for his part, drew stealthily from his bosom 
 the little magic axe, keeping his eye on the brain-pan of the last 
 speaker. 
 
 The lady of the house cried " Shame ! " and ordered the 
 
42 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 knights away with haughty words and gestures, which, because 
 they were so well deserved, only made the quarrel more deadly. 
 
 Then she commanded Hereward to sheathe his sword. 
 
 He did so; and turning to the knights, said with all courtesy: 
 " You mistake me, sirs. You were where brave knights should 
 be, within the beleaguered fortress, defending the ladies. Had 
 you remained outside, and been eaten by the bear, what must 
 b.-ive befallen them, had he burst open the door? As for this 
 little lass, whom you left outside, she is too young to requite 
 knight's prowess by lady's love ; and therefore beneath your 
 attention, and only fit for the care of a boy like me." And 
 taking up Alftruda in his arms, he carried her in and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 Who now but Hereward was in all men's mouths ? The min- 
 strels made ballads on him ; the lasses sang his praises (says the 
 chronicler) as they danced upon the green. Gilbert's lady would 
 need give him the seat, and all the honors, of a belted knight, 
 though knight he was none. And daily and weekly the valiant 
 lad grew and hardened into a valiant man, and a courteous one 
 withal, giving no offence himself, and not over ready to take 
 offence at other men. 
 
 The knights were civil enough to him, the ladies more than 
 civil ; he hunted, he wrestled, he tilted ; he was promised a 
 chance of fighting for glory, as soon as a Highland chief should 
 declare war against Gilbert, or drive off his cattle, — an event 
 which (and small blame to the Highland chiefs) happened every 
 six months. 
 
 No one was so well content with himself as Hereward; and 
 therefore he fancied that the world must be equally content with 
 him, and he was much disconcerted when Martin drew him aside 
 one day, and whispered : " If I were my lord, I should wear a 
 mail shirt under my coat to-morrow out hunting." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " The arrow that can go through a deer's blade-bone can go 
 through a man's." 
 
 '• Who should harm me ? " 
 
 " Any man of the dozen who eat at the same table." 
 
 " What have I done to them ? If I had my laugh at them, 
 they had their laugh at me ; and we are quits." 
 
 "There is another score, my lord, which you have forgotten, 
 and that is all on your side." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 " You killed the bear. Do you expect them to forgive you 
 that, till they have repaid you with interest?" 
 
 " Pish ! " 
 
HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 43 
 
 " You do not want for wit, my lord. Use it, and think. What 
 right has a little boy like you to come here, killing bears which 
 grown men cannot kill? What can you expect but just punish- 
 ment for your insolence, — say, a lance between your shouldei's 
 while you stoop to drink, as Sigfried had for daring to tame 
 Brunhild? And more, what right have you to come here, and 
 so win the hearts of the ladies, that the lady of all the ladies 
 should say, ' If aught happen to my poor boy, — and he cannot 
 live long, — I would adopt Hereward for my own son, and show 
 his mother what a fool some folks think her.' So, my lord, put 
 on your mail shirt to-morrow, and take care of narrow ways, and 
 sharp corners. For to-morrow it will be tried, that I know, 
 before my Lord Gilbert comes back from the Higlilands ; but 
 by whom I know not, and care little, seeing that there are 
 half a dozen in the house who would be glad enough of the 
 chance." 
 
 Hereward . took his advice, and rode out with three or four 
 knights the next morning into the ftr-forest ; not afraid, but an- 
 gry and sad. He was not yet old enough to estimate the viru- 
 lence of envy; to take ingratitude and treachery tor granted. 
 He was to learn the lesson then, as a wholesome chastener to the 
 pride of success. He was to learn it again in later years, as an 
 additional bitterness in the humiliation of defeat ; and find out, 
 as does many a man, that if he once fall, or seem to fall, a hun- 
 dred curs spring up to bark at him, who dared not open their 
 months while he was on his legs. 
 
 So they rode into the forest, and parted, each with his footman 
 and his dogs, in search of boar and deer ; and each had his sport 
 without meeting again for some two hours or more. 
 
 Hereward and Martin came at last to a narrow gully, a mur- 
 derous place enough. Huge fir-trees roofed it in, and made a 
 night of noon. High banks of earth and great boulders walled 
 it in right and left for twenty feet above. The track, what with 
 pack-horses' feet, and what with the wear arid tear of five hun- 
 dred years' rain-fall, was a rut three feet deep and two feet 
 broad, in which no horse could turn. Any other day Hereward 
 would have cantered down it with merely a tightened rein. To- 
 day he turned to Martin and said, — 
 
 " A very fit and proper place for this same treason, unless you 
 have been drinking beer and thinking beer." 
 
 But Martin was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 A pebble thrown from the right bank struck him, and he looked 
 up. Martin's face was peering through the heather overhead, 
 his finger on his lips. Then he pointed cautiously, first up the 
 pass, then down. 
 
44 HEREWARD, THE L^ST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Hereward felt that his sword was Ipose in the sheath, and then 
 griped his lance, with a heart beating, but not with fear. 
 
 The next moment he heard the rattle of a horse's hoofs behind 
 him ; looked back ; and saw a knight charging desperately down 
 the gully, his bow in hand, and arrow drawn to the head. 
 
 To turn was impossible. To stop, even to walk on, was to be 
 ridden over and hurled to the ground helplessly. To gain the 
 mouth of the gully, and then turn on his pursuer, was his only 
 cliance. For the first and almost the last time in his life, he 
 struck spurs into his horse, and ran away. As he went, an arrow 
 struck him sharply in the back, piercing the corslet, but hardly 
 entering the flesh. As he neared the mouth, two other knights 
 crashed their horses through the brushwood from right and left, 
 and stood awaiting him, their spears ready to strike. He was 
 caught in a trap. A shield might have saved him ; but he had 
 none. 
 
 He did not flinch. Dropping his reins, and driving in the 
 spurs once more, he met them in full shock. With his left hand 
 he hurled aside the left-hand lance, with his right he hurled his 
 own with all his force at the right-hand foe, and saw it pass clean 
 through the felon's chest, while his lance-point dropped, and 
 passed harmlessly behind his knee. 
 
 So much for lances in front. But the knight behind ? Would 
 not his sword the next moment be through his brain ? 
 
 There was a clatter, a crash, and looking back Hereward saw 
 hor.-e and man rolling in the rut, and rolling with them Martin 
 Liglitfoot. He had already pinned the felon knight's head against 
 the steep bank, and, with uplifted axe, was meditating a pick at 
 his face which would have stopped alike his love-making and his 
 fighting. 
 
 " Hold thy hand," shouted Hereward. " Let us see who he is ; 
 and remember that he is at least a knight." 
 
 " But one that will ride no more to-day. I finished his horse's 
 going as I rolled down the bank." 
 
 It was true. He had broken the poor beast's leg with a blow 
 of the axe, and they had to kill the horse out of pity ere they left. 
 
 Martin dragged his prisoner forward. 
 
 " You ? " cried Hereward. " And I saved your life three 
 days ago ! " 
 
 The knight answered nothing. 
 
 "You will have to walk home. Let that be punishment 
 enough for you," and he turned. 
 
 " He will have to ride in a woodman's cart, if he have the luck 
 to find one." 
 
 The third knight had fled, and after him the dead man's 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 45 
 
 norae. Hereward and his man rode home in peace, and the third 
 knight, after trying vainly to .walk a mile or two, fell and lay, and 
 was fain to fulfil Martin's prophecy, and be brought home in a 
 cart, to carry for years after, like Sir Lancelot, the nickname of 
 the Chevalier de la Charette. 
 
 And so was Hereward avenged of his enemies. Judicial, 
 even private, inquiry into the matter there was none. That gen- 
 tlemen should meet in the forest and commit, or ti-y to commit, 
 murder on each other's bodies, was far too common a mishap in 
 the ages of faith to stir up more than an extra gossiping and 
 cackling among the women, and an extra cursing and threaten- 
 ing among the men ; and as the former were all but unanimously 
 on Hereward's side, his plain and honest story was taken as it 
 stood. 
 
 " And now, fair lady," said Hereward to his hostess, " I must 
 thank you for all your hospitality, and bid you farewell forever 
 and a day." 
 
 She wept, and entreated him only to stay till her lord came 
 back ; but Hereward was firm. 
 
 " You, lady, and your good lord will I ever love ; and at your 
 service my sword shall ever be : but not here. Ill blood I will 
 not make. Among traitors I will not dwell. I have killed two 
 of them, and shall have to kill two of their kinsmen next, and' 
 then two more, till you have no knights left ; and pity that would 
 be. No ; the world is wide, and there are plenty of good fellows 
 in it who will welcome me without forcing me to wear mail under 
 my coat out hunting." 
 
 And he armed himself cap-a-pie, and rode away. Great was 
 the weeping in the bower, and great the chuckling in the hall : 
 but never saw they Hereward again upon the Scottish shore. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW HEREWARD SUCCORED A PRINCESS OF CORNWALL. 
 
 The next place in which Hereward appeared was far awav 
 on the southwest, upon the Cornish shore. How he came there, 
 or after how long, the chronicles do not say. All that shall be 
 told is, that he went into port on board a merchant ship carrying 
 wine, and intending to bring back tin. The merchants had told 
 him of one Alef, a valiant " regulus " or kinglet of those parts, 
 who was indeed a distant connection of Hereward himself, hav- 
 ing married, as did so many of the Celtic princes, the daughter 
 of a Danish sea-rover, of Siward's blood. They told him also 
 that the kinglet increased his wealth, not only by the sale of tin 
 and of red cattle, but by a certain amount of autumnal piracy in 
 company with his Danish brothers-in-law from Dublin and Wa- 
 terford ; and Hereward, who believed, with most Englishmen of 
 the East Country, that Cornwall still produced a fair crop of 
 giants, some of them with two and even three heads, had hopes 
 that Alef might show him some adventure worthy of his sword. 
 He sailed in, therefore, over a rolling bar, between jagged points 
 of black rock, and up a tide river which wandered away inland, 
 like a land-locked lake, between high green walls of oak and ash, 
 till they saw at the head of the tide Alef 's town, nestling in a 
 glen which sloped towards the southern sun. They discovered, 
 besides, two ships drawn up upon the beach, whose long lines and 
 snake-heads, beside the stoat carved on the beak-head of one and 
 the adder on that of the other, bore witness to the piratical habits 
 of tlieir owner. The merchants, it seemed, were well known to 
 the Cornishmen on shore, and Hereward went up with them 
 unopposed ; past the ugly dikes and muddy leats, where Alef 's 
 .slaves were streaming the gravel for tin ore ; through rich al- 
 luvial pastures spotted with red cattle, and up to Alef 's town, 
 l^arthwoiks and stockades surrounded a little church of ancient 
 stone, and a cluster of granite cabins thatched with turf, in which 
 the slaves abode, and in the centre of all a vast stone barn, with 
 low walls and high sloping roof, which contained Alef 's family, 
 ti-easures, lighting fail, horses, cattle, and pigs. They entered at 
 one end between the pigsties, passed on through the cow-stalls, 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 47 
 
 then through the stables, and saw before them, dim through the 
 reek of thick peat-smoke, a long oaken table, at which sat huge 
 dark-haii'ed Cornishmen, with here and there among them tiie 
 yellow head of a Norseman, who were Alef's following of fighting 
 men. Boiled meat was there in plenty, barley cakes, and ale. 
 At the head of the table, on a high-backed settle, was Alef him- 
 self, a jolly giant, who was just setting to work to drink hiniseK 
 stupid with mead made from narcotic heather honey. By hia 
 side sat a lovely dark-haired girl, with great gold tores upon her 
 throat and wrists, and a great gold brooch fastening a shawl 
 which had plainly come from the looms of Spain or of the East , 
 and next to her again, feeding her with titbits cut off with his 
 own dagger, and laid on barley cake instead of a plate, sat a moie 
 gigantic personage even than Alef, the biggest man that Here- 
 wai-d had ever seen, with high cheek-bones, and small ferret eyes, 
 looking out from a greasy mass of bright red hair and beard. 
 
 No questions were asked of the new-comers. They set them- 
 selves down in silence in empty places, and, according to the laws 
 of the good old Cornish hospitality, were allowed to eat and drink 
 their fill before they spoke a word. 
 
 " Welcome here again, friend," said Alef at last, in good enough. 
 Danish, calling the eldest merchant by name. " Do you bring 
 wine ? " 
 
 The merchant nodded. 
 " And you want tin ? " 
 
 The merchant nodded again, and lifting his cup drank Akf 's 
 health, following it up by a coarse joke in Cornish, which raised 
 a laugh all round. 
 
 The Norse trader of those days, it must be remembered, was 
 none of the cringing and effeminate chapmen who figure in the 
 stories of the Middle Ages. A free Norse or Dane, himself often 
 of noble blood, he fougiit as willingly as he bought ; and held his 
 own as an equal, whether at the court of a Cornish kinglet or at 
 that of the Great Kaiser of the Greeks. 
 
 " And you, fair sir," said Alef, looking keenly at Hereward, 
 " by what name shall I call you, and what service can I do for 
 you ? You look more like an earl's son than a merchant, and are 
 come here surely for other things besides tin." 
 
 " Health to King Alef," said Hereward, raising the cup. " Wlio 
 I am 1 will tell to none but Alef's self; but an earl's son I am, 
 though an outlaw and a rover. My lands are the breadth of my 
 ~ boot^sole. My plough is my sword. My treasure is my good 
 right hand. Nothing I have, and nothing I need, save to serve 
 noble kings and earls, and win me a champion's fame. If you 
 have battles to fight, tell me, that I may fight them for you. If 
 
48 HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 you have none, thank God for his peace ; and let me eat and 
 drink, and go in peace." 
 
 " King Alef needs neither man nor boy to fight his battle as 
 long as Iron hook sits in his hall." 
 
 It was the red-bearded giant who spoke in a broken tongue, 
 part Scotch, part Cornish, part Danish, which Hereward could 
 hardly understand ; but that the ogre intended to insult him he 
 understood well enough. 
 
 Hereward had hoped to find giants in Cornwall : and behold 
 he had found one at once ; though rather, to judge from his looks, 
 a Pictish than a Cornish giant ; and, true to his reckless determi- 
 nation to defy and fight every man and beast who was willing to 
 defy and fight him, he turned on his elbow and stared at Iron- 
 hook in scorn, meditating some speech which might provoke the 
 hoped-for quarrel. 
 
 As he did so his eye happily caught that of the fair Princess. 
 She was watching him with a sti'ange look, admiring, warning, 
 imploring ; and when she saw that he noticed her, she laid her 
 finger on her lip in token of silence, crossed herself devoutly, and 
 then laid her finger on her lips again, as if beseeching him to be 
 patient and silent in the name of Him who answered not again. 
 
 Hereward, as is well seen, wanted not for quick wit, or for 
 chivalrous feeling. He had observed the rough devotion of the 
 giant to the Lady. He had observed, too, that she shrank from 
 it ; that she turned away with loathing when he offered her his 
 own cup, while he answered by a dark and deadly scowl. 
 
 Was there an adventure here ? Was she in duress either 
 from this Ironhook or from her father, or from both ? Did she 
 need Hereward's help ? If so, she was so lovely that he could 
 not refuse it. And on the chance, he swallowed down his high 
 stomach, and answered blandly enough, — 
 
 " One could see without eyes, noble sir, that you were worth 
 any ten common men ; but as every one has not like you the luck 
 of so lovely a lady by your side, I thought that perchance you 
 might hand over some of your lesser quarrels to one like me, who 
 has not yet seen so much good fighting as yourself, and enjoy 
 yourself in pleasant company at home, as I should surely do in 
 your place." 
 
 The Princess shuddered and turned pale ; then looked at 
 Hereward and smiled her thanks. Ironhook laughed a savage 
 laugh. 
 
 Hereward's jest being translated into Cornish for the benefit 
 of the company, was highly approved by all ; and good humor 
 being restored, every man got drunk save Herewai i, who found 
 the mead too sweet and sickening. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 49 
 
 After which those who could go to bed went to bed, not as in 
 England,* among the rushes on tlie floor, but in the bunks or 
 berths of wattle which stood two or three tiers high along the 
 wall. 
 
 The next morning as Hereward went out to wash his face and 
 hands in the brook below (he being the only man in the house 
 who did so), Martin Lightfoot followed him. 
 
 " What is it, Martin ? Hast thou had too much of that sweet 
 mead last night that thou must come out to cool thy head too.'"' 
 
 " I came out for two reasons, — first, to see fair play, in case 
 that Ironhook should come to wash his ugly visage, and find you 
 on all fours over the brook — you understand ? And next, to tell 
 you what I heard last night among the maids." 
 
 " And what did you hear ? " 
 
 " Fine adventures, if we can but compass them. You saw 
 that lady with the carrot-headed fellow. I saw that you saw. 
 Well, if you will believe me, that man has no more gentle blood 
 than I have, — has no more right to sit on the settle than I. He 
 is a No-man's son, a Pict from Galloway, who came down with 
 a pirate crew and has made himself the master of this drunken 
 old Prince, and the darling of all his housecarles, and now will 
 Heeds be his son-in-law whether he will or not." 
 
 " I thought as much," said Hereward ; " but how didst thou 
 find out this?" 
 
 " I went out and sat with the knaves and the maids, and lis- 
 tened to their harp-playing, and harp they can, these Cornish, 
 like very elves ; and then I, too, sang songs and told them stories, 
 for I can talk their tongue somewhat, till they all blest me for a 
 right good fellow. And then I fell to praising up old Ironhook 
 to the women." 
 
 " Praising him up, man ? " 
 
 " Ay, just because I suspected him ; for the women are so 
 contrary, that if you speak evil of a man they will surely speak 
 good of him ; but if you will only speak good of him, then you 
 will hear all the evil of him he ever has done, and more beside. 
 And this I heard; that the King's daughter cannot abide him, 
 and would as lief marry a seal." 
 
 " One did not need to be told that," said Hereward, " as long 
 as one has eyes in one's head. I will kill the fellow, and carry 
 her off, ere tbur-and-twenty hours be past." 
 
 ' " Softly, softly, my young master. You need to be told some- 
 thing that your eyes would not tell you, and that is, that the poor 
 lass is betrothed already to a son of old King Ranald the ORt« 
 
 * Cornwall was not then considered part of England. 
 3 s 
 
50 HERKWARD, THE LAST OF THL ENGLISH. 
 
 man, of Waterford, son of old King Sigtryg, who ruled there 
 when I was a boy." 
 
 " He is a kinsman of mine, then," said Hereward. " All the 
 more reason that I should kill this ruffian." 
 
 " If you can," said Martin Lightfoot. 
 
 " If I can ? " retorted Hereward, fiercely. 
 
 " Well, well, wilful heart must liave its way ; only take my 
 counsel: speak to the poor young lady first, and see what she 
 will tell you, lest you only make bad worse, and bring down her 
 father and his men on her as well as you." 
 
 Hereward agreed, and resolved to watch his opportunity of 
 speaking to the princess. 
 
 As they went in to the morning meal they met Alef. He was 
 in high good humor with Hereward ; and all the more so when 
 Hereward told him his name, and how he was the son of 
 Leofric. 
 
 " I will warrant you are," he said, " by the gray head you 
 carry on green shoulders. No discreefer man, they say, in these 
 isles than the old earl." 
 
 "You speak truth, sir," said Hereward, "though he be no 
 father of mine now ; for of Leofric it is said in King Edward's 
 court, that if a man ask counsel of him, it is as though he had 
 asked it of the oracles of God." 
 
 " Then you are his true son, young man. I saw how you kept 
 the peace with Ironhook, and I owe you thanks for it ; for though 
 he is my good friend, and will be my son-in-law erelong, yet a 
 quarrd with him is more than I can abide just now, and I should 
 not like to have seen my guest and my kinsman slain in my 
 house." 
 
 Hereward would have said that he thought there was no fear 
 of that: but he prudently held his tongue, and having an end 
 to gain, listened instead of talking. 
 
 " Twenty years ago, of course, I could have thrashed him as 
 easily as — ; but now 1 am getting old and shaky, and the man 
 has been a great help in need. Six kings of these parts has he 
 killed for me, who drove off my cattle, and stopped my tin works, 
 and plundered my monks' cells too, which is worse, while I was 
 away sailing the seas ; and he is a right good fellow at heart, 
 though he be a little rough. So be friends with him as long as 
 you stay here, and if I can do you a service I will." 
 
 They went in to their morning meal, at which Hereward 
 resolved to keep the peace which he longed to break, and there- 
 fore, as was to be expected, broke. 
 
 For during tlie meal the fair lady, with no worse intention, 
 perhaos, than that of teasing her tyrant, fell to open praises of 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 51, 
 
 Ilereward's fair face and golden hair ; and being insulted there- 
 for by the Ironhook, retaliated by observations about his per- 
 sonal appearance, whicli were more common in the eleventh 
 century than they happily are now. He, to comfort himself, 
 drank deep of the French wine which had just been brought and 
 broached, and then went out into the court-yard, where, in the 
 midst of his admiring fellow-ruffians, he enacted a scene as ludi- 
 crous as it was pitiable. All the childish vanity of the; savage 
 boiled over. He strutted, he shouted, he tossed about his huge 
 limbs, he called for a harper, and challenged all around to dance, 
 sing, leap, flght, do anything against him : meeting with nothing 
 but admiring silence, he danced himself out of breath, and then 
 began boasting once more of his fights, his cruelties, his butch- 
 eries, his impossible escapes and victories ; till at last, as luck 
 would have it, he espied Hereward, and poured out a stream of 
 abuse against Englishmen and English courage. 
 
 " Englishmen," he said, " were naught. Had he not slain three 
 of them himself with one blow ? " 
 
 " Of your mouth, I suppose," quoth Hereward, who saw that 
 the quarrel must come, and was glad to have it done and over. 
 
 " Of my mouth ? " roared Ironhook ; " of my sword, man ! " 
 
 " Of your mouth," said Hereward. " Of your brain were they 
 begotten, of the breath of your mouth they were born, and by the 
 breath of your mouth you can slay them again as often as you 
 choose." 
 
 The joke, as it has been handed down to us by the old chroni- 
 clers, seems clumsy enough ; but it sent the princess, say they, 
 into shrieks of laughter. 
 
 " Were it not that my Lord Alef was here," shouted Jronhook, 
 " I would kill you out of hand." 
 
 " Promise to flght fair, and do your worst. The more fairly 
 you fight, the more honor you will win," said Hereward. 
 
 Whereupon the two were parted for the while. 
 
 Two hours afterwards, Hereward, completely armed with hel- 
 met and mail-shirt, swoid and javelin, hurried across the great 
 court-yard, with Martin Lightfoot at his heels, towards the little 
 church U[)on the knoll above. The two wild men entered into 
 the cool darkness, and saw before them, by the light of a tiny 
 lamp, the crucifix over the altar, and beneath it that which was 
 then believed to be the body of Him who made heaven and earth. 
 They stopped, trembling, for a moment, bowed themselves before 
 that, to them, perpetual miracle, and then hurried on to a low 
 doorway to the right, inside which dwelt Alef's chaplain, one of 
 those good Celtic priests who were supposed to represent a Chris- 
 tianity more ancient than, and all but independent of, the then 
 all-absorbing Church of Rome. 
 
52 HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 The cell was such a one as a convict would now disdain to inhabit. 
 A low lean-to roof; the slates and rafters unceiled ; the stone 
 walls and floor unplastered ; ill-lighted by a hand-broad window, 
 unglazed, and closed with a shutter at night. A truss of straw 
 and a rug, the priest's bed, lay in a corner. The only other fur- 
 niture was a large oak chest, containing the holy vessels and 
 vestments and a few old books. It stood directly under the win- 
 dow for the sake of light, for it served the good priest for both 
 fable and chair; and on it he was sitting reading in his book at 
 that minute, the sunshine and the wind streaming in behind his 
 head, doing no good to his rheumatism of thirty years' standing. 
 
 " Is there a priest here ? " asked Ilereward, hurriedly. 
 
 The old man looked up, shook his head, and answered in 
 Corninh. 
 
 '• Speak to him in Latin, Martin ! May be he will understand 
 that." 
 
 Martin spoke. " My lord, here, wants a priest to shrive him, 
 and that quickly. He is going to fight the great tyrant Iron- 
 hook, as you call him." 
 
 " Ironhook? " answered the priest in good Latin enough. "And 
 he so young ! God help him, he is a dead man ! What is this, 
 — a fresh soul sent to its account by the hands of that man of 
 Belial ? Cannot he entreat him, — can he not make peace, and 
 save his young life ? He is but a stripling, and that man, like 
 Goliath of old, a man of war from his youth up." 
 
 " And my master," said Martin Lightfoot, proudly, " is like 
 young David, — one that can face a giant and kill him ; for he 
 has slain, like David, his lion and his bear ere now. At least he 
 is one that will neither make peace nor entreat the face of living 
 man. So shrive him quickly, Master Priest, and let him be gone 
 to his work." 
 
 Poor Martin Lightfoot spoke thus bravely only to keep up his 
 spirits and his young lord's ; for, in spite of his confidence in 
 Hereward's prowess, he had given him up for a lost man : and 
 the tears ran down his rugged cheeks, as the old priest, rising up 
 and seizing Hereward's two hands in his, besought him, with the 
 passionate and graceful eloquence of his race, to have mercy 
 upon his own youth. 
 
 Hereward understood his meaning, though not his words. 
 
 " Tell him," he said to Martin, " that fight I must, and tell him 
 that shrive me he must, and that quickly. Tell him how the fel- 
 low met me in the wood below just now, and would have slain me 
 there, unarmed as I was ; and how, when I told him it was a 
 shame to strike a naked man, he told me he would give me but 
 one hour's grace to go back, on the faith of a gentleman, for my 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 53 
 
 armor and weapons, and meet him there again, to die by his 
 hand. So shrive me quick, Sir Priest." 
 
 Hereward knelt down. Martin Lightfoot knelt down by him, 
 and with a trembling voice began to interpret for him. 
 
 "What does he say?" asked Hereward, as the priest mur- 
 mured something to himself. 
 
 " lie said," quoth Martin, now fairly blubbering, " that, fair 
 and young as you are, your shrift should be as short and as clean 
 as David'.-i." 
 
 Hereward was touched. " Anything but that," said he, smit- 
 ing on his breast, "Mea culpa, — mea culpa, — mea maxima 
 culpa." 
 
 " Tell him how I robbed my father." 
 
 The priest groaned as Martin did so. 
 
 •' And how I mocked at my mother, and left her in a rage, 
 without ever a kind word between us. And how I have slain I 
 know not how many men in battle, though that, I trust, need not 
 lay heavily on my soul, seeing that I killed them all in fair 
 fight." 
 
 Again the priest groaned. 
 
 " And how I robbed a certain priest of his money and gave it 
 away to my honsecarles." 
 
 Here the priest groaned more bitterly still. 
 
 " O my son ! my son ! where hast thou found time to lay all 
 these burdens on thy young soul?" 
 
 " It will take less time," said Martin, bluntly, "for you to take 
 the burdens off again." 
 
 " But I dare not absolve him for robbing a priest. Heaven 
 help him ! He must go to the bishop for that. He is more fit to 
 go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem than to battle." 
 
 " He has no time," quoth Martin, " for bishops or Jerusalem." 
 
 " Tell him," says Hereward, " that in this purse is all I have, 
 that in it he will find sixty silver pennies, beside two strange 
 coins of gold." 
 
 " Sir Priest," said Martin Lightfoot, taking the purse from 
 Hereward, and keeping it in his own hand, " there are in this 
 bag moneys." 
 
 Martin had no mind to let the priest into the secret of the state 
 of their finances. 
 
 '' And tell him," continued Hereward, " that if I fall in this 
 battle 1 give him all that money, that he may part it among the 
 poor for the good of my soul." 
 
 '• Pish ! " said Martin to his lord ; " that is paying him for hav- 
 ing you killed. You should pay him for keeping you alive." 
 And without waiting for the answer, he spoke in Latin, — 
 
54 HEEEWAED, THE LAvST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " And if he comes back safe from this battle, he will give yon 
 ten pennies for yourself and your church, Priest, and therefore 
 expects you to pray your very loudest while he is gone." 
 
 " I will pray, I will pray," said the holy man ; " I will wrestle 
 in prayer. Ah that he could slay the wicked, and reward the 
 proud according to his deservings ! Ah that he could rid me 
 ind my master, and my young lady, of this son of Belial, — this 
 devourer of widows and orphans, — this slayer of the poor and 
 needy, who fills this place with innocent blood, — him of whom 
 it is written, ' They stretch forth their mouth unto the heaven, 
 and their tongue goeth through the world. Therefore fall the 
 people unto them, and thereout suck they no small advantage.' 
 I will shrive him, shrive him of all save robbing the priest, and 
 for that he must go to the bishop, if he live ; and if not, the Lord 
 have mercy on his soul." 
 
 And so, weeping and trembling, the good old man pronounced 
 the words of absolution. 
 
 Hereward ro^e, thanked him, and then hurried out in silence. 
 
 '' You will pray your very loudest, Priest," said Martin, as he 
 followed his young lord. 
 
 " I will, I will," quoth he, and kneeling down began to chant 
 that noble seventy-third Psalm, " Quam bonus Israel," which he 
 had just so fitly quoted. 
 
 " Thou gavest him the bag, Martin ? " said Hereward, as they 
 hurried on. 
 
 " You are not dead yet. ' No pay, no play,' is as good a rule 
 for priest as for layman." 
 
 " Now then, Martin Lightfoot, good by. Come not with me. 
 It must never be said, even slanderously, that I brought two into 
 the field against one ; . and if I die, Martin — " 
 
 " You won't die ! " said Lightfoot, shutting his teeth. 
 
 " If I die, go back to my people somehow, and tell them that I 
 died like a true earl's son." 
 
 Hereward held out his hand; Martin fell on his knees and 
 kissed it ; watched him with set teeth till he disappeared in the 
 wood ; and then started forward and entered the bushes at a 
 diflferent spot. 
 
 " I must be nigh at hand to see fair play," he muttered to him- 
 self, "in case any of his ruffians be hanging about. Fair play I'll 
 see, and fair play I '11 give, too, for the sake of my lord's honor, 
 though I be bitterly loath to do it. So many times as I have been 
 a villain when it was of no use, why may n't I be one now, when 
 it would serve the purpose indeed? Why did we ever come into 
 this accursed place ? But one thing I will do," said he, as ha 
 ensconced himself under a thick holly, whence he could see the 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 55 
 
 meeting of the combatants upon an open lawn some twenty yards 
 away, "if that big bull-calf kills my master, and I do not jump 
 on his back and pick his brains out with this trusty steel of mine, 
 may my right arm — " 
 
 And Martin Lightfoot swore a fearful oath, which need not 
 here be written. 
 
 Tlie priest had just finished his chant of the seventy-third 
 Psalm, and had betaken himself in his spiritual warfare, as it was 
 then called, to the equally apposite fifty-second, " Quid gloriaris?" 
 
 " Why boastest thou thyselfj thou tyrant, that thou canst do 
 mischief, whereas the goodness of God endureth yet daily .■* " 
 
 " Father ! father ! " cried a soft voice in the doorway, " where 
 are you ? " 
 
 And in hurried the Princess. 
 
 " Hide this," she said, breathless, drawing from beneath her 
 mantle a huge sword ; " hide it, where no one dare touch it, under 
 the altar behind the holy rood : no place too secret." 
 
 " What is it ? " asked the priest, springing up from his knees. 
 
 " His *sword, — the Ogre's, — his magic sword, which kills 
 ■whomsbever it strikes. 1 coaxed the wretch to let me have it 
 last night when he was tipsy, for fear he should quarrel with the 
 young stranger ; and I have kept it from him ever since by one 
 excuse or another ; and now he has sent one of his rufiians in for 
 it, saying, that if I do not give it up at once he will come back 
 and kill me." 
 
 " He dare not do that," said the priest. 
 
 " What is there that he dare not ? " said she. " Hide it at 
 once ; I know that he wants it to fight with this Hereward." 
 
 " If he wants it for that," said the priest, " it is too late ; for 
 half an hour is past since Hereward went to meet him." 
 
 " And you let him go ? You did not persuade him, stop him ? 
 You let him go hence to his death ? " 
 
 In vain the good man expostulated and explained that it was 
 no fault of his. 
 
 " You must cTDme with me this instant to my father, — to them ; 
 they must be parted. .They shall be parted. If you dare not, I 
 dare. I will throw myself between them, and he that strikes the 
 other shall strike me." 
 
 And she hurried the priest out of the house, down the knoll, 
 and across the yard. There they found others on the same 
 errand. The news that a battle was toward had soon spread, 
 and the men-at-arms were hurrying down to the fight; kept 
 back, however, by Alef, who strode along at their head. 
 
 Alef was sorely perplexed in mind. He had taken, as all 
 honest men did, a great liking to Hereward, Moreover, he was 
 
56 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 his kinsman and his guest. Save him he would if he could 
 hut how to save him without mortally offending his tyrant Iron- 
 hook he could not see. At least he would exert what little 
 power he had, and prevent, if possible, his men-at-arms from 
 helping their darling leader against the hapless lad. 
 
 Alefs perplexity was much increased when his daughter 
 bounded towards him, seizing him by the arm, and hurried him 
 on, showing by look and word which of the combatants she 
 favored, so plainly that the ruffians behind broke into scornful 
 murmurs. They burst through the bushes. Martin Liglitfoot, 
 happily, heard them coming, and had just time to slip away 
 noiselessly, like a rabbit, to the other part of the cover. 
 
 The combat seemed at the first glance to be one between a 
 grown man and a child, so unequal was the size of the combat- 
 ants. But the second look showed that the advantage was by 
 no means with Ironhook. Stumbling to and fro with the broken 
 shaft of a javelin sticking in his thigh, he vainly tried to seize 
 and crush Hereward in his enormous arms. Hereward, bleed- 
 ing, but still active and upright, broke away, and spr&ng round 
 him, watching for an opportunity to strike a deadly blow. The 
 housecarles rushed forward with yells. Alef shouted to the com- 
 batants to desist ; but ere the party could reach them, Here- 
 ward's opportunity had come. Ironhook, after a fruitless lunge, 
 stumbled forward. Hereward leapt aside, and spying an un- 
 guarded spot below the corslet, drove his sword deep into the 
 giant's body, and rolled him over upon the sward. Then arose 
 shouts of fury. 
 
 " Foul play ! " cried one. 
 
 And others taking up the cry, called out, " Sorcery ! " and 
 " Treason ! " 
 
 Hereward stood over Ironhook as he lay writhing and foaming 
 on the ground. 
 
 " Killed by a boy at last ! " groaned he. " If I had but had 
 my own sword, — my Brain-biter which that witch stole from me 
 but last night ! " and amid foul curses and bitter tears of shame 
 his mortal spirit fled to its doom. 
 
 The housecarles rushed in on Hereward, who had enough to 
 do to keep them at arm's length by long sweeps of his sword. 
 
 Alef entreated, threatened, promised a fair trial if the men 
 would give fair play ; when, to complete the confusion, the Prin- 
 cess threw herself upon the corpse, shrieking and tearing her 
 hair ; and to Hereward's surprise and disgust, bewailed the 
 prowess and the virtues of the dead, calling upon all present to 
 avenge his murder. 
 
 Hereward vowed inwardly that he would never again trust 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 57 
 
 woman's fancy or fight in woman's quarrel. He was now nigh 
 at his wits' end ; the housecarles had closed round him in a 
 ring with the intention of seizing him ; and however well he 
 might defend his front, he might be crippled at any moment 
 from behind: but in the very nick of time Martin Lightfoot 
 burst through the crowd, set himself heel to heel with his mas- 
 ter, and broke out, not with threats, but with a good-humored 
 laugh. 
 
 " Here is a pretty coil about a red-headed brute of a Pict ! 
 Danes, Ostmen," he cried, " are you not ashamed to call such a 
 fellow your lord, when you have such a true earl's son as this to 
 lead you if you will ? " 
 
 The Ostmen in the company looked at each other. Martin 
 Lightfoot saw that his appeal to the antipathies of race had told, 
 and followed it up by a string of witticisms upon the Pictish na- 
 tion in general, of which the only two fit for modern ears to be 
 set down were the two old stories, that the Pijts had feet so large 
 that they used to lie upon their backs and hold up their legs to 
 shelter them from the sun ; and that when killed, they could not 
 fall down, but died as they were, all standing. 
 
 " So that the only foul play I can see is, that my master shoved 
 the fellow over after he had stabbed him, instead of leaving him 
 to stand upright there, like one of your Cornish Dolmens, till his 
 flesh should fall off his bones." 
 
 Hereward saw the effect of Martin's words, and burst out in 
 Danish likewise. 
 
 " Look at me ! " he said ; " I am Hereward the outlaw, I am 
 the champion, I am the Berserker, I am the Viking, I am the 
 land, thief, the sea thief, the ravager of the world, the bear-slayer, 
 the ogre-killer, the raven-fattener, the darling of the wolf, the 
 curse of the widow. Touch me, and I will give you to the raven 
 and to the wolf, as I have this ogre. Be my men, and follow 
 me over the swan's road, over the whale's bath, over the long- 
 snake's leap, to the land where the sea meets the sun, and golden 
 apples hang on every tree ; and we will freight our ships with 
 Moorish maidens, and the gold of Cadiz and Algiers." 
 
 " Hark to the Viking 1 Hark to the right earl's son ! " shouted 
 some of the Danes, whose blood had been stirred many a time 
 before by such wild words, and on whom Hereward's youth and 
 beauty had their due effect. And now the counsels of the ruffiaps 
 being divided, the old priest gained courage to step in. Let them 
 deliver liereward and his serving man into his custody. He 
 would bring them forth on the morrow, and there should be full 
 investigation and fair trial. And so Hereward and Martin, who 
 both refused stoutly to give up their arms, were marched back 
 3* 
 
58 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 
 
 into the town, locked in the little church, and left to their medita- 
 tions. 
 
 Hereward sat down on the pavement and cursed the Princess. 
 Martin Lightfoot took off his master's corslet, and, as well as the 
 darkness would allow, bound up his wounds, which happily were 
 not severe. 
 
 " Were I you," said he at last, " I should keep my curses till I 
 saw the end of this adventure." 
 
 " Has not the girl betrayed me shamefully?" 
 
 " Not she. I saw her warn you, as far as looks could do, not 
 to quarrel with the man." 
 
 " That was because she did not know me. Little she thought 
 that I could — " 
 
 " Don't hollo till you are out of the wood. This is a night for 
 praying rather than boasting." 
 
 " She cannot really love that wretch," said Hereward, after a 
 pause. " You saw how she mocked him." 
 
 '' Women are strange things, and often tease most where they 
 love most." 
 
 " But such a misbegotten savage." 
 
 " Women are strange things, say I, and with some a big fellow 
 is a pretty fellow, be he uglier than seven Ironhooks. Still, just 
 because women are strange things, have patience, say I." 
 
 The lock creaked, and the old priest came in. Martin leapt to 
 the open door ; but it was slammed in his face by men outside 
 with scornful laughter. 
 
 The priest took Hereward's head in his hands, wept over him, 
 blessed liim for having slain Goliath like young David, and then 
 set food and drink before the two ; but he answered Martin's 
 questions only with sighs and shakings of the head. 
 
 " Let us eat and drink, then," said Martin, " and after that you, 
 my lord, sleep off your wounds while I watch the door. I have no 
 fancy for these fellows taking us unawares at night." 
 
 Martin lay quietly across the door till the small hours, listening 
 to every sound, till the key creaked once more in the lock. He 
 started at the sound, and seizing the person who entered round the 
 neck, whispered, " One word, and you are dead." 
 
 " Do not hurt me," half shrieked a stifled voice ; and Martin 
 Lightfoot, to his surprise, found that he had grasped no armed 
 man, but the slight frame of a young girl. 
 
 " I am the Princess," she lyhispered ; " let me in." 
 
 " A very pretty hostage for us," thought Martin, and letting 
 ner go seized the key, looking the door in the inside. 
 
 " Take me to your master," she cried, and Martin led her up 
 the church wondering, but half suspecting some further trap. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 59 
 
 " You have a dagger in your hand," said he, holding her wrist. 
 
 " I have. If I Lad meant to use it, it would have been used 
 first on you. Take it, if you like." 
 
 She hurried up to Hereward, who lay sleeping quietly on the 
 altar-steps ; knelt by him, wrung his hands, called him her 
 champion, her deliverer. 
 
 " I am not well awake yet," said he, coldly, " and don't know 
 whether this may not be a dream, as more that I have seen and 
 heard seems to be." 
 
 " It is no dream. I am true. I was always true to you. 
 Have I not put myself in your power ? Am I not come here 
 to deliver you, my deliverer ? " 
 
 " The tears which you shed over your ogre's corpse seem to 
 have dried quickly enough." 
 
 " Cruel ! What else could I do ? You heard him accuse 
 me to those ruffians of having stolen his sword. My life, my 
 father's life, were not safe a moment, had I not dissembled, and 
 done the thing I loathed. Ah ! " she went on, bitterly, " you 
 men, who rule the world and us by cruel steel, you forget that 
 we poor women have but one weapon left wherewith to hold our 
 own, and that is cunning ; and are driven by you day after day 
 to tell the lie which we detest." 
 
 " Then you really stole his sword ? " 
 
 " And hid it here, for your sake ! " and she drew the weapon 
 from behind the altar. 
 
 " Take it. It is yours now. It is magical. Whoever smites 
 with it, need never smite again. Now, quick, you must be gone. 
 But promisee one thing before you go." 
 
 " If I leave tliis land saie, I will do it, be it what it may. 
 Why not come with me, lady, and see it done ? " 
 
 She laughed. " Vain boy, do you think that I love you well 
 enough for that ? " 
 
 " I have won you, and why should I not keep you ? " said 
 Hereward, sullenly. 
 
 " Do you not know that I am betrothed to your kinsman ? 
 And — though that you cannot know — that I love your kins- 
 man ? " 
 
 " So I have all the blows, and none of the spoil." 
 
 " Tush! you have the glory, — and the sword, — and the chance, 
 if you will do my bidding, of being called by all ladies a true 
 and gentle knight, who cared not for his own pleasure, but for 
 deeds of chivalry. Go to my betrothed, — to Waterford over 
 the sea. Take him this ring, and tell him by that token to come 
 and claim me soon, lest he run the danger of losing me a second 
 time, and lose me then forever; for I am in hard case here, 
 
60 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 and were it not for my father's sake, perhaps I might be weak 
 enough, in spite of what men might say, to flee with you to 
 your kinsman across the sea." 
 
 " Trust me and come," said Hereward, whose young blood 
 kindled with a sudden nobleness, — " trust me, and I will treat 
 you like my sister, like my queen. By the holy rood above I 
 will swear to be true to you." 
 
 " I do trust you, but it cannot be. Here is money for you in 
 plenty to hire a passage if you need : it is no shame to take it 
 from me. And now one thing more. Here is a cord, — j'ou 
 must bind the hands and feet of the old priest inside, and then 
 you must bind mine likewise." 
 
 " Never," quoth Hereward. 
 
 " It must be. How else can I explain your having got the 
 key ? I made them give me the key on the pretence that with 
 one who had most cause to hate you, it would be safe ; and 
 when they come and find us in the morning I shall tell them 
 how I came here to stab you with my own hands, — you must 
 lay the dagger by me, — and how you and your man fell upon 
 us and bound us, and you escaped. Ah ! Mary Mother," con- 
 tinued the maiden with a sigh, " when shall we poor weak wo- 
 men have no more need of lying ? " 
 
 She lay down, and Hereward, in spite of himself, gently bound 
 her hands and feet, kissing them as he bound them. 
 
 " I shall do well here upon the altar steps," said she. " How 
 can I spend my time better till the morning light than to lie here 
 and pray ? " 
 
 The old priest, who was plainly in the plot, submitted meekly 
 to the same fiite ; and Hereward and Martin Lightfoot stole out, 
 locking the door, but leaving the key in it outside. To scramble 
 over the old earthwork was an easy matter ; and in a few min- 
 utes they were hurrying down the valley to the sea, with a fresh 
 breeze blowing behind them from the north. 
 
 " Did I not tell you, my lord," said Martin Lightfoot, " to 
 keep your curses till you had seen the end of this adventure ? " 
 
 Hereward was silent. His brain was still whirling from the 
 adventures of the day, and his heart was very deeply touched.' 
 His shrift of the morning, hurried and formal as it had been, 
 had softened him. His danger — for he felt how he had been 
 face to face with death — had softened him likewise ; and he 
 repented somewhat of his vainglorious and bloodthirsty boasting 
 over a fallen foe, as he began to see that there was a purpose 
 more noble in life than ranging land and sea, a ruffian among 
 ruffians, seeking for glory amid blood and flame. The idea of 
 chivalry, of succoring the weak and the opprest, of keeping faith 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 61 
 
 and honor not merely towards men who could avenge themselves, 
 but towards women who could not ; the dim dawn of purity, 
 gentleness, and the conquest of his own fierce passions, — all 
 these had taken root in his heart during his adventure with the 
 fair Cornish girl. The seed was sown. Would it be cut down 
 again by the bitter blasts of the rough fighting world, or would 
 it grow and bear the noble fruit of " gentle very perfect knight- 
 hood " ? 
 
 They reached the ship, clambered on board without ceremony, 
 at the risk of being taken and killed as robbers, and told their 
 case. The merchants had not completed their cargo of tin. 
 Hereward offered to make up their loss to them if they would 
 set sail at once ; and they, feeling that the place would be for 
 some time to come too hot to hold them, and being also in high 
 delight, like honest Ostmen, with Hereward's prowess, agreed 
 to sail straight for Waterford, and complete their cargo there. 
 .But the tide was out. It was three full hours before the ship 
 could float ; and for three full hours they waited in fear and 
 trembling, expecting the Cornishmen to be down upon them in 
 a body every moment, under" which wholesome fear some on 
 board prayed fervently who had never been known to pray 
 before. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW HEBEWAED TOOK SERVICE WITH RANALD, KING OF 
 WATERFORD. 
 
 The coasts of Ireland were in a state of comparative peace 
 in the middle of the eleventh century. The ships of Loghlin, 
 seen far out at sea, no longer drove the population shrieking 
 inland. Heathen Danes, whether fair-haired Fiongall from Nor- 
 way, or brown-haired Dubgall from Denmark prqper, no longer 
 burned convents, tortured monks for their gold, or (as at Clon-- 
 macnoise) set a heathen princess, Oda, wife of Thorgill, son of 
 Harold Harfager, aloft on the high altar to receive the homage 
 of the conquered. The Scandinavian invaders had become 
 Christianized, and civilized also, — owing to their continual inter- 
 course with foreign nations, — more highly than the Irish whom 
 they had overcome. That was easy ; for early Irish civilization 
 seems to have existed only in the convents and for the religious ; 
 and when they were crushed, mere barbarism was left behind. 
 And now the same process went on in the east of Ireland, which 
 went on a generation or two later in the east of Scotland. The 
 Danes began to settle down into peaceful colonists and traders. 
 Ireland was poor ; and the convents plundered once could not- 
 be plundered again. The Irish were desperately brave. Ill- 
 armed and almost naked, they were as perfect in the arts of 
 forest warfare as those modern Maories whom they so much 
 resemble ; and though their black skenes and light darts were 
 no match for the Danish swords and battle-axes which they 
 adopted during the middle age, or their plaid trousers and felt 
 capes for the Danish helmet and chain corslet, still an Irishman 
 was so ugly a foe, that it was not worth while to fight with him 
 unless he could be robbed afterwards. The Danes, who, like 
 their descendants of Northumbria, the Lowlands, and Ulster, 
 were canny common-sense folk, with a shrewd eye to inlerest, 
 found, somewhat to their regret, that there were trades even 
 more profitable than robbery and murder. They therefore con- 
 centrated themselves round harbors and river mouths, and sent 
 forth their ships to all the western seas, from Dublin, Waterford, 
 Wexford, Cork, or Limerick. Every important seaport in Ire- 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 63 
 
 land owes its existence to those sturdy Vikings' sons. Tn each 
 of these towns they had founded a petty kingdom, which endured 
 until, and even in some cases after, the conquest of Ireland by 
 Henry II. and Strongbow. They intermarried in the mean while 
 with the native Irish. Brian Boru, for instance, was so connected 
 with Danish royalty, that it is still a question whether he himself 
 had not Danish blood in his veins. King Sigtryg Silkbeard, 
 who fought against him at Clontarf, was actually his step-son, — 
 and so too, according to another Irish chronicler, was King Olaff 
 Kvaran, who even at the time of the battle of Clontarf was 
 married to Brian Boru's daughter, — a marriage which (if a fact) 
 was startlingly within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. 
 But the ancient Irish were sadly careless on such points ; and 
 as Giraldus Cambrensis says, " followed the example of men of 
 old in their vices more willingly than in their virtues." 
 
 More than forty years had elapsed since that famous battle of 
 Clontarf, and since Ragnvald, Reginald, or Ranald, son of Sig- 
 tryg the Norseman, had been slain therein by Brian Boru. On 
 that one day, so the Irish sang, the Northern invaders were 
 exterminated, once and for all, by the Milesian hero, who had 
 craftily used the strangers to fight his battles, and then, the mo- 
 ment they became formidable to himself, crushed them, till " from 
 Howth to Brandon in Kerry there was not a threshing-floor 
 without a Danish slave threshing thereon, or a quern without a 
 Danish woman grinding thereat." 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of the total annihilation of the Danish 
 power in the Emerald isle, Ranald seemed to the eyes of men 
 to be still a hale old warrior, ruling constitutionally — that is, 
 with a wholesome fear of being outlawed or murdered if he 
 misbehaved — over the Danes in Waterford; with five hundred 
 fair-haired warriors at his back, two-edged axe on shoulder and 
 two-edged sword on thigh. His ships drove a thriving trade 
 with France and Spain in Irish fish, butter, honey, and furs. 
 His workmen coined money in the old round tower of Dundory, 
 built by his predecessor and namesake about the year lOOo, 
 which stands as Reginald's tower to this day. He had fought 
 • many a bloody battle since his death at Clontarf, by the side of 
 his old leader Sigtryg Silkbeard. He had been many a time 
 to Dublin to visit his even more prosperous and formidable 
 friend ; and was so delighted with the new church of the Holy 
 Trinity, which Sigtryg and his bishop Donatus had just built, 
 not in the Danish or Ostman town, but in the heart of ancient 
 Celtic Dublin, (plain proof of the utter overthrow of the Danish 
 power,) that he had determined to build a like church in honor 
 of the Holy Trinity, in Waterford itself. A thriving, valiant 
 
64 HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 old king he seemed, as he sat in his great house of pine logs 
 niider Reginald's Tower upon the quay, drinking French and 
 Spanish wines out of horns of ivory and cups of gold ; and over 
 his head hanging, upon the wall, the huge doubled-edged axe 
 with wiiich, so his flatterers had whispered, Brian Boru had not 
 slain him, but he Brian Boru. 
 
 Nevertheless, then as since, alas ! the pleasant theory was 
 preferred by tlie Milesian historians to the plain truth. And 
 far away inland, monks wrote and harpers sung of the death of 
 Ranald, the fair-haired Fiongall, and all his " mailed swarms." 
 
 One Teague MacMurrough, indeed, a famous bard of those 
 parts, composed unto his harp a song of Clontarfi the fame where- 
 of reached Ranald's ears, and so amused him that he rested not 
 day or night till he had caught the hapless bard and brought him 
 in triumph into Waterford. There he compelled him, at sword's 
 point, to sing 'to him and his housecarles the Milesian version 
 of the great historical event : and when the harper, in fear and 
 trembling, came to the story of Ranald's own death at Brian Bo- 
 ru's hands, then the jolly old Viking laughed till the tears ran 
 down his face ; and in^tead of cutting off Teague's head, gave him 
 a cup of goodly wine, made him his own harper thenceforth, and 
 bade him send for his wife and children, and sing to him every 
 day, especially the song of Ciontarf and his own death ; treating 
 him very much, in fact, as English royalty, during the last gen- 
 eration, treated another Irish bard whose song was even more 
 sweet, and his notions of Irish history even more grotesque, than 
 those of Teague. MacMurrough. 
 
 It was to this old king, or rather to his son Sigtryg, godson of 
 Sigtryg Silkbeard, and distant cousin of his own, that Hereward 
 now took his way, and told his story, as the king sat in his hall, 
 drinking "across the fire," after the old Norse fashion. The fire 
 of pine logs was in the midst of the hall, and the smoke went out 
 through a louver in the roof. On one side was a long bench, and 
 in the middle of it the king's high arm-chair ; right and left of 
 him sat his kinsmen and the ladies, and his sea-captains and men 
 of wealth. Opposite, on the other side of the fire, was another 
 bench. In the middle of that sat his marshal, and right and left - 
 all his housecarles. There were other benches behind, on which 
 sat more freemen, but of lesser rank. 
 
 And they were all drinking ale, which a servant poured out of 
 a bucket into a great bull's horn, and the men handed round to 
 each other. 
 
 Then Hereward came in, and sat down on the end of the 
 hindermost bench, and Martin stood behind him, till one of the 
 ladies said, — 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 65 
 
 " Who is that young stranger, who sits hehind there so hum- 
 bly, though he looks like an earl's son, more fit to sit here with 
 us on the high bench ? " 
 
 " So he does," quoth King Ranald. " Come forward hither, 
 young sir, and drink." 
 
 And when Hereward came forward, all the ladies agreed that 
 he must be an earl's son ; for he had a great gold tore round his 
 neck, and gold rings on his wrists; and a new scarlet coat, bound 
 with gold braid ; and scarlet stockings, cross-laced with gold braid 
 up to the knee ; and shoes trimmed with martin's fur ; and a short 
 blue silk cloak over all, trimmed with martin's fur likewise ; and 
 by his side, in a broad belt with gold studs, was the Ogre's sword 
 Brain-biter, with its ivory hilt and velvet sheath ; and all agreed 
 that if he had but been a head taller, they had never seen a 
 properer man. 
 
 " Aha ! such a gay young sea-cock does not come hither for 
 naught. Drink first, man, and tell us thy business after," and he 
 reached the horn to Hereward. 
 
 Hereward took it, and sang, — 
 
 " In this Braga-beaker, 
 Brave Ranald I pledge; 
 Li good liquor, which lightens 
 Long labor on oar-bench ; 
 Good liquor, which sweetens 
 The song of the scald." 
 
 " Thy voice is as fine as thy feathers, man. Nay, drink it all. 
 "We ourselves drink here by the peg at midday ; but a stranger is 
 welcome to fill his inside all hours of the day." 
 
 Whereon Hereward finished the horn duly ; and at Ranald's 
 bidding, sat him down on the high settle. He did not remark, 
 that as he sat down two handsome youths rose and stood behind 
 him. 
 
 " Now then. Sir Priest," quoth the king, " go on with your 
 story." 
 
 A priest, Irish by his face and dress, who sat on the high bench, 
 rose, and renew^ed an oration which Hereward's entrance had 
 interrupted. 
 
 " So, O great King, as says Homerus, this wise king called his 
 earls, knights, sea-captains, and housecarles, and said unto them, 
 ' Which of these two kings is in the right, who can tell ? But 
 mind you, that this king of the Enchanters lives far away in India, 
 and we never heard of him more than his name ; but this king. 
 Ulixes and his Greeks live hard by ; and which of the two is it 
 wiser to quarrel with, him that lives hard by or him that lives 
 far ofi"? ' Therefore, King Ranald, says, by the mouth of my hu- 
 mility, the great O'Brodar, Lord of Ivark, ' Take example by 
 
66 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGUSH. 
 
 Alcinous, the wise king of Fairy, and listen not to the ambassadors 
 of those lying villains, O'Dea Lord of Slievardagh, Maccarthy 
 King of Cashel, and O'Sullivan Lord of Knockraffin, who all 
 tliiee between them could not raise kernes enough to drive off one 
 old widow's cow. Make friends with me, who live upon your 
 borders ; and you shall go peaceably through ray lands, to conquer 
 iind destroy them, who live afar off; as they deserve, the sons of 
 Belial and Judas.' " 
 
 And the priest crost himself, and sat down. At which speech 
 Hereward was seen to laugh. 
 
 " Why do you laugh, young sir ? The priest seems to talk like 
 a wise man, and is my guest and an ambassador." 
 
 Then rose up Hereward, and bowed to the king. " King 
 Kanald Sigtrygsson, it was not for rudeness that I laughed, for I 
 learnt good manners long ere I came here, but because I find 
 clerks alike all over the world." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Quick at hiding false counsel under learned speech. I know 
 nothing of Ulixes, king, nor of this O'Brodar either ; and I am but 
 a lad, as you see : but I heard a bird once in my own country who 
 gave a very different counsel from the priest's." 
 
 " Speak on, then. This lad is no fool, my merry men all." 
 
 " There were three copses. King, in our country, and each 
 copse stood on a hill. In the first there built an eagle, in the 
 second there built a sparhawk, in the third there built a 6row. 
 
 " Now the sparhawk came to the eagle, and said, ' Go shares 
 with me, and we will kill the crow, and have her wood to our- 
 selves.' 
 
 " ' Humph !' says the eagle, 'I could kill the crow without your 
 help ; however, I will think of it.' 
 
 " When the crow heard that, she came to the eagle herself. 
 ' King Eagle,' says she, ' why do you want to kill me, who live 
 ten miles ti:om you, and never flew across your path in my life? 
 Better kill that little rogue of a sparhawk who lives between 
 us, and is always ready to poach on your marches whenever your 
 back is turned. So you will have her wood as well as your own.' 
 
 " 'You are a wise crow,' said the eagle ; and he went out and 
 killed the sparhawk, and took his wood." 
 
 Loud laughed King Ranald and his Vikings all. " Well 
 spoken, young man ! We will take the sparhawk, and let the 
 crow bide." 
 
 " Nay, but," quoth Hereward, " hear the end of the story. After 
 a while the eagle finds the crow beating about the edge of the 
 Bparhawk's wood. 
 
 " ' Oho ! ' says he, ' so you can poach a? well as that little hook, 
 nosed rogue ? ' and he killed her too. 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 67 
 
 ■» ' Ah ! ' says the crow, when she lay a-dying, * my blood is on 
 my own head. If I had but left the sparhawk between me and 
 this great tyrant ! ' 
 
 " And so the eagle got all three, woods to himself." 
 
 At which the Vikings laughed more loudly than ever ; and 
 King Ranald, chuckling at the notion of eating up the hapless 
 Irish princes one by one, sent back the priest (not without a 
 present for his church, for Ranald was a pious man) to tell the 
 great O'Brodar, that unless he sent into Waterford by that day 
 week two hundred head of cattle, a hundred pigs, a hundred 
 weight of clear honey, and as much of wax, Ranald would not 
 leave so much as a sucking-pig alive in Ivark. 
 
 The cause of quarrel, of course, was too unimportant to be 
 mentioned. Each had robbed and cheated the other half a dozen 
 times in the last twenty years. As for the morality of the trans- 
 action, Ranald had this salve for his conscience, — that as he 
 intended to do to O'Brodar, so would O'Brodar have gladly done 
 to him, had he been living peaceably in Norway, and O'Brodar 
 been strong enough to invade and rob him. Indeed, so had 
 O'Brodar done already, ever since he wore beard, to every chieftain 
 of his own race whom he was strong enough to ill-treat. Many a 
 fair herd had he driven off", many a fair farm burnt, many a fair 
 woman carried off a slave, after that inveterate fashion of lawless 
 feuds which makes the history of Celtic Ireland from the earliest 
 times one dull and aimless catalogue of murder and devastation, 
 followed by famine and disease ; and now, as he had done to 
 others, so it was to be done to him. 
 
 "And now, young sir, who seem as witty as you are good look- 
 ing, you may, if you will, tell us your name and your business. 
 As for the name, however, if you wish to keep it to yourself, 
 Ranald Sigtrygsson is not the man to demand it of an honest 
 guest." 
 
 Hereward looked round and saw Teague MacMurrough stand- 
 ing close to him, harp in hand. He took it from him courteously 
 enough, put a silver penny into the minstrel's hand, and running 
 his fingers over the strings, rose and began, — 
 
 " Outlaw and free thief, 
 Landless and lawless 
 Through the world fare I, 
 Thoughtless of life. 
 Soft is my beard, but 
 Hard nay'Brain-biter. 
 Wake, men me call, whom 
 Warrior or watchman 
 Never caught sleeping. 
 Far in Northumberland 
 Slew I the witch-bear, 
 Cleaving his brain-pan, 
 At one stroke I felled him." 
 
68 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 And so forth, chanting all his doughty deeds, with such a voice 
 and spirit joined to that musical tiilent for which he was after- 
 wards so famous, till the hearts of the wild Norsemen rejoiced, 
 and " Skall to the stranger ! Skall to the young "Viking ! " rang 
 through the hall. 
 
 Then showing proudly the fresh wounds on his bare arms, he 
 pang of his fight with the Cornish ogi-e, and his adventure with 
 the Princess. But always, thougli he went into the most minute 
 details, he concealed the name both of her and of her father, 
 while he kept his eyes steadily fixed on Ranald's eldest son, Sig- 
 tryg, who sat at his father's right hand. 
 
 The young man grew uneasy, red, almost angry; till at last 
 Hereward sung, — 
 
 "A gold ring she gave me 
 Right royally dwarf- worked, 
 To none will I pass it 
 For prayer or for sword-stroke, 
 Save to him who can claim it 
 By love and by troth plight, 
 Let that hero speak 
 If that hero be here." 
 
 Young Sigtryg half started from his feet : but when Hereward 
 smiled at him, and laid his finger on his lips, he sat down again. 
 Hereward felt his shoulder touched from behind. One of the 
 youths who had risen when he sat down bent over hira, and whis- 
 pered in his ear, — 
 
 " Ah, Hereward, we know you. Do you not know us ? We 
 are the twins, the sons of your sister, Siward the White and Si- 
 ward the Bed, the orphans of Asbiorn Siwardsson, who fell at 
 Dunsinane." 
 
 Hereward sprang up, struck the harp again, and sang, — 
 
 " Outlaw and free thief, 
 My kinsfolk have left me, 
 And no kinsfolk need I 
 Till kinsfolk shall need me. 
 My sword is my father, 
 My shield is my mother, 
 My ship is my sister, 
 My horse is my brother." 
 
 " Uncle, uncle," whispered one of them, sadly, " listen now or 
 never, for we. have bad news for you and us. Your father is 
 dead, and Earl Algar, your brother, here in Ireland, outlawed a 
 second time." 
 
 A flood of sorrow passed through Hereward's heart. He kept 
 it down, and rising once more, harp in hand, — 
 
 " Hereward, king, hight I, 
 Holy Loofric my father, 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 69 
 
 In Westminster wiser 
 
 None waliced with King Edward. 
 
 High minsters lie builded, 
 
 Pale raonlis he maintained. 
 
 Dead is he, a bed-death, 
 
 A leech-death, a priest-death, 
 
 A straw-death, a cow's death. 
 
 Such doom I desire not. 
 
 To high heaven, all so softly, 
 
 The angels uphanJ him, 
 
 In meads of May flowers 
 
 Mild Mary will meet him. 
 
 Me, happier, the Valkyrs 
 
 Shall waft from the war-deck, i 
 
 Shall hail from the holmgang 
 
 Or helmet-strewn moorland. 
 
 And sword-strokes my shrift be, 
 
 Sharp spears be ray leeches, 
 
 With heroes' hot corpses 
 
 High heaped for my pillow." 
 
 " Skall to the Viking ! " shouted the Danes once more, at this 
 outburst of heathendom, common enough among their half-con- 
 verted race, in times when monasticism made so utter a divorce 
 between the life of the devotee and that of the worldling that it 
 seemed reasonable enough for either party to have their own 
 heaven and their own hell. After all, Hereward was not origi- 
 nal in his wish. He had but copied the death-song which his 
 father's friend and compeer, Siward Digre, the victor of Dunsi- 
 nane, had sung for himself some three years before. 
 
 All praised his poetry, and especially the quickness of his 
 alliterations (then a note of the highest art) ; and the old king 
 filling not this time the horn, but a golden goblet, bid him drain 
 it and keep the goblet for his song. 
 
 Young Sigtryg leapt up, and took the cup to Hereward. 
 " Such a skald," he said, '' ought to have no meaner cup-bearer 
 than a king's son." 
 
 Hereward drank it dry ; and then fixing his eyes meaningly 
 on the Prince, dropt the i?rincess's ring into the cup, and putting 
 it back into Sigtryg's hand, sang, — 
 
 " The beaker I reach back 
 More rich than I took it. 
 No gold will I grasp 
 Of the king's, the ring-giver, 
 Till, by wit or by weapon, 
 I worthily win it. 
 When brained by my biter 
 O'Brodar lies gory. 
 While over the wolfs meal 
 Fair widows are wailing." 
 
 " Does he refuse my gift ? " grumbled Ranald. 
 
 " He has given a fair reason," said the Prince, as he hid the 
 
70 HEEEWAED.'THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 
 
 ring in his bosom ; " leave him to me ; for my brother in arms he 
 is henceforth." 
 
 After which, as was the custom of those parts, most of them 
 drank too much liquor. But neither Sigtryg nor Hereward 
 drank ; and the two Siwards stood behind their young uncle's 
 seat, watching him with that intense admiration which lads can 
 feel for a young man. 
 
 That night, when the warriors were asleep, Sigtryg and Here- 
 waid talked out their plans. They would equip two ships ; they 
 would fight all the kinglets of Cornwall at once, if need was ; 
 they would carry off the Princess, and burn Alefs town over his 
 head, if he said nay. Nothing could be more simple than the 
 tactics required in an age when might was right. 
 
 Then Hereward turned to his two nephews who lingered near 
 him, plainly big with news. 
 
 '' And what brings you here, lads ? " He had hardened his 
 heart, and made up his mind to show no kindness to his own kin. 
 The day might come when they might need him ; then it would 
 be his turn. 
 
 " Your father, as we told you, is dead." 
 
 " So much the better for him, and the worse for England. 
 And Harold and the Godwinssons, of course, are lords and mas- 
 ters far and wide ? " 
 
 " Tosti has our grandfather Siward's earldom." 
 
 " I know that. I know, too, that lie will not keep it long, un- 
 less he learns that Northumbrians are free men, and not Wessex 
 slaves." 
 
 " And Algar our uncle is outlawed again, after King Edward 
 had given him peaceably your father's earldom." 
 
 " And why ? " 
 
 " Why was he outlawed two years ago ? " 
 
 " Because the Godwinssons hate him, I suppose." 
 
 " And Algar is gone to Griffin, the Welshman, and from him 
 on to Dublin to get ships, just as he did two years ago ; and has 
 sent us here to get ships likewise." 
 
 " And what will he do with them when he has got them ? He 
 burnt Hereford last time he was outlawed, by way of a wise 
 dei'd, minster and all, with St. Elhelbert's relics on board ; and 
 slew seven clergymen : but they were only honest canons with 
 wives at home, and not shaveling monks, so I suppose that sin 
 was easily shrived. Well, I robbed a priest of a few pence, and 
 was outlawed ; he plunders and burns a whole minster, and is 
 made a great earl for it. One law for the weak and one for the 
 strong, young lads, as you will know when you are as old as I. 
 And now I suppose he will plunder and burn more minsters, aild 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 71 
 
 then patch up a peace with Harold again ; which I advise him 
 strongly to do ; for I warn you, young lads, and you may carry 
 that message from me to Dublin to my good brother your uncle, 
 that Harold's little finger is thicker than his whole body ; and 
 that, false Godwinsson as he is, he is the only man with a head 
 upon his shoulders left, in England, now that his father, and my 
 father, and dear old Siward, whom I loved better than my father, 
 are dead and gone." 
 
 The lads stood silent, not a little awed, and indeed imposed on, 
 by the cynical and worldly-wise tone which their renowned uncle 
 had assumed. 
 
 At last one of them asked, falteringly, " Then you will do 
 nothing for us?" 
 
 '' For you, nothing. Against you, nothing. Why should I 
 mix myself up in my brother's quarrels ? Will he make that 
 white-headed driveller at Westminster reverse my outlawry ? 
 And if he does, what shall I get thereby ? A younger brother's 
 portion ; a dirty ox-gang of land in Kesteven. Let him leave 
 me alone as I leave him, and see if I do not come back to him 
 some day, for or against him as he chooses, with such a host of 
 Vikings' sons as Harold Hadraade himself would be proud of. By 
 Thor's hammer, boys, 1 have been an outlaw but five years now, 
 and I find it so cheery a life, that I do not care if I am an outlaw 
 for fifty more. The world is a fine place and a wide place ; and 
 it is a very little corner of it that I have seen yet ; and if you 
 were of my mettle, you would come along with me and see it 
 throughout to the four corners of heaven, instead of mixirig your- 
 selves up in these paltry little quarrels with which our two fami- 
 lies are tearing England in pieces, and being murdered per- 
 chance like dogs at last by treachery, as Sweyn Godwinsson 
 murdered Biorn." 
 
 The boys listened, wide-eyed and wide-eared. Hereward 
 knew to whom he was speaking ; and he had not spoken in 
 vain. 
 
 "What do you hope to get here?" he went on. "Ranald 
 will give you no ships : he will have enough to do to fight 
 O'Brodar ; and he is too cunning to thrust his head into Algar's 
 quarrels." 
 
 " We hoped to find Vikings here, who would go to any war 
 on the hope of plunder." 
 
 " If there be any, I want them more than you ; and, what is 
 more, I will have them. They know that they will do finer 
 deeds with me for their captain than burning a few English 
 homesteads. And so may you. Come with me, lads. Once 
 and for all, come. Help, me to fight O'Brodar. Then help me 
 
72 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 to another little adventure which I have on hand, — as pretty a 
 one as ever you heard a minstrel sing, — and then we will fit out 
 a long ship or two, and go where fate leads, — to Constantinople, 
 if you like. What can you do better ? You never will get that 
 earldom from Tosti. Lucky for young Waltheof, your uncle, 
 if he gets it, — if he, and you too, are not murdered within 
 seven years ; for I know Tosti's humor, when he has rivals in 
 his way — " 
 
 " Algar will protect us,'' said one. 
 
 " I tell you, Algar is no match for the Godwinssons. If the 
 monk-king died to-morrow, neither his earldom nor his life would 
 be safe. When I saw your father Asbiorn lie dead at Dunsi- 
 nane, I said, ' There ends the glory of the house of the bear ' ; 
 and if you wish to make my words come false, then leave Eng- 
 land to founder and rot and fall to pieces, — as all men say she 
 is doing, — without your helping to hasten her ruin; and seek 
 glory and wealth too with me around the world ! The white 
 bear's blood is in your veins, lads. Take to the sea like youi 
 ancestor, and come over the swan's bath with me ! " ' 
 
 " That we will ! " said the two lads. And well they kept their 
 word. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW HEREWAED SUCCORED THE PRINCESS OF CORNWALL A 
 SECOND TIME. 
 
 Fat was the feasting and loud was the harping in the halls of 
 Alef the Cornishman, King of Gweek. Savory was the smell 
 of fried pilchard and hake ; more savory still that of roast por- 
 poise ; most savory of all that of fifty huge squab pies, built up 
 of layers of apples, bacon, onions, and mutton, and at the bottom 
 of each a squab, or young cormorant, which diffused both through 
 the pie and through the ambient air a delicate odor of mingled 
 guano and polecat. And the occasion was wortiiy alike of the 
 smell and of the noise ; for King Alef, finding that after the 
 Ogre's death the neighboring kings were but too ready to make 
 reprisals on him for his champion's murders and robberies, had 
 made a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with Hannibal 
 the son of Gryll, King of Marazion, and had confirmed the same 
 by bestowing on him the hand of his fair daughter. Whether 
 she approved of the match or not, was asked neither by King 
 Alef nor by King Hannibal. 
 
 To-night was the bridal-feast. To-morrow morning the church 
 was to hallow the union, and after that Hannibal Grylls was to 
 lead home his bride, among a gallant company. 
 
 And as they ate and drank, and harped and. piped, there came 
 into that hall four shabbily drest men, — one of them a short, 
 broad fellow, with black elf-locks and a red beard, — and sat them 
 down sneakingly at the very lowest end of all the benches. 
 
 In hospitable Cornwall, especially on such a day, every guest 
 was welcome ; and the strangers sat peaceably, but ate nothing, 
 though there was both hake and pilchard within reach. 
 
 Next to them, by chance, sat a great lourdan of a Dane, as 
 honest, brave, and stupid a fellow as ever tugged at oar ; and after 
 a while they fell talking, till the strangers had heard the reason 
 of this great feast, and all the news of the country side. 
 
 " But whence did they come, not to know it already ; for all 
 Cornwall was talking thereof?" 
 
 " 0, they came out of Devonshire, seeking service down west, 
 with some merchant or rover, being seafaring men." 
 4 
 
74 HIiREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 The stranger with the black hair had been, meanwhile, ear- 
 nestly watching the Princess, who sat at the board's head. He 
 saw her watching him in return, and with a face sad enough. 
 
 At last she burst into tears. 
 
 " What should tiie bride weep for, at such a merry wedding ? " 
 asked he of his companion. 
 
 " O, cause enough " ; and he told bluntly enough the PrincessV 
 story. " And what is more," said he, " the King of Waterford 
 sent a ship over last week, with forty proper lads on board, 
 and two gallant holders with them, to demand her ; but for all 
 answer, they were put into the strong house, and there they lie, 
 chained to a log, at this minute. Pity it is and shame, I hold, for 
 I am a Dane myself; and pity, too, that such a bonny lass should 
 go to an unkempt Welshman like this, instead of a tight smart 
 Viking's son, like the Waterford lad." 
 
 The stranger answered nothing, but kept his eyes upon the 
 Princess, till she looked at him steadfastly in return. 
 
 She turned pale and red again ; but after a while she spoke. 
 
 "There is a stranger there; and what his rank may be I 
 know not ; but he has been thrust down to the lowest seat, in a 
 house that used to honor strangers, instead of treating them like 
 slaves. Let him take this dish from my hand, and eat joyfully, 
 lest when he goes home he may speak scorn of bridegroom and 
 bride, and our Corni^ih wedding.-i." 
 
 The servant brought the dish down : he gave a look at the stran- 
 ger's shabby dress, turned up liis nose, and pretending to mistake, 
 put the dish into the liand of the Dane. 
 
 " Hold, lads," quoth the stranger. " If I have ears, that was 
 meant for me." 
 
 He seized the platter with both hands ; and therewith the hands 
 both of the Cornishman and of the Dane. There was a struggle; 
 but so bitter was the stranger's gripe, that (says the chronicler) the 
 blood burst from the nails of both his opponents. 
 
 He was called a " savage," a " devil in man's shape," and other 
 dainty names ; but he was left to eat his squab pie in peace. 
 
 " Patience, lads," quoth he, as he filled his mouth. " Before I 
 take my pleasure at this wedding, I will hand my own dish round 
 as well as any of you." 
 
 Whereat men wondered, but held their tongues. 
 
 And when the eating was over and the drinking began, the 
 Princess rose, and came round to drink the farewell health. 
 
 With her maids beiiind her, and her harper before her (so was 
 the Cornish custom), she pledged one by one each of the guests, 
 slave as well as free, while the harper played a tune. 
 
 She came down at last to the strangers. Her face was pale, 
 and her eyes red with weeping. 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 75 
 
 She filled a cup of wine, and one of her maids offered it to the 
 stranger. 
 
 He put it back, courteously, but firmly. " Not from your hand," 
 said he. 
 
 A growl against his bad manners rose straightway ; and the 
 minstrel, who (as often happened in those days) was jester like- 
 wise, made merry at his expense, and advised the company to turn 
 the wild beast out of the hall. 
 
 " Silence, fool ! " said the Princess. " Why should he know our 
 west-country ways ? He may take it from my hand, if not from 
 hers." 
 
 And she held out to him the cup herself. 
 
 He took it, looking her steadily in the face ; and it seemed to 
 the minstrel as if their hands lingered together round the cup- 
 handle, and that he saw the glitter of a ring. 
 
 Like many another of his craft before and since, he was a vain, 
 meddlesome vagabond, and must needs pry into a secret which 
 certainly did not concern him. ■• 
 
 So he could not leave the stranger in peace : and knowing that 
 his privileged calling protected him from that formidable fist, he 
 never passed him by without a sneer or a jest, as he wandered 
 round the table, offering his harp, in the Cornish fashion, to any 
 one who wished to play and sing. 
 
 " But not to you, Sir Elf-locks : he that is rude to a pretty girl 
 when she offers him wine, is too great a boor to understand my 
 trade." 
 
 " It is a fool's trick," answered the stranger at last, " to put off 
 what you must do at last. If I had but the time, I would pay 
 you for your tune with a better one than you ever heard." 
 
 " Take the harp, then, boor 1 " said the minstrel, with a laugh 
 and a jest. 
 
 The stranger took it, and drew from it such music as made all 
 heads turn toward him at once. Then he began to sing, some- 
 times by himself, and sometimes his comrades, " more Girviorum 
 tripliciter canentes" joined their voices in a three-man-glee. 
 
 In vain the minstrel, jealous for his own credit, tried to snatch 
 the harp away. The stranger sang on, till all hearts were soft- 
 ened ; and the Princess, taking the rich shawl from her shoulders, 
 threw it over those of the stranger, saying that it was a gift too 
 poor for such a scald. 
 
 " Scald ! " roared the bridegroom (now well in his cups) from the 
 head of the table ; " ask what thou wilt, short of my bride and my 
 kingdom, and it is thine." 
 
 " Give me, then, Hannibal Grylls, King of Marazion, the 
 Danes who came from Ranald, of Waterford." 
 
76 HEREWARD, THE LA§T OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " You shall have them ! Pity that you have asked for nothing 
 better than such tarry ruffians ! " 
 
 A few minutes after, the minstrel, bursting with jealousy and 
 rage, was whispering in Hannibal's ear. 
 
 The iiot old Punic* blood flashed up in his cheeks, and his thin 
 Punic lips curved into a snaky smile. Perhaps the old Punic 
 treachery in his heart ; for all that he was heard to reply was, 
 " We must not disturb the good-fellowship of a Cornish wed- 
 ding." 
 
 The stranger, nevertheless, and the Princess likewise, had seen 
 that bitter smile. 
 
 Men drank hard and long that night ; and when daylight came, 
 the strangers were gone. 
 
 In the morning the marriage ceremony was performed ; and 
 then began the pageant of leading home the bride. Tlie min- 
 strels went first, harping and piping ; then King Hannibal, carry- 
 ing his bride behind him on a pillion ; and after them a string of 
 servants atid men-at-arms, leading country ponies laden with the 
 bride's dower. Along with them, unarmed, sulky, and suspicious, 
 walked the forty Danes, who were informed that they should go 
 to Marazion, and there be shipped off for Ireland. 
 
 Now, as all men know, those parts of Cornwall, flat and open 
 furze-downs aloft, are cut, for many miles inland, by long branches 
 of tide river, walled in by woods and rocks, which rivers join at 
 la.=t in the great basin of Falmouth harbor ; and by crossing one 
 or more of these, the bridal party would save many a mile on 
 their road towards the west. 
 
 So they had timed their journey by the tides : lest, finding low 
 water in the rivers, tiiey should have to wade to the ferry-boats 
 waist deep in mud ; and going down the steep hillside, through 
 oak and a-h and hazel copse, they entered, as many as could, a 
 great flat-bottomed barge, aud were rowed across some quarter of 
 a mile, to land under a jutting crag, and go up again by a similar 
 pntli into the woods. 
 
 So the first boat-load went up, the minstrels in front, harping 
 and piping till the greenwood rang. King Hannibal next, with 
 his bride, and behind him spear-men and axe-men, with a Dane 
 between every two. 
 
 When they had risen some two hundred feet, and were in the 
 heart of the forest, Hannibal turned, and made a sign to the men 
 behind him. 
 
 Then each pair of them seized the Dane between them, and 
 began to bind his hands behind his back. 
 
 » Hannibal, still a common name in Cornwall, is held — and not unlikely- • 
 lo have been introduced there by the ancient Phoenician colonists. 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 77 
 
 " "What will you do with us ? " 
 
 " Send you back to Ireland, — a king never breaks his word, 
 — but pick out your right eyes iirst, to show your master how 
 much I care for him. Lucky for you that I leave you an eye 
 apiece, to find your friend the harper, whom if I catch, I flay 
 alive." 
 
 " You promised 1 " cried the Princess. 
 
 " And so did you, traitress ! " and he griped her arm, which was 
 round his waist, till she screamed. " So did you promise : but 
 not to me. And you shall pass your bridal night in my dog-ken- 
 nel, after my dog-whip has taught you not to give rings again to 
 wandering harpers." 
 
 The wretched Princess shuddered ; for she knew too well that 
 such an atrocity was easy and common enough. She knew it 
 well. Why should she not? The story of the Cid's Daugh- 
 ters and the Knights of Carrion ; the far more authentic one of 
 Robert of Belesme ; and many another ugly tale of the early 
 middle age, will prove but too certainly that, before the days of 
 chivalry began, neither youth, beauty, nor the sacred ties of mat- 
 rimony, could protect women from the most horrible outrages, at 
 the hands of those who should have been their protectors. It 
 was reserved for monks and inquisitors, in the name of religion 
 and the Gospel, to continue, through after centuries, those brutali- 
 ties toward women of which gentlemen and knights had grown 
 ashamed, save when (as in the case of the Albigense crusaders) 
 monks and inquisitors bade them torture, mutilate, and burn, in 
 the name of Him who died on the cross. 
 
 But the words had hardly passed the lips of Hannibal, ere he 
 reeled in the saddle, and fell to the ground, a javelin through his 
 heart. 
 
 A strong arm caught the Princess. A voice which she knew 
 bade her have no fear. 
 
 " Bind your horse to a tree, for we shall want him ; and 
 wait!" 
 
 Three well-armed men rushed on the nearest Cornishmen, and 
 hewed them down. A fourth unbound the Dane, and bade him 
 catcli up a weapon, and fight for his life. 
 
 A second pair were dispatched, a second Dane fi'eed, ere a 
 minute was over ; the Cornishmen, struggling up the narrow path 
 toward the shouts above, were overpowered in detail by continu- 
 ally increasing numbers; and ere half an hour was over, the 
 ■whole party were freed, mounted on the ponies, and making their 
 way over the downs toward the west. 
 
 " Noble, noble Hereward ! " said the Princess, as she sat be- 
 hind him on Hannibal's horse. " I knew you from the first 
 
78 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 moment ; and my nurse knew you too. Is she here ? Is sha 
 safe ? " 
 
 " I have taken care of that. She has done us too good service 
 to be left here, and be hanged. " 
 
 " I knew you, in spite of your hair, by your eyes." 
 
 " Yes," said Plereward. " It is not every man who carries one 
 gray eye and one blue. The more difficult for me to go mum- 
 ming when I need." 
 
 " But how came you hither, of all places in the world ? " 
 
 " When you sent your nurse to me last night, to warn me that 
 treason was abroad, it was easy for me to ask your road to Mara- 
 zion ; and easier too, when I found that you would go home the 
 very way we came,* to know that I must make my stand here or 
 nowhere." 
 
 " The way you came ? Then where are we going now ? " 
 
 " Beyond Marazion, to a little cove, — I cannot tell its 
 name. There lies Sigtryg, your betrothed, and three good sliips 
 of war." 
 
 " There ? Why did he not come for me himself? " 
 
 " Why ? Because we knew nothing of what was toward. We 
 meant to have sailed straight up your river to your father's town, 
 and taken you out with a high hand. We had sworn an oath, — 
 which, as you saw, I kept, — neither to eat nor drink in your 
 house, save out of your own hands. But the easterly wind would 
 not let us round the Lizard ; so we pyt into that cove, and there 
 I and these two lads, my nephews, offered to go forward as spies, 
 while Sigtryg threw up an eai'thwork, and made a stand against 
 the Cornish. We meant merely to go back to him, and give him 
 news. But when I found you as good as wedded, I had to do 
 what I could while I could ; and I have done it." 
 
 " You have, my noble and true champion," said she, kissing 
 him. 
 
 " Humph ! " quoth Hereward, laughing. " Do not tempt me 
 by being too grateful. It is hard enough to gather honey, like 
 tlie bees, for other folks to eat. What if I kept you myself, now 
 I have got you ? " 
 
 " Hereward ! " 
 
 " 0, there is no fear, pretty ladj'. I have other things to 
 think of than making love to you, — and one is, how we are to 
 get to our ships, and moreover, past Marazion town." 
 
 And hard work they had to get thither. The country was 
 soon roused and up in arms ; and it was only by wandering a three 
 days' circuit through bogs and moors, till the ponies were utterly 
 tired out, and left behind (the bulkier part of the dowry being 
 left behind with them), that they made their appearance on the 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 79 
 
 shore of Mount's Bay, Hereward leading the Princess in triumph 
 upon Hannibal's horse. 
 
 After which they all sailed away for Ireland, and there, like 
 young Beichan, — 
 
 " Prepared another wedding, 
 With all their hearts so full of glee." 
 
 And this is the episode of the Cornish Princess, as told by Le- 
 ofric of Bourne, the cunning minstrel and warlike priest. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW HEREWAED WAS WRECKED UPON THE FLANDERS SHORE. 
 
 Herewakd had drunk his share at Sigtryg's wedding. He 
 had helped to harry the lands of O'Brodar till (as King Ranald 
 had threatened) there was not a sucking-pig left in Ivark, and 
 the poor folk died of famine, as they did about every seven 
 years ; he had burst (says the chronicler) through the Irish camp 
 with a chosen band of Bei-serkers, slain O'Brodar in his tent, 
 brought off his war-horn as a trophy, and cut his way back to 
 the Danish army, — a feat in which the two Siwards were griev- 
 ously wounded ; and had in all things shown himself a daring and 
 crafty captain, as careless of his own life as of other folks'. 
 
 Then a great home-sickness had seized him. He would go 
 back and see the old house, and the cattle-pastures, and the meres 
 and fens of his boyhood. He would see his widowed mother. 
 Perhaps her heart was softened to him by now, as his was toward 
 her : and if not, he could show her that he could do without her ; 
 that others thought him a fine fellow if she did not. Hereward 
 knew that he had won honor and glory for himself; that his 
 name was in the mouths of all warriors and sea-rovers round the 
 coasts as the most likely young champion of the time, able to 
 rival, if he had the opportunity, the prowess of Harold Hard- 
 raade himself. Yes, he would go and see his mother : he would 
 be kind if she was kind ; if she were not, he would boast and 
 swagger, as he was but too apt to do. That he should go back at 
 the risk of his life ; that any one who found him on English 
 ground might kill him ; and that many would certainly try to kill 
 him, he knew very well. But that only gave special zest to the 
 adventure. 
 
 Martin Lightfoot heard this news with joy. 
 
 " I have no more to do here," said he. " I have searched and 
 asked far and wide for the man I want, and he is not on the Irish 
 shores Some say he is gone to the Orkneys, some to Denmark. 
 Never mind; I shall find him before I die." 
 
 " And for whom art looking ? " 
 
 " For one Thord Gunlaugsson, my father." 
 
 " And what wantest with him ? " 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 81 
 
 " To put this through his brain." And he showed his axe. 
 
 "Thy father's brain?" 
 
 " Look you, lord. A man owes his father naught, and his 
 mother all. At least so hold I. ' Man that is of woman born,' 
 say all the world ; and they say right. Now, if any man lianj,' 
 up that mother by hands and feet, and flog her to death, is not he 
 that is of that mother born bound to revenge her upon any man, 
 and all the more if that man had first his wicked will of that 
 poor mother? Considering that last, lord, I do not know but 
 what I am bound to avenge my mother's shame upon the man, 
 even if he had never killed her. No, lord, you need not :ry to 
 talk this out of my head. It has been there nigh twenty years ; 
 and I say it over to myself every night before I sleep, lest I 
 should forget the one thing which I must do before I die. Find 
 him I will, and find him I shall, if there be justice in heaven 
 above.'' 
 
 So Hereward asked Ranald for ships, and got at once two good 
 vessels, as payment for his doughty deeds. 
 
 One he christened the Garpike, from her narrow build and 
 long beak, and the other the Otter, because, he said, whatever 
 she grappled she would never let go till she heard the bones 
 crack. They were excellent new "snekrs," nearly eighty feet 
 long each ; with double banks for twelve oars a-side in the waist, 
 which was open, save a fighting gangway along the sides ; with 
 high poop and forecastle decks ; and with one large sail apiece, 
 embroidered by Sigtryg's Princess and the other ladies with a 
 huge white bear, which Hereward had chosen as his ensign. 
 
 As for men, there were fifty fellows as desperate as Hereward 
 himself, to take service with him for that or any other quest. So 
 they ballasted their ships with great pebbles, stowed under the 
 thwarts, to be used as ammunition in case of boarding ; and over 
 them the barrels of ale and pork and meal, well covered with 
 tarpaulins. They stowed in the cabins, fore and aft, their weap- 
 ons, — swords, spear.~, axes, bows, chests of arrow-heads, leather 
 bags of bowstrings, mail-shirts, and helmets, and fine clothes for 
 holidays and fighting days. They hung their shields, after the 
 old fashion, out-board along the gunwale, and a rigbt gay show 
 they made ; and so rowed out of Waterford harbor amid the 
 tears of the ladies and the cheers of the men. 
 
 But, as it befell, the voyage did not prosper. Hereward found 
 his vessels under-manned, and had to sail northward for fresh 
 hands. He got none in Dublin, for lihey were all gone to the 
 Welsh marches to help Earl Alfgar and King' Griffin. So he 
 went on through the Hebrides, intending, of course, to plunder 
 as he went : but there he got but little booty, and lost several 
 4* F 
 
82 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 men. So he went on again to the Orkneys, to try for fresh hands 
 from the Norse Earl Hereof; but there befell a fresh mishap. 
 They were followed by a whale, which they made sure was a 
 witch-whale, and boded more ill luck ; and accordingly they were 
 struck by a storm in the Pentland Frith, and the poor Garpike 
 went on shore on Hoy, and was left there forever and a day, her 
 crew being hardly saved, and very little of her cargo. 
 
 However, the Otter was now not only manned, but over 
 manned ; and Hereward had to leave a dozen stout fellows in 
 Kirkwall, and sail southward again, singing cheerily to his 
 men, — 
 
 " Lightly the long -snake 
 
 Leiips after tempests, 
 ' Gayly the sun-gleam 
 
 Glows after rain. 
 
 In labor and daring 
 
 Lies luck for all mortals, 
 
 Foul winds and foul witch-wivea 
 
 Fray women alone." 
 
 But their mishaps were not over yet. They were hardly out 
 of Stronsay Frith when they saw the witch-whale again, follow- 
 ing them up, rolling and spouting and breaching in most uncanny 
 wise. Some said that they saw a gray woman on his back ; and 
 they knew — possibly from the look of the sky, but certainly from 
 the whale's behavior — that there was more heavy weather yet 
 coming from the northward. 
 
 From that day forward the whale never left them, nor the 
 wild weallier neither. They were beaten out of all reckoning. 
 Once they thought they saw low land to the eastward, but what 
 or where who could tell? and as for making it, the wind, which 
 had blown hard from northeast, backed against the sun and blew 
 from west ; from which, as well as from the witch-whale, they 
 expected another gale from north and round to northeast. 
 
 The men grew sulky and fearful. Some were tor trying to 
 run the witch down and break her back, as did Frithiof in like 
 case, when hunted by a whale with two hags upon his back, — an 
 excellent recipe in such cases, but .somewhat difficult in a heavv 
 sea. Others said that there was a doomed man on board, and 
 proposed to cast lots till tJK^y found liini out, and cast him into 
 the sea, as a sacritice to /Egir tlie wave-god. But Hereward 
 scouted that as unmanly and cowardly, and sang, — 
 
 " With blood of my bold ones, 
 With Ijale of my comrades, 
 Tliinks ^Kgir, brine-tlursty, 
 His tliroat tie can slake ? 
 Tliough salt spray, shrill-sounding, 
 Sweep in swan's-flights above us, 
 True heroes, troth-plighted. 
 Together we '11 die." 
 
ix.i««-,.riiivL/, int l.ASr OF THE ENGLISH. 83 
 
 At last, after many days, their strength was all but worn out. 
 They had long since given over rowing, and contented them- 
 selves with running under a close-reefed canvas whithersoever 
 the storm should choose. At night a sea broke over them, and 
 would have swamped the Otter, had she not been the best of 
 sea-boats. But she only rolled the lee shields into the water and 
 out again, shook, herself, and went on. Nevertheless, there were 
 three men on the poop when the sea came in, who were not there 
 when it went out. 
 
 Wet and wild dawned that morning, showing naught but gray 
 sea and gray air. Then sang Hereward, — 
 
 " Cheerly, my sea-cocks 
 Crow for the day-dawn. 
 Weary and wet are we, 
 Water beladen. 
 Wetter our comrades, 
 Whelmed by the witch- whale. 
 Us Mgir granted 
 Grudging, to Gondul, 
 Doomed to die dry-shod. 
 Daring the foe." 
 
 Whereat the hearts of the men were much cheered. 
 
 All of a sudden, as is the wont of gales at dawn, the clouds 
 rose, tore up into ribbons, and with a fierce black shower or two, 
 blew clean away ; disclosing a bright blue sky, a green rolling 
 sea, and, a few miles ofi" to leeward, a pale yellow line, seen only 
 as they topped a wave, but seen only too well. To keep the ship 
 off shore was impossible ; and as they drifted nearer and nearer, 
 the line of sand-hills rose, uglier and more formidable, through 
 the gray spray of the surf. 
 
 " We shall die on shore, but not dry-shod," said Martin. " Do 
 any of you knights of the tar-brush know whether we are going 
 tio be drowned in Christian waters ? I should like a mass or two 
 for my soul, and shall die the happier within sight of a church- 
 towei-." 
 
 " One Dune is as like another as one pea ; we may be any- 
 where between the Texel and Cap Gris Nez, but I think nearer 
 the latter than the former." 
 . " So much the worse for us," said another. " If we had gone 
 ashore among those Frieslanders, we should have been only 
 knocked on the head outright; but if we fall among the French- 
 men, we shall be clapt in prison strong, and tortured till we find 
 ransom." 
 
 " I don't see that," said Martin. " We can all be drowned if 
 we like, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Drowned we need not be, if we be men," said the old sailing- 
 
84 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 master to Hereward. " The tide is full high, and that gives na 
 one chance for our lives. Keep her head straight, and row like 
 fiends when we are once in the surf, and then beach her up high 
 and dry, and take what befalls after." 
 
 And what was likely to befall was ugly enough. Then, as cen- 
 turies after, all wrecks and wrecked men were public prey; ship- 
 wrecked mariners were liable to be sold as slaves ; and the petty 
 counts of the French and Flemish shores were but too likely to 
 extract ransom by prison and torture, as Guy Earl of Ponthieu 
 would have done (so at least William Duke of Normandy hinted) 
 by Harold Godwinsson, had not William, for his own politic ends, 
 begged the release of the shipwrecked earl. 
 
 Already they had been seen from the beach. The country 
 folk, who were prowling about the shore after the waifs of the 
 storm, deserted " jetsora and lagend," and crowded to meet the 
 richer prize which was coming in "flotsom," to become "jetsom" 
 in its turn. 
 
 " Axe-men and bow-men, put on your harness, and be ready ; 
 but neither strike nor shoot till I give the word. We must land 
 peaceably if we can ; if not, we will die fighting.'' 
 
 So said Hereward, and took the rudder into his own hand. 
 "Now then," as she rushed into the breakers, "pull, together, 
 rowers all, and with a will." 
 
 The men yelled, and sprang from the thwarts as they tugged at 
 the oars. The sea boiled past them, surged into the waist, blinded 
 them with spray. She grazed the sand once, twice, thrice, leap- 
 ing forward gallantly each time ; and then, pressed by a huge 
 wave, drove high and dry upon the beach, as the oars snapt right 
 and left, and the men tumbled over each other in heaps. . 
 
 The peasants swarmed down like flies to a carcass ; but they 
 recoiled as there rose over the forecastle bulwarks, not the broad 
 hats of peaceful buscarles, but peaked helmets, round red shiekls, 
 and glittering axes. They drew back, and one or two arrows 
 flew from the crowd into the ship. But at Hereward's command 
 no arrows were shot in answer. 
 
 " Bale her out quietly ; and let us show these fellows that we 
 are not afraid of them. That is the best chance of peace." 
 
 At this moment a mounted party came down between the sand- 
 hills ; it might be, some twenty strong. Before them rode a boy 
 on a jennet, and by him a clerk, its he seemed, upon a mule. 
 They stopped to talk with the peasants, and then to consult 
 among themselves. 
 
 Suddenly the boy turned from his party ; and galloping down 
 the shore, while the clerk called after him in vain, reined up his 
 horse, fetlock deep in water, within ten yards of the ship's bows. 
 
HEBE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 85 
 
 "Yield yourselves!" he shouted, m French, as he brandished 
 a hunting speiir. " Yield yourselves, or die ! " 
 
 Hereward looked at him smiling, as he sat there, keeping the 
 head of his frightened horse toward the ship with hand and heel, 
 his long looks streaming in the wind, his face full of courage and 
 command, and of honesty and sweetness withal; and thought that 
 he had never seen so fair a lad. 
 
 " And who art thou, thou pretty, bold boy ? " asked Hereward, 
 in French. 
 
 " I," said he, haughtily enough, as resenting Hereward's famil- 
 iar t thou," " am Arnulf, grandson and heir of Baldwin, Marquis 
 of Flanders, and lord of this land. And to his grace I call on 
 you to surrender yourselves.'' 
 
 Hei'eward looked, not only with interest, but respect, upon the 
 grandson of one of the most famous and prosperous of northern 
 potentates, the descendant of the mighty Charlemagne himself. 
 He turned and told the men who the boy was. 
 
 "It would be a good trick," quoth one, "to catch that young 
 whelp, and keep him as a hostage." 
 
 " Here is what will have him on board before he can turn," said 
 another, as he made a running noose in a rope. 
 
 " Quiet, men ! Am I master in this ship or you ? " 
 
 Hereward saluted the lad courteously. " Verily the blood of 
 Baldwin of the Iron Arm has not degenerated. I am happy to 
 behold so noble a son of so noble a race." 
 
 " And who are you, who speak French so well, and yet by 
 your dress are neither French nor Fleming?" 
 
 " I am Harold Naemansson, the Viking ; and these my men. 
 I am here, sailing peaceably for England ; as for yielding, — 
 mine yield to no living man, but die as we are, weapon in hand. 
 I have heard of your grandfather, that he is a just man and a 
 bountiful ; therefore take this message to him, young sir. If lie 
 have wars toward, I and my men will fight for him with all our 
 might, and earn hospitality and ransom with our only treasure, 
 which is our swords. But if he be at peace, then let him bid us 
 go in peace, for we are Vikings, and must fight, or rot and die." 
 
 " You are Vikings ? " cried the boy, pressing his horse into the 
 foam so eagerly, that the men, mistaking his intent, had to be re- 
 prest again by Hereward. " You are Vikings ! Then come on 
 shore, and welcome. You shall be my friends. You shall be 
 my brothers. I will answer to my grandfather. I have longed 
 to see Vikings. I long to be a Viking myself." 
 
 "By the hammer of Thor," cried the old master, "and thou 
 wouldst make a bonny one, my lad." 
 
 Hereward hesitated, delighted with the boy, but by no means 
 sure of his power to protect them. 
 
86 HEKEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 But the boy rode back to his companions, who had by this 
 time ridden cautiously down to the sea, and talked and gesticu- 
 lated eagerly. 
 
 Then the clerk roda down and talked with Hereward. 
 
 "Are you Christians?" shouted he, before he would adven- 
 ture himself near the ship. 
 
 " Christians we are. Sir Clerk, and dare do no harm to a man 
 of God." 
 
 The Clerk rode nearer; his handsome palfrey, furred cloak, 
 rich gloves and boots, moreover his air of command, showed that 
 he was no common man. 
 
 "I," said he, "am the Abbot of St. Bertin i.f Sithiu, and tutor 
 of yonder prince. I can bring down, at a word, against you, the 
 Chatelain of St. Oraer, with ail his knights, besides knights and 
 men-at-arms of my own. But I am a man of peace, and not of 
 war, and would have no blood shed if I can help it." 
 
 " Then make peace," said Hereward. " Your lord may kill us 
 if he will, or have us for his guests if he will. If he does the first, 
 we shall kill, each of us, a few of his men before we die ; if the 
 latter, we shall kill a few of his foes. If you be a man of God, 
 you will counsel him accordingly." 
 
 " Alas ! alas ! " said the Abbot, with a shudder, " that, ever 
 since Adam's fall, sinful man should talk of nothing but slaying 
 and being slain ; not knowing that his soul is slain already by 
 sin, and that a worse death awaits him hereafter than that death 
 of the body of which he makes so light ! " 
 
 '' A very good sermon, my Lord Abbot, to listen to next Sun- 
 day morning: but we are hungry and wet and desperate just 
 now ; and if you do not settle this matter for us, our blood will 
 be on your head, — and may be your own likewise." 
 
 The Abbot rode out of the water faster than he had ridden in, 
 and a fresh consultation ensued, after which the boy, with a warn- 
 ing gesture to his companions, turned and galloped away through 
 the sand-hills. 
 
 " He is gone to his grandfather himself, I verily believe," 
 quoth Hereward. 
 
 They waited for some two hours, unmolested ; and, true to 
 their policy of seeming recklessness, shifted and dried themselves 
 as well as they could, ate what provisions were unspoilt by the 
 salt water, and, broaching the last barrel of ale, drank healths to 
 each other and to the Flemings on shore. 
 
 At last down rode, with the boy, a noble-looking man. and be- 
 hind him more knights and men-at-arms. He announced himself 
 as Manafses, Chatelain St. Omer, and repeated the demand to 
 surrender. 
 
 " There is no need for it," said Hereward. " We are already 
 
HEREWAKD, THK LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 87 
 
 that young prince's guests. He has said that we shall be hi& 
 friends and brothers. He has said that he will answer to his 
 grandfather, the great Marquis, whom I and mine shall be proud 
 to serve. I claim the word of a descendant of Charlemagne." 
 
 " And you shall have it ! " cried the boy. " Chatelain ! Ab- 
 bot ! these men are mine. They shall come with me, and lodge 
 in St. Berlin." 
 
 " Heaven forefend ! " murmured the Abbot. 
 
 " They will be safe, at.least, within your ramparts," whispered 
 the Chatelain. 
 
 " And they shall tell me about the sea. Have I not told you 
 how I long for Vikings ; how I will have Vikings of my own, 
 and sail the seas with them, like my Uncle Eobert, and go to 
 Spain and fight the Moors, and to Constantinople and marry the 
 Kaiser's daughter? Come," he cried to Hereward, "come on 
 shore, and he that touches you or your ship, touches me ! " 
 
 " Sir Qhatelain and my Lord Abbot," said Hereward, " you 
 see that. Viking though I be, I am no barbarous heathen, but a 
 French-speaking gentleman, like yourselves. It had been easy 
 for me, had I not been a man of honor, to have cast a rope, as 
 my sailors would have had me do, over that young boy's fair 
 head, and haled him on board, to answer for my life w^ith his own. 
 But I loved him, and trusted him, as I would an angel out of 
 heaven ; and I trust him still. To him, and him only, will I yield 
 myself, on condition that I and my men shall keep all our arms 
 and treasure, and enter his service, to fight his foes, and his 
 grandfather's, wheresoever they will, by land or sea." 
 
 " Fair sir," said the Abbot, " pirate though you call yourself, 
 you speak so courtly and clerkly, that I, too, am inclined to trust 
 you ; and if my young lord will have it so, into St. Berlin I will 
 receive you, till our lord, the Marquis, shall give orders about 
 you and yours-" 
 
 So promisj3s were given all round ; and Hereward explained 
 the matter to the men, without whose advice (for they were all 
 as free as himself) he could not act. 
 
 "Needs must," grunted they, as they packed up each his little 
 valuables. 
 
 Then Hereward sheathed his sword, and leaping from the bow, 
 came up to the boy. 
 
 " Put your hands between his, fair sir," said the Chatelain. 
 
 " That is not the manner of Vikings." 
 
 And he took the boy's right hand, and grasped it in the plain 
 English fashion. 
 
 " There is the hand of an honest man. Come down, men, and 
 take this young lord's hand, and serve him in the wars as I will do." 
 
 One by one the men came down ; and each took Arnulf s hand, 
 
88 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 and shook it till the lad's face grew red. But none of them 
 bowed, or made obeisance. They looked the boy full in the face, 
 and as they ."-tepped back, stared round upon the ring of ai-med 
 men with a smile and ^omething of a swagger. 
 
 " These are they who bow to no man, and call no man master," 
 whispered the Abbot. 
 
 And so they were : and so are their descendants of Scotland 
 and Northumbria, unto this very day. 
 
 The boy sprang from his horse, and walked among them and 
 round them in delight. He admired and handled their long- 
 handled double axes; their short sea-bows of horn and deer-sinew; 
 their red Danish jerkins ; their blue sea-cloaks, fastened on the 
 shoulder with lich brooches ; and the gold and silver bracelets on 
 their wiirts. He wondered at their long shaggy beards, and still 
 more at the blue patterns with which the English among them, 
 Hereward especially, were tattooed on throat and arm and knee. 
 
 "Yes, you are Vikings, — just such as my Uncle Robert tells 
 me of." 
 
 Hereward knew well the exploits of Robert le Frison in Spain 
 and Greece. "I t^u^t that your noble uncle," he asked, "is 
 well ? He was one of us poor sea-cocks, and sailed the swan's 
 path gallantly, till he became a mighty prince. Here is a man 
 here who was with your noble uncle in Byzant." 
 
 And he thrust forward the old master. 
 
 The boy's delight knew no hounds. He should tell him all 
 about that in St. Bertin. 
 
 Then he rode back to the ship, and round and round her (for 
 the tide by that time had left her high and dry), and wondered 
 at iier long snake-like lines, and carven stem and stern. 
 
 " Tell me about this ship. Let me go on board of her. I have 
 never seen a ship inland at Mons there ; and even here there are 
 only heavy ugly busses, and little fishing-boats. No. You must 
 be all hungry and tired. We will go to St. Berlin, at once, and 
 jou shall be feasted royally. Hearken, villains ! " shouted he to 
 the pea-ants. " This ship belongs to the fair sir here, — my guest 
 and friend ; and if any man dares to steal from her a stave or a 
 nail, I will have his thiePs hand cut off." 
 
 " The ship, fair lord," said Hereward, " is yours, not mine. 
 You should build twenty more after her pattern, and man them 
 with such lads as these, and then go down to 
 
 ' Miklagard and Spanialand, 
 That lie so far on the lee, ! ' 
 
 as did your noble uncle before you.'' 
 
 And so they marched inland, after the boy had dismounted 
 one of his men, and put Hereward on the horse. 
 
HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 89 
 
 " You gentlemen of the sea can ride as well as sail," said the 
 Chatelain, as he remarked with some surprise Hereward's per- 
 fect seat and hand. 
 
 " We should soon learn to fly likewise," laughed Hereward, 
 "if there were any booty to be picked up in the clouds there 
 overhead " ; and he rode on by Arnulf s side, as the lad ques- 
 tioned him about the sea, and nothing else. 
 
 "Ah, my boy," said Hereward at last, "look there, and let 
 those be Vikings who must." 
 
 And he pointed to the rich pastures, broken by strips of corn- 
 land and snug farms, which stretched between the sea aiid the 
 great forest of Flanders. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 But Hereward was silent. It was so like his own native fens. 
 For a moment there came over him the longing for a home. To 
 settle down in such a fair fat land, and call good acres his own ; 
 and marry and beget stalwart sons, to till the old estate when he 
 could till no more. Might not that be a better life — at least a 
 happier one — than restless, homeless, aimless adventure ? And 
 now, just as he had had a hope of peace, — a hope of seeing his 
 own land, his own folk, perhaps of making peace with his mother 
 and his king, — the very waves would not let him rest, but sped 
 him forth, a storm-tossed waif, to begin life anew, fighting he 
 cared not whom or why, in a strange land. 
 
 So he was silent and sad withal. 
 
 " What does he mean ? " asked the boy of the Abbot. 
 
 " He seems a wise man : let him answer for himself." 
 
 The boy asked once more. 
 
 " Lad ! lad ! " said Hereward, waking as from a dream. " If 
 you be heir to such a fair land as that, thank God for it, and 
 pray to Him that you may rule it justly, and keep it in peace, as 
 they say your grandfather and your father do ; and»leave glory 
 and fame and the Vikings' bloody trade to those who have 
 neither father nor mother, wife nor land, but live like the wolf 
 of the wood, from one meal to the next." 
 
 " I thank you for those words. Sir Harold," said the good Ab- 
 bot, while the boy went on abashed, and Hereward himself was 
 startled at his own saying, and rode silent till they crossed the 
 drawbridge of St. Benin, and entered that ancient fortress, so 
 strong that it was the hiding-place in war time for all the treas- 
 ures of the country, and so sacred withal that no woman, dead or 
 alive, was allowed to defile it by her presence ; so that the wife 
 of Baldwin the Bold, ancestor of Arnulf, wishing to lie by her 
 husband, had to remove his corpse from St. Bertin to the Abbey 
 of Blandigni, where the Counts of Flanders lay in glory for 
 many a generation. 
 
90 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 The pirates entered, not without gloomy distrust, the gales of 
 that consecrated fortress; while the monks in their turn wei-e 
 (and with some reason) considerably frightened when they were 
 asked to entertain as guests forty Norse rovers. Loudly did the 
 elder among them bewail (in Latin, lest their guests should under- 
 stiind too much) the present weakness of their monastery, where 
 St. Bertin was left to defend himself and his monks all alone 
 against the wicked world outside. Far different had been their 
 case some hundred and seventy years before. Then St. Valeri 
 and St. Riquier of Ponthieu, transported thither from their own 
 resting-places in France for fear of the invading- Northmen, had 
 joined their suffrages and merits to those of St. Bertin, with 
 such success that the abbey had never been defiled by the foot of 
 the heathen. But, alas! the saints, that is their bodies, after 
 a while became homesick ; and St. Valeri appearing in a dream 
 to Hugh Capet, bade him bring them back to France in spite of 
 Arnulf, Count of those parts, who wished much to retain so valu- 
 able an addition to his household gods. 
 
 But in vain. Hugh Capet was a man who took few denials. 
 With knights and men-at-arms he came, and Count Arnulf had 
 to send home the holy corpses with all humility, and leave St. 
 Bertin all alone. 
 
 Whereon St. Valeri appeared in a dream to Hugh Capet, and 
 said unto him, " Because thou hast zealously done what I com- 
 manded, thou and thy successors shall reign in the kingdom of 
 France to everlasting generations." * 
 
 However, there was no refusing the grandson and heir of Count 
 Baldwin ; and the hearts of the monks were comforted by hearing 
 that Hereward was a good Christian, and that most of his crew 
 had been at least baptized. The Abbot therefore took courage, 
 and admitted them into the hospice, with solemn warnings as to the 
 doom whicK they might expect if they took the value of a horse- 
 nail from the patrimony of the blessed saint. Was he less power- 
 ful or less careful of his own honor than St. Lieven of Holthera, 
 who, not more than fifty years before, had struck stone-blind four 
 soldiers of the Emperor Henry's, who hai" dared, after warning, 
 to plunder the altar ? f Let them remember, too, the fate of their 
 own forefathers, the heathens of the North, and the check which, 
 one hundred and seventy years before, they had received under 
 those very walls. They had exterminated the people of Walch- 
 eren ; they had taken prisoners Count Regnier ; they had burnt 
 Ghent, Bruges, and St. Omer itself, close by ; they had left naught 
 
 * Histoiro dea Comtes do Flaudre, par E. le Glay. E. gostis SS. R.'obarii et 
 Walerici. 
 t Ibid. 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 91 
 
 between the Scheldt and the Somrae, save stark corpses and black- 
 ened ruins. What could withstand them till they dared to lift 
 audacious hands against the heavenly lord who sleeps there in 
 Sithiu ? Then they poured down in vain over the Ileilig-Veld, 
 innumerable as the locusts. Poor monks, strong in the protection 
 of the holy Bertin, sallied out and smote them hip and thigh, sing- 
 ing their psalms the while. The ditches of the fortress wei-e 
 filled with unbaptized corpses ; the piles of vine-twigs which they 
 lighted to burn down the gates turned their flames into the 
 Norsemen's faces at the bidding of St. Bertin ; and they fled from 
 that temporal fire to descend info that which is eternal, while the 
 gates of the pit were too narrow for the multitude of their mis- 
 creant souls.* 
 
 So the Norsemen heard, and feared; and only cast longing 
 eyes at the gold and tapestries of the altars, when they went in to 
 mass. 
 
 For the good Abbot, gaining courage still further, had pointed 
 out to Hereward and his men that it had been surely by the 
 merits and suffrages of the blessed St. Bertin that they had es- 
 caped a watery grave. 
 
 Hereward and his men, for their part, were not inclined to deny 
 the theory. That they had miraculously escaped, from the acci- 
 dent of the tide being high, they knew full well; and that St. 
 Bertin should have done tliem the service was probable enough. 
 He, of course, was lord and master in his own country, and very 
 probably a few miles out to sea likewise. 
 
 So Hereward assured the Abbot that he had no mind to eat St. 
 Bertin's bread, or accept his favors, without paying honestly for 
 them; and after mass he took from his shoulders a handsome silk 
 cloak (the only one he had), with a great Scotch Cairngorm 
 brooch, and bade them buckle it on the shoulders of the great 
 image of St. Bertin. 
 
 At which St. Bertin was so pleased (being, like many saints, 
 male and female, somewhat proud after their death of the finery 
 which they despised during life), that he appeared that night to a 
 certain monk, and told him that if Hereward would continue duly 
 to honor him, the blessed St. Bertin, and his monks at that place, 
 he would, in his turn, insure him victory in all his battles by land 
 and sea. 
 
 After which Hereward stayed quietly in the abbey certain 
 days ; and young Arnulf, in -spite of all remonstrances from the 
 Abbot, would never leave his side till he had heard from him and 
 from his men as much of their adventures as they thougKt it pru- 
 dent to relate. 
 
 ♦ 'rUis gallaDt feat was performed in A. D. 891. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOW HEREWAED WENT TO THE WAR AT GUISNES. 
 
 The dominion of Baldwin of Lille, — Baldwin the Debonair, 
 — Marquis of Flanders, and just then the greatest potentate in 
 Europe after the Kaiser of Germany and the Kaiser of Constan- 
 tinople, extended from the Somme to the Scheldt, including thus 
 much territory which now belongs to France. His forefathers 
 had ruled there ever since the days of the " Foresters" of Char- 
 lemagne, who held the vast forests against the heathens of the 
 fens, and of that famous Baldwin Bras-de-fer, — who, when the 
 foul fiend rose out of the Scheldt, and tried to drag him down, 
 tried cold steel upon him (being a practical man), and made his 
 ghostly adversary feel so sorely the weight of the " iron arm," 
 that he retired into his native mud, — or even lower still. 
 
 He, like a daring knight as he was, ran off with his (so some 
 say) early love, Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald of France, 
 a descendant of Charlemagne himself. Married up to Ethelwulf 
 of England, and thus stepmother of Alfred the Great, — after 
 his death behaving, alas for her ! not over wisely or well, she 
 had verified the saying : 
 
 " Nous revenons toujours 
 A nos premiers amours," 
 
 and ran away with Baldwin. 
 
 Charles, furious that one of his earls, a mere lieutenant and 
 creature, should dare to marry a daughter of Charlemagne's 
 house, would have attacked him with horse and foot, fire and 
 sword, had not Baldwin been the only man who could defend his 
 northern frontier against the heathen Norsemen. 
 
 The Pope, as Charles was his good friend, fulminated against 
 Baldwin the excommunication destined for him who Stole a 
 widow for his wife, and all his accomplices. 
 
 Baldwin and Judith went straight to Rome, and told their 
 story to the Pope. 
 
 He, honest man, wrote to Charles the Bald a letter which still 
 remains, — alike merciful, sentimental, and politic, with its usual 
 'ngrained element of what we now call (from the old monkish 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 93 
 
 word " cantare ") cant. Of Baldwin's horrible wickedness tliere 
 is no doubt. Of his repentance (in all matters short of amend- 
 ment of life, by giving up the fair Judith), still less. But the 
 Pope has " another motive for so acting. He fears lest Baldwin, 
 under the weight of Charles's wrath and indignation, should 
 make alliance with the Normans, enemies of God and the holy 
 Church ; and thus an occasion arise of peril and scandal for the 
 people of God, whom Charles ought to rule," &c., &c., which if 
 it happened, it would be worse for them and for Charles's own 
 soul. 
 
 To which very sensible and humane missive (times and creeds 
 being considered), diaries answered, after pouting and sulking, 
 by making Baldwin bona fide king of all between Somme and 
 Scheldt, and leaving him to raise a royal race from Judith, the 
 wicked and the fair. 
 
 This all happened about A. D. 863. Two hundred years after, 
 there ruled over that same land Baldwin the Debonair, as " Mar- 
 quis of the Flamands." 
 
 Baldwin had had his troubles. He had fought the Count of 
 Holland. He had fought the Emperor of Germany ; during 
 which war he had burnt the cathedral of Nimeguen, and did 
 other unrighteous and unwise things ; and had been beaten 
 after all. 
 
 .Baldwin had had his troubles, and had deserved them. But 
 lie had had his glories, and had deserved them likewise. He 
 had cut the Foss6 Neuf, or new dike, which parted Artois from 
 Flanders. He had so beautified the cathedral of Lille, that he 
 was called Baldwin of Lille to his dying day. He had married 
 Adela, the queen countess, daughter of the King of France. 
 He had become tutoi' of Philip, the young King, and more or 
 less thereby regent of the north of France, and had fulfilled his 
 office wisely and well. He had married his eldest son, Baldwin 
 the Good, to the terrible sorceress Richilda, heiress of Hainault, 
 wherefore the bridegroom was named Baldwin of Mons. He had 
 married one of his daughters, Matilda, to William of Normandy, 
 afterwards the Conqueror; and another, Judith, to Tosti God- 
 winsson, the son of the great Earl Godwin of England. She 
 afterwards married Welf, Duke of Bavaria ; whereby, it may 
 be, the blood of Baldwin of Flanders runs in the veins of Queen 
 Victoria. 
 
 • And thus there were few potentates of the North more feared 
 and respected than Baldwin, the good-natured Earl of Flanders. 
 
 But one sore thorn in the side he had, which other despots 
 after him shared with him, and with even worse success in ex- 
 tracting it, — namely, the valiant men of Scaldmariland, which 
 
94 HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 we now call Holland. Of them hereafter. At the moment of 
 Hereward's arrival, he was troubled with a lesser thorn, the 
 Count of Guisnes, who would not pay him up certain dues, and 
 otherwise acknowledge his soverergnty. 
 
 Therefore when the Chatelain of St. Omer sent him word to 
 Bruges that a strange Viking had landed with hie crew, calling 
 himself Harold Naemansson, and offering to take service with 
 him, he returned for answer that the said Harold might make 
 proof of his faith and prowess upon the said Count, in which, if 
 he acquitted himself like a good knight, Baldwin would have 
 further dealings with him. 
 
 So the Chatelain of St. Omer, with all his knights and men- 
 at-arms, and Hereward with his sea-cocks, marched northwest 
 up to Guisnes, with little Arnulf cantering alongside in high 
 glee ; for it was the first war that he had ever seen. 
 
 And they came to the Castle of Guisnes, and summoned the 
 Count, by trumpet and herald, to pay or fight. 
 
 Whereon, tiie Count preferring the latter, certain knights of 
 his came forth and challenged the knights of St. Omer to fight 
 them man to man. Whereon there was the usual splintering 
 of lances and slipping up of horses, and hewing at heads and 
 shoulders so well defended in mail that no one was much hurt. 
 The archers and arbalisters, meanwhile, amused themselves with 
 shooting at the castle wall?, out of which they chipped several 
 small pieces of stone. And when they were all tired, they drew' 
 off on both sides, and went in to dinner. 
 
 At which Hereward's men, who were accustomed to a more 
 serious fashion of fighting, stood by, mightily amused, and vowing 
 it was as pretty a play as ever they saw in their lives. 
 
 The next day the same comedy was repeated. 
 
 " Let me go in against those knights, Sir Chatelain,'' asked 
 Hereward, who felt the lust of battle tingling in him from head 
 to heel ; " and try if I cannot do somewhat towards deciding all 
 this. If we fight no faster than we did yesterday, our beards will 
 be grown down to our knees before we take Guisnes." 
 
 " Let ray Viking go ! " cried Arnulf. " Let me see him fight ! " 
 as if he had been a pet gamecock or bulldog. 
 
 " You can break a lance, fine sir, if it please j'ou," said the 
 Chatelain. 
 
 " I break more than lances," quoth Hereward as he cantered off. 
 
 " You," said he to his men, " draw round hither to the left ; 
 and when I drive the Fx-enchmen to the right, make a run for it, 
 and get between them and the castle gate ; and we will try the 
 "Danish axe against their horses' legs." 
 
 Then Hereward spurred his horse, shouting, " A bear ! a 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 95 
 
 bear!" and dashed into the press; and therein did mightily, like 
 any Turpin or Roland, till he saw lie on the ground, close to the 
 castle gate, one of the Chatelain's knights with four Guisnes 
 knights around him. Then at those knights he rode, and slew 
 them every one ; and mounted that wounded knight on his own 
 horse and led him across the field, though the archers shot sore at 
 him from the wall. And when the press of knights rode at him, 
 his Danish men got between them and the castle, and made a 
 stand to cover him. Then the Guisnes knights rode at them 
 scornfully, crying, — 
 
 " What footpad churls have we here, who fancy they can face 
 horsed knights ? " 
 
 But they did not know the stuff of the Danish men ; who all 
 shouted, "A bear! a bear!" and turned the lances' points with 
 their targets, and hewed off the horses' heads, and would have 
 hewed off the riders' likewise, crying that the bear must be fed, 
 had not Hereward bidden them give quarter according to the 
 civilized fashion of France and Flanders. Whereon all the 
 knights who were not taken rode right and left, and let them pass 
 through in peace, with several prisoners, and him whom Here- 
 ward had rescued. 
 
 At which little Arnulf was as proud as if he had done it him- 
 self; and the Chatelain sent word to Baldwin that the new-comer 
 was a prudhomme of no common merit ; while the heart of the 
 Count of Guisnes became as water ; and his knights, both those 
 who were captives and those who were not, complained indig- 
 nantly of the unchivalrous trick of the Danes, — how villanous 
 for men on foot, not only to face knights, but to bring them down 
 to their own standing ground by basely cutting off their horses' 
 heads ! 
 
 To which Hereward answered, that he knew the rules of chiv- 
 alry as well as any of them ; but he was hired, not to joust at a 
 tournament, but to make the Count of Guisnes pay his lord Bald- 
 win, and make him pay he would. 
 
 The next day he bade his men sit still and look on, and leave 
 him to himself. And when the usual "monomachy" began, he 
 singled out the burliest and boldest knight whom he saw, rode 
 Up to him, lance point in air, and courteously asked him to come 
 and be killed in fair figlit. The knight being, says the chroni- 
 cler, " magnificent in valor of soul and counsel of war, and held 
 to be as a lion in fortitude throughout the army," and seeing that 
 Hereward was by no means a large or heavy man, replied as 
 courteou-ly, that he should have great pleasure in trying to kill 
 Hereward." On which they rode some hundred yards out of 
 the press, calling out that they were to be left • alone by both 
 
96 UEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 I 
 
 sides, for it was an honorable duel, and, turning their horses, 
 charged. 
 
 After which act they found themselves and their horses all 
 four in a row, sitting on their hind-quarters on the ground, amid 
 the fragments of their lances. 
 
 " Well ridden ! " shouted they both at once, as they leaped up 
 laughing and drew their swords. 
 
 After which they hammered away at each other merrily in 
 "the devil's smithy"; the sparks flew, and the iron rang, and all 
 men stood still to see that gallant fight. 
 
 So they watched and cheered, till Hereward struck his man . 
 such a blow under the ear, that he dropped, and lay like a log. 
 
 " I think I can carry you," quoth Hereward, and picking him 
 up, he threw him over his shoulder, and walked toward his men. 
 
 " A bear ! a bear ! " shouted they in delight, laughing at the 
 likeness between Hereward's attitude, and that of a bear wad- 
 dling off on his hind legs with his prey in his arms. 
 
 " He should have killed his bullock outright before he went to 
 carry him. Look there ! " 
 
 And the knight, awaking from his swoon, struggled violently 
 (says Leofric) to escape. 
 
 But Hereward, though the smaller, was the stronger man ; and 
 crushing him in his arms, walked on steadily. 
 
 " Knights, to the rescue ! Hoibricht is taken ! " shouted they 
 of Gaisnes, galloping towards him. 
 
 " A bear ! a bear ! To me, Biornssons ! To me. Vikings all ! " 
 shouted Hereward. And the Danes leapt up, and ran toward 
 him, axe in hand. 
 
 The Cliatelain's knights rode up likewise ; and so it befell, that 
 Hereward carried his prisoner safe into camp. 
 
 " And who are you, gallant knight ? " asked he of his prisoner. 
 
 " Hoibricht, nephew of Eustace, Count of Guisnes." 
 
 " So I suppose you will be ransomed. Till then — Armorer!" 
 
 And the hapless Hoibricht found himself chained and fettered, 
 and sent off to Hereward's tent, under the custody of Martin 
 Lightfoot. 
 
 " The next day,'' says the chronicler, " the Count of Guisnes, 
 stupefied with grief at the loss of his nephew, sent the due honor 
 and service to his prince, besides gifts and hostages." 
 
 And so ended the troubles of Baldwin, and Eustace of Guisnes. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOW A FAIR LADY EXERCISED THE MECHANICAL ART TO WIN 
 HEREWARD'S LOVE. 
 
 The fair Torfrida sat in an upper room of her mother's house 
 in St. Omer, alternately looking out of the window and at a book 
 of mechanics. In the garden outside, the wryneck (as is his 
 fashion in May) was calling Pi-pi-pi among the gooseberry 
 bushes, till the cob-walls rang again. In the book was a Latin 
 recipe for drying the poor wryneck, and using him as a philtre 
 which should compel the love of any person desired. Mechanics, 
 it must be understood, in those days were considered as identical 
 with mathematics, and those again with astrology and magic; 
 so that the old chronicler, who says that Torfrida was skilled in 
 " the mechanic art," uses the word in the same sense as does the 
 author of the History of Ramsey, who tells us how a certain 
 holy bishop of St. Dunstan's party, riding down to Corfe through 
 the forest, saw the wicked queen-mother Elfrida (her who had 
 St. Edward stabbed at Corfe Gate) exercising her "mechanic 
 art," under a great tree ; in plain English, performing heathen 
 incantations ; and how, when she saw that she was discovered, 
 she tempted him to deadly sin : but when she found him proof 
 against allurem'ent, she had him into her bower; and there the 
 enchantress and her ladles slew him by thrusting red-hot bodkins 
 under his arms, so that the blessed man was martyred without 
 any sign of wound. Of all which let every man believe as 
 much as he list. 
 
 Torfrida had had peculiar opportunities of learning mechanics. 
 The fairest and richest damsel in St. Omer, she had been left 
 early by her father an orphan, to the care of a superstitious 
 mother and of a learned uncle, the Abbot of St. Berlin. Her 
 mother was a Proven9ale, one of those Arlesiennes whose dark 
 Greek beauty still shines, like diamonds set in jet, in the door- 
 ways of the quaint old city. Gay enough in her youth, she had, 
 like a true Southern woman, taken to superstition in her old age ; 
 and spent her days in the churches, leaving Torfrida to do and 
 learn what she would. Her nurse, moreover, was a Lapp wo- 
 man, carried off in some pirating foray, and skilled in all the 
 5 & 
 
98 HEKEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 sorceries for which the Lapps were famed tliroughout the Nortli. 
 Her uncle, partly from' good-nature, partly from a pious hope 
 that she might " enter religion," and leave her wealth to the 
 Church, had made her his pupil, and taught her the mysteries of 
 books ; and she had proved to be a strangely apt scholar. Gram- 
 mar, rhetoric, Latin prose and poetry, such as were taught in 
 those days, she mastered ere she was grown up. Then t^he fell 
 upon romance, and Charlemagne and his Paladins, the heroes 
 of Troy, Alexander and his generals, peopled her imagination. 
 She had heard, too, of the great necromancer Virgilius (for into 
 such the middle age transformed the poet), and, her fancy already 
 excited by her Lapp nurse's occult science, she began eagerjy to 
 court forbidden lore. 
 
 Forbidden, indeed, magic was by the Church in public ; but as 
 a reality, not as an imposture. Those whose consciences were 
 tough and their faith weak, had little scruple in applying to a 
 witch, and asking help from the powers below, when the saints 
 above were slack to hear them. Churchmen, even, were bold 
 enough to learn the mysteries of nature. Algebra, Judicial Astrol- 
 ogy, and the occult powers of herbs, stones, and animals, from 
 the Mussulman doctors of Cordova and Seville ; and, like Pope 
 Gerbert, mingle science and magic, in a fashion excusable enough 
 in days when true inductive science did not exist. 
 
 Nature had her miraculous powers, — how far good, how far 
 evil, who could tell ? The belief that God was the sole maker 
 and ruler of the universe was confused and darkened by the 
 cross-belief, that the material world had fallen under the dominion 
 of Satan and his demons ; that millions of spirits, good and evil 
 in every degree, exercised continually powers over crops and 
 cattle, mines and wells, storms and lightning, health and disease, 
 lliches, lionors, and royalties, too, were under the command of 
 the powers of darkness. For that generation, which was but too 
 apt to take its Bible in hand upside down, had somehow a firm 
 faith in the word of the Devil, and believed devoutly his some- 
 what startling assertion, that the kingdoms of the world were his, 
 and the glory of them ; for to him they were delivered, and to 
 whomsoever lie would he gave them : while it had a proportion- 
 ally weak faith in our Lord's answer, that they were to worship 
 and serve the Lord God alone. How far these powers extended, 
 how far they might be counteracted, how far lawfully employed, 
 were questions which exercised the minds of men, and produced 
 a voluminous literature for several centuries, till the search died 
 out, for veiy weariness of failure, at the end of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 The Abbot of St. Bertin, therefore, did not hesitate to keep in 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 99 
 
 nis private library more than one volume which he would not 
 have willingly lent to the simple monks under his charge ; nor to 
 Torfrida either, had she not acquired so complete a command 
 over the good old man, that he could deny her nothing. 
 
 So she read of Gerbert, Pope Silvester II., who had died only 
 a generation back : how (to quote William of Malmesbury) " he 
 learned at Seville till he surpassed Ptolemy with the astrolabe, 
 Alcandrus in astronomy, and Julius Firmicus in judicial astrol- 
 ogy ; how he learned what the singing and flight of birds por- 
 tended, and acquired the art of calling up spirits from hell ; and, 
 in short, whatever — hurtful or healthful — human curiosity had 
 discovered, besides the lawful sciences of arithmetic and astron- 
 omy, music and geometry"; how he acquired from the Saracens 
 the abacus (a counting table) ; how he escaped from the Moslem 
 magician, his tutor, by making a compact with the foul fiend, and 
 putting himself beyond the power of magic, by hanging himself 
 under a wooden bridge so as to touch neither earth nor water ; 
 how he taught Robert, King of France, and Otto the Kaiser ; 
 how he made an hydraulic organ which played tunes by steam, 
 which stood even then in the Cathedral of Rheims ; how he dis- 
 covered in the Campus Martius at Rome wondrous treasures, 
 and a golden king and queen, golden courtiers and guards, all 
 lighted by a single carbuncle, and guarded by a boy with a bent 
 bow ; who, when Gerbert's servant stole a golden knife, shot 
 an arrow at that carbuncle, and all was darkness, and yells of 
 c'emons. 
 
 All this Torfrida had read ; and read, too, how Gerbert's 
 brazen head had told him that he should be Pope, and not die till 
 he had sung mass at Jerusalem ; and how both had come true, — 
 the latter in mockery ; for he was stricken with deadly sickness 
 in Rome, as he sang mass at the church called Jerusalem, and 
 died horribly, tearing himself in pieces. 
 
 Which-terrible warning had as httle effect on Torfrida as other 
 teri-ible warnings have on young folk, who are minded to eat of 
 the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 
 
 So Torfrida beguiled her lonely life in that dull town, looking 
 but over dreary flats and muddy dikes, by a whole dream-world 
 of fantastic imaginations, and was ripe and ready for any wild 
 deed which her wild brain might suggest. 
 
 Pure she was all the while, generous and noble-hearted, and 
 with a deep and sincere longing — as one soul in ten thousand 
 has — after knowledge' for its own sake; but ambitious exceed- 
 ingly, and that not of monastic sanctity. She laughed to scorn 
 the notion of a nunnery; and laughed to scorn equally the notion 
 of marrying any knight, however much of a prudhomme, whom 
 
100 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Bhe, had yet seen. Her uncle and Marquis Baldwin coulJ have 
 between them compelled her, as an orphan heiress, to marry 
 whom they liked. But Torfrida had as yet bullied the Abbot 
 and coaxed the Count successfully. Lances had been splintereo, 
 helmits split, and more than one life lost in her honor; but she 
 had only, as the best safeguard she could devise, given some hint 
 of encouragement to one Ascelin, a tall knight of St. Valeri, the 
 i4:ost renowned bully of those parts, by bestowing on him a scrap 
 of ribbon, and bidding him keep it against all comers. By this 
 means she insured the personal chastisement of all other youths 
 who dared to lift their eyes to her, while she by no means bound 
 herself to her spadassin of St. Valeri. It was all very brutal, 
 but so was the time; and what better could a poor lady do in 
 days when no man's life or woman's honor was safe, unless — as 
 too many were forced to do — she retired into a cloister, and got 
 from the Church that peace which this world certainly could not 
 give, and, happily, dared not take away ? 
 
 The arrival of Hereward and his men had of course stirred 
 the great current of her life, and indeed that of St. Oraer, usu- 
 ally as stagnant as that of the dikes round its wall. Who the 
 unknown champion was, — for his name of " Naemansson" showed 
 that he was concealing something at least, — whence he had come, 
 and what had been his previous exploits, busied all the gossips of 
 the town. Would he and his men rise and plunder the abbey? 
 Was not the Chatelain mad in leaving young Arnulf with him 
 all day? Madder still, in taking him out to battle against the 
 Count of Guisnes ? He might be a spy, — the avant-courrier of 
 some great invading force. He was come to spy out the naked- 
 ness of the land, and would shortly vanish, to return with Harold 
 Hardraade of Norway, or Sweyn of Denmark, and all their 
 ho>ls. Nay, was he not Harold Hardraade him>elf in disguise? 
 And so forth. All which Torfrida heard, and thought within 
 herself that, be he who he might, she should like to look on him 
 again. 
 
 Then came the news how the very first day that he had gone 
 out against the Count of Guisnes he had gallantly rescued a 
 wounded man. A day or two after came fresh news of some 
 doughty deed ; and then another, and another. And wh;Bn Here- 
 ward returned, after a week's victorious fighting, all St. Omer 
 was in the street to stare at him. 
 
 Then Torfrida heard enough, and, had it been possible, more 
 than enough, of Hereward and his prowess. 
 
 And when they came riding in, the great Marquis at the head 
 of them all. with Robert le Frison on one side of him, and on 
 the other Hereward, looking " as fresh as flowers in May," she 
 
HEEEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 101 
 
 looked down on him out of her little lattice in the gable, and 
 loved him, once and for all, with all her heart and soul. 
 
 And Hereward looked up at her and her dark blue eyes and 
 dark raven locks, and thought her the fairest thing that he had 
 ever seen, and asked who she might be, and heard ; and as he 
 heard he forgot all about the Sultan's daughter, and the Princess 
 of Constantinople, and the Fairy of Brocheliaunde, and all the 
 other pretty birds wliich were still in the bush about the wide 
 world ; and thought for many a day of naught but the pretty bird 
 which he held — so conceited was he of his own powers of win- 
 ning her — there safe in hand in St. Omer. 
 
 So he cast about to see her, and to win her love. And she 
 cast about to see him, and win his love. But neither saw the 
 other for a while ; and it might have been better for one of them 
 had they never seen the other again. 
 
 If Torfrida could have foreseen, and foreseen, and foreseen — 
 why, if she were true woman, she would have done exactly what 
 she did, and taken the bitter with the sweet, the unknown with 
 the known, as we all must do in life, unless we wish to live and 
 die alone. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW HLREWARD WENT TO THE WAR IN SCALDMARILAND. 
 
 It has been shown how the Count of Guisnes had been a 
 thorn in the side of Baldwin of Lille, and how that thorn was 
 drawn out by Hereward. But a far sharper thorn in his side, 
 and one which had troubled many a Count before, and was des- 
 tined to trouble others afterward, was those unruly Hollanders, 
 or Frisians, who dwelt in Scaldmariland, " the land of the meres 
 of the Scheldt." Beyond the vast forests of Flanders, in mo- 
 rasses and alluvial islands whose names it is impossible now to 
 verify, so much has the land changed, "both by inundations and 
 by embankments, by the brute forces of nature and the noble tri- 
 umphs of art, dwelt a folk, poor, savage, living mostly, as in 
 Ca3sar's time, in huts raised above the sea on piles or mounds of 
 earth ; often without cattle or seedfield, half savage, half heathen, 
 but free. Free, with the divine instinct of freedom, and all the 
 8(df-help and energy which spring thereout. 
 
 They were a mongrel race ; and, as most mongrel races are 
 (when sprung from parents not too far apart in blood), a strong 
 race ; the remnant of those old Frisians and Batavians, who had 
 defied, and all but successfully resisted, the power of Rome ; 
 mingled with fresh crosses of Teutonic blood from Frank, Sueve, 
 Saxon, and the other German tribes, who, after the fall of the 
 Roman Empire, had swept across the land. 
 
 Their able modern historian has vcell likened the struggle be- 
 tween Civilis and the Romans to that between WilHam the Silent 
 and the Spaniard. It was, without doubt, the foreshadow of 
 their whole history. They were distinguished, above most Euro- 
 pean races, for sturdy independence, and, what generally accom- 
 panies it, sturdy common sense. They could not understand why 
 they should obey foreign Frank rulers, whether set over them by 
 Dagobert or by Charlemagne. They could not understand why 
 they were to pay tithes to foreign Frank priests, who had forced 
 on them, at the sword's point, a religion which they only half 
 believed, and only half understood. Many a truly holy man 
 preached to tlicm to tlie best of his powers : but the cross of 
 St. Bonil'ace had too often to Ibllow the sword of Charles 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 103 
 
 Martel ; and for every Frisian who was converted another was 
 killed. 
 
 " Free~ Frisians,'' nevertheless, they remained, at least in name 
 and in their statute-book, " as long as the wind blows out of the 
 clouds, and the world stands." The feudal system never took 
 root in their soil.* If a Frank Count was to govern them, he 
 must govern according to their own laws. Again and again they 
 rebelled, even against that seemingly light rule. Again and again 
 they brought down on themselves the wrath of their nominal sov- 
 ereigns the Counts of Flanders ; tlien of the Kaisers of Ger- 
 many ; and, in the thirteenth century, of the Inquisition itself. 
 Then a crusade was preached against them as " Stadings," here- 
 tics who paid no tithes, ill-used monks and nuns, and worshipped 
 (or were said to worship) a black cat and the foul fiend among 
 the meres and fens. Conrad of Marpurg, the brutal Director of 
 St. Elizabeth of Hungary, burnt them at his wicked will, extir- 
 pating it may be heresy, but not the spirit of the race. That, 
 crushed down and seemingljf enslaved, during the middle age, 
 under Count. Dirk and his descendants, still lived ; destined at 
 last to conquer. They were a people who had determined to see 
 for themselves and act for themselves in the universe in which 
 they found themselves ; and, moreover (a necessary corollary of 
 such a resolution), to fight to the death against any one who in- 
 terfered with them in so doing. 
 
 Again and again, therefore, the indomitable spirit rose, found- 
 ing free towns with charters and guilds ; embanking the streams, 
 draining the meres, fighting each other and the neighboring 
 princes ; till, in their last great struggle against the Pope and 
 Spain, they rose once and for all, 
 
 " Heated hot with burnine fears, 
 And bathed in baths of nissing tears, 
 And battered with the strokes of doom 
 To shape and use," 
 
 as the great Protestant Dutch Republic. 
 
 A noble errand it had been for such a man as Hereward to 
 help those men toward freedom, instead of helping Frank Counts 
 to enslave them ; — men of his own blood, with laws and cus- 
 toms like those of his own Anglo-Danes, living in a land so ex- 
 actly like his own that every mere and fen and wood reminded 
 him of the scenes of his boyhood. The very names of the two 
 lands were alike, — " Holland," the hollow land, — the one of 
 England, the other of Flanders. 
 
 But all this was hidden from Hereward. To do as he would 
 be done by was a lesson which he had never been taiight. If 
 
 * Motley. " Rise of the Dutch Republic." 
 
104 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 men had invaded his land, he would have cried, like the Frisians 
 whom he was going to enslave, " I am free as long as the wind 
 blows out of the clouds ! " and died where he stood. But that 
 was not the least reason why he should not invade any other 
 man's land, and try whether or not he, too, would die where he 
 stood. To him these Fiieslanders were simply savages, probably 
 heathens, who would not obey their lawful lord, who was a 
 gentleman and a Christian ; besides, renown, and possibly a little 
 plunder, might be got by beating them into obedience. He knew 
 not what he did ; and knew not, likewise, that as he had done to 
 others, so would it be done to him. 
 
 Baldwin had at that time made over his troublesome Holland- 
 ers to his younger son Robert, the Viking whom little Arnulf 
 longed to imitate. 
 
 Florent, Count of Holland, and vassal of the great Marquis, 
 had just died, leaving a pretty young widow, to whom the Hol- 
 landers had no mind to pay one stiver more than they were forced. 
 All the isles of Zeeland, and the cowities of Eenham and Alost, 
 were doing that which was right in the sight of their own eyes, 
 and finding themselves none the worse therefor, — though the 
 Countess Gertrude doubtless could buy fewer silks of Greece or 
 gems of Italy. But to such a distressed lady a champion could 
 not long be wanting ; and Robert, after having been driven out 
 of Spain by the Moors with fearful loss, and in a second attempt 
 wrecked with all his fleet as soon as he got out of port, resolved 
 to tempt the main no more, and leave the swan's path for that of 
 the fat oxen and black dray-horses of Holland. 
 
 So he rushed to avenge the wrongs of the Countess Gertrude ; 
 and his father, whose good-natured good sense foresaw that the 
 fiery Robert would raise storms upon his path, — happily for his 
 old age he did not foresee the worst, — let him go, with his 
 blessing. 
 
 So Robert gathered to him valiant ruffians, as many as he 
 could find ; and when he heard of the Viking who had brought 
 Eustace of Guisnes to reason, it seemed to him that he was a 
 man who would do his work. 
 
 So when the great Marquis came down to St. Omer to receive 
 the homage of Count Eustace of Guisnes, Robert came thither 
 too, and saw Hereward. 
 
 " You have done us good service, Harold Naemansson, as it 
 pleases you to be called," said Baldwin, smiling. " But some 
 man's son you are, if ever I saw a gallant knight earl-born by 
 his looks as well as his deeds." 
 
 Hereward bowed. 
 
 "And for me," said Robert, ''Naemansson or eai-l's son, heie 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 105 
 
 IS my Viking's welcome to all Vikings like myself." And he held 
 out his hand. 
 
 Hereward took it. 
 
 " You failed in Galicia, beausire, only because your foes were 
 a-hundred to one. You will not fail where you are going, if (as 
 I hear) they are but ten to one." 
 
 Robert laughed, vain and gratified. 
 
 "Then you know where I have been, and where I am going?" 
 
 " Why not ? As you know well, we Vikings are all brothers, 
 and all know each other's counsel, from ship to ship and port to 
 port." 
 
 Then the two young men looked each other in the face, and 
 each saw that the other was a man who would suit him. 
 
 " Skall to the Viking ! " cried Robert, aping, as was his fancy, 
 the Norse rovers' slang. " Will you come with me to Holland ?" 
 
 " You must ask my young lord there," and he pointed to Arnulf. 
 " I am his man now, by all laws of honor." 
 
 A flush of jealousy passed over Robert's face. He, haplessly 
 for himself, thought that he had a grievance. 
 
 The rights of primogeniture — droits d'ainesse — were not 
 respected in the family of the Baldwins as they should have 
 been, had prudence and common sense had their way. 
 
 No sacred or divine right is conferred by the fact of a man's 
 being the first-born son. If Scripture be Scripture, the " Lord's 
 anointed " was usually rather a younger son of talent and virtue ; 
 one born, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, 
 like David and Solomon. And so it was in other realms be- 
 sides Flanders during the middle age. The father handed on 
 the work — for ruling was hard work in those days — to the sou 
 most able to do it. Therefore we can believe Lambert of As- 
 chaffenbourg when he says, that in Count Baldwin's family for 
 many ages he who pleased his father most took his father's name, 
 and was hereditary prince of all Flanders ; while the other broth- 
 ers led an inglorious life of vassalage to him. 
 
 But we can conceive, likewise, that such a method would give 
 rise to intrigues, envyings, calumnies, murders, fratracidal civil 
 wars, and all the train of miseries which for some years after this 
 history made infamous the house of Baldwin, as they did many 
 another noble house, till they were stopped by the gradual adop- 
 tion of the rational rule of primogeniture. 
 
 So Robert, who might have been a daring and useful friend to 
 his brother, had he been forced to take for granted from birth 
 that he was nobody, and his brother everybody, — as do all 
 younger sons of English noblemen, to their infinite benefit, — 
 held himself to be an injured man for life, • because his father 
 5* 
 
106 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 called his first-born Baldwin, and promised him the succession, — 
 which indeed he had worthily deserved, according to the laws of 
 Mammon and this world, by bringing into the family such an 
 heiress as Richilda and such a dowry as Mons. 
 
 But Robert, who thought himself as good as his brother,— 
 though he was not such, save in valor, — nursed black envy in 
 his heart. Hard it was to him to hear his elder brother called 
 Baldwin of Mons, when he himself had not a foot of land of his 
 own. Harder still to hear him called Baldwin the Good, when 
 he felt in himself no title whatsoever to that epithet. Hardest 
 of all to see a beautiful boy grow up, as heir both of Flanders 
 and of Hainault. 
 
 Had he foreseen whither that envy would have led him ; had 
 he foreseen the hideous and fratracidal day of February 22d, 1071, 
 and that fair boy's golden locks rolling in dust and blood, — the 
 wild Viking would have crushed the growing snake within his 
 bosom ; for he was a knight and a gentleman. But it was hidden 
 from his eyes. He had to " dree his weird," — to commit great 
 sins, do great deeds, and die in his bed, mighty and honored, hav- 
 ing children to his heart's desire, and leaving the rest of his sub 
 stance to his babes. Heaven help him, and the like of liim ! 
 
 But he turned to young Arnulf. 
 
 " Give me your man, boy ! " 
 
 Arnulf pouted. Pie wanted to keep his Viking for himseli, 
 and said so. 
 
 " He is to teach me to go 'leding,' as the Norsemen call il^ 
 like you." 
 
 Robert laughed. A hint at his piratical attempts pleased his, 
 vanity, all the more because they had been signal failures. 
 
 " Lend him me, then, my pretty nephew, for a month or two, 
 till he has conquered these Friesland frogs for me ; and then, if 
 thou wilt go leding with him — " 
 
 " I hope you may never come back," thought Robert to him- 
 self; but he did not say it. 
 
 " Let the knight go," quoth Baldwin. 
 
 " Let me go with him, then." 
 
 " No, by all saints I I cannot have thee poked tlirough with a 
 Fi-iesland pike, or rotted with a Friesland ague." 
 
 Arnulf pouted still. 
 
 " Abbot, what hast thou been at with the boy ? He thinks of 
 naught but blood and wounds, instead of books and prayers." 
 
 " He is gone mad after this — this knight." 
 
 " The Abbot," said Hereward, " knows by hearing of his ears 
 that I bid him bide at home, and try to govern lands in peace 
 like his father and you, Sir Marquis." 
 
 " Eh .' " 
 
HEREWAEH, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 107 
 
 The Abbot told honestly what had passed between Hereward 
 Rnd the lad, as they rode to St. Bertin. 
 
 Baldwin was silent, thinking, and smiling joUily, as was the 
 wont of the Debonai)-. 
 
 " You are a man of sense, beausire. Corae with me," said lie 
 at last. 
 
 And he, Hereward, and Robert went into an inner room. 
 
 "'Sit down on the settle by me." 
 
 " It is too great an honor." 
 
 " Nonsense, man ! If I be who I am, I know enough of men 
 to know that I need not be ashamed of having you as bench- 
 fellow. Sit down." 
 
 Hereward obeyed of course. 
 
 " Tell me who you are." 
 
 Hereward looked out of the corner of his eyes, smiling and 
 perplexed. 
 
 " Tell me and Robert who you are, man ; and be done with 
 it. I believe I know already. I have asked far and wide of 
 chapmen, and merchants, and wandering knights, and pirate 
 rascals, — like yourself." 
 
 " And you found that I was a pirate rascal ? " 
 
 " I ftund a pirate rascal who met you in Ireland, three years 
 since, and will swear that if you have one gray eye and one 
 blue—" 
 
 " As he has," quoth Robert. 
 
 " That I am a wolfs head", and a robber of priests, and an Esau 
 on the face of the earth ; every man's liand against me, and mine 
 — for I never take but what I give — against every man." 
 
 " That you are the son of my old friend Leot'ric of Chester : 
 and the hottest-hearted, shrewdest-headed, hardest-handed Ber- 
 serker in tlie North Seas. You killed Gilbert of Ghent's bear, 
 Siward Digre's cousin. Don't deny it." 
 
 " Don't liang me, or send me to the Westminster miracle-work- 
 er to be hanged, and I will confess." 
 
 "I? Every man is welcome who comes hither with a bold 
 hand and a strong heart. 'The Refuge for the Destitute,' they 
 call Flanders; I suppose because I am too good-natured to tmn 
 rojfue.i out. So do no harm to mine, and mine shall do no, harm 
 to you." 
 
 Baldwin's words were true. He found house-room for every- 
 body, helped everybody against everybody else (as will be seen), 
 nnd yet quarrelled with nobody — at least in his old age — by 
 the mere virtue of good nature, — wliich blessed is the man who 
 possesseth. 
 
 So Hereward went off to exterminate the wicked Hollanders, 
 and avenge the wrongs of the Countess Gertrude. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOW HEEEWAKD WON THE MAGIC ARMOR. 
 
 Torfr:da had special opportunities of hearing about Here- 
 ward ; for young Arnulf was to her a pet and almost a foster- 
 brother, and gladly escaped from the convent to tell her the news. 
 
 He had now had his first taste of the royal game of war. He 
 had seen Hereward fight by day, and heard him tell stories over 
 the camp-fire by night. Hereward's beauty, Hereward's prowess, 
 Hereward's songs, Hereward's strange adventures and wander- 
 ings, were forever in the young boy's mouth ; and he spent hours 
 in helping Torfrida to guess who the great unknown might be ; 
 and then went back to Hereward, and artlessly told him of his 
 beautiful friend, and how they had talked of him, and of nothing 
 else ; and in a week or two Hereward knew all about Torfrida ; 
 and Torfrida knew — what filled her heart with joy — that Here- 
 ward was bound to no lady-love, and owned (so he had told Ar- 
 nulf) no mistress save the sword on his thigh. 
 
 Whereby there had grown up in the hearts of both the man and 
 the maid a curiosity, which easily became the parent of love. 
 
 But when Baldwin the great Marquis came to St. Omer, to 
 receive the homage of Eustace of Guisnes, young Arnulf had run 
 into Torfrida's chamber in great anxiety. " Would his grand- 
 father approve of what he had done ? Would he allow his new 
 friendship with the unknown ? " 
 
 " What care I ? " said Torfrida. " But if your friend wishes 
 to have the Marquis's favor, he would be wise to trust him, at 
 least so far as to tell his name." 
 
 " I have told him so. I have told him that you would tell 
 him so." 
 
 " I ? Have you been talking to him about me ? " 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " That is not well done, Arnulf, to talk of ladies to men whom 
 they do not know." 
 
 Arnulf looked up, puzzled and pained ; for she spoke haugh- 
 tily. 
 
 " I know naught of your new friend. He may be a low-born 
 man, for anything that 1 can tell." 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 109 
 
 " He is not ! He is as noble as I am. Everything he says 
 and does — every look — shows it." 
 
 " You are young, — as you have shown by talking of me to 
 him. But I have given you my advice " ; and she moved lan- 
 guidly away. " Let him tell your grandfather who he is, or 
 remain suspected." 
 
 The boy went away sadly. 
 
 Early the next morning he burst into Torfrida's room as she 
 was dressing her hair. 
 
 " How now ? Are these manners for the heir of Flanders ? " 
 
 " He has told all ! " 
 
 " He has ! " and she started and dropt her comb. 
 
 " Pick up that comb, girl. You need not go away. I have 
 no secrets with young gentlemen." 
 
 '' I thought you would be glad to hear." 
 
 " I ? What can I want in the matter, save that your grand- 
 father should be satisfied that you are entertaining a man worthy 
 to be your guest ? " 
 
 " And he is worthy : he has told my grandfather who he is." 
 
 "But not you?" 
 
 " No. They say I must not know yet. But this I know, that 
 they welcomed him, when he told them, as if he had been an 
 earl's son ; and that he is going with my Uncle Robert against 
 the Frieslanders." 
 
 " And if he be an earl's son, how comes he here, wandering 
 with rough seamen, and hiding his honest name ? He must have 
 done something of which he is ashamed." 
 
 " I shall tell you nothing," said Arnulf, pouting. 
 
 " What care I ? I can hnd out by art magic if I like.'' 
 
 " I don't believe all that. Can you find out, for instance, what 
 he has on his throat ? " 
 
 " A beard." 
 
 " But what is under that beard?" 
 
 " A goitre." 
 
 " You are laughing at me." 
 
 " Of course I am, as I shall at any one who challenges me to 
 find out anything so silly, and so unfit." 
 
 " I shall go." 
 
 " Go then." For she knew very well that he would come 
 back again. 
 
 "Nurse,'*' said Torfrida to the old Lapp woman, when they 
 were alone, " find out for me what is the name of this strange 
 champion, and what he has beneath his beard." 
 
 " Beneath his beard ? " 
 
 " Some scar, I suppose, or secret mark. I must know. You 
 will find out for your Torfrida, will you not, nurse ? " 
 
110 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " I will make a charm that will bring him to you, were all the 
 icebergs of Quenland between you and him : and then you can 
 Bee for yourself." 
 
 " No, no, no ! not yet, nurse ! " and Torfrida smiled. " Only 
 find me out that one thing : that I must know." 
 
 And yet why she wanted to know, she could not tell herself. 
 
 The old woman came back to her, ere she went to bed. 
 
 " I have found it out all, and more. I know where to get 
 scarlet toadstools, and I put the juice in his men's ale : they are 
 laughing and roaring now, merry-mad every one of them." 
 
 "But not he?" 
 
 " No, no. He is with the Marquis. But in madness comes 
 out truth ; and that long hook-nosed body-varlet of his has told 
 us all." 
 
 And she told Torfrida who Hereward was, and the secret 
 mark. 
 
 " There is a Cross upon his throat, beneath his chin, pricked 
 Jn after their English fashion." 
 
 Torfrida started. 
 
 " Then, — then the spell will not work upon him ; the Holy 
 Cross will turn it off." 
 
 " It must be a great Cross and a holy one that will turn off my 
 charms," said the old hag, with a sneer, " whatever it may do 
 against yours. But on the back of his hand, — that will be a 
 mark to know him by, — there is pricked a bear, — a white bear 
 that he slew." And she told the story of the fairy bear ; which 
 Torfrida duly stored up in her heart. 
 
 " So he has the Cross on his throat," thought Torfrida to her- 
 self. " Well, if it keep off my charm, it will keep off others, that 
 is one comfort ; and one knows not what fairies or witches or evil 
 creatures he may meet with in the forests and the fen^." 
 
 Tlie discovery of Hereward's rank did not, doubtless, lessen 
 Torfrida's fancy for him. She was ambitious enough, and proud 
 enough of her own lineage, to be full glad that her heart had 
 strayed away — as it must needs stray somewhere — to the son 
 of the third greatest man in England. As for his being an out- 
 law, that mattered little. He might be inlawed, and rich and 
 powerful, any day in those uncertain, topsy-turvy times : and, 
 for the present, his being a wolf's head only made him the more 
 interesting to her. Women like to pity their lovers. Sometimes 
 — may all good beings rewai-d them for it — they love merely 
 because they pity. And Torfrida found it pleasant to pity the 
 insolent young coxcomb, who certainly never dreamed of pitying 
 himself. ■ 
 
 When Hereward went home that night, he found the Abbey 
 
HEKEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. lU 
 
 of St. Bertin in horrible confusion. His men were grouped 
 outside the gate, chattering like monkeys; the portei- and the 
 monks, from inside, entreating them, vainly, to come in and go to 
 bed quietly. 
 
 But they would not. They vowed and swore that a great gulf 
 had opened all down the road, and that one step more would 
 tumble them in headlong. They manifested the most affectionate 
 solicitude for the monks, warning them, on their lives, not to step 
 across the threshold, or they would be swallowed (as Martin, 
 who was the maddest of the lot, phrased it) with Korah, Dathan, 
 and Abiram. In vain liereward stormed ; assured them that 
 the supposed abyss was nothing but the gutter ; proved the fact 
 by kicking Martin over it. The men determined to believe their 
 own eyes, and after a while fell asleep, in heaps, in the roadside, 
 and lay there till morning, when they woke, declaring, as did the 
 monks, that they had been all bewitched. They knew not — and 
 happily the lower orders, both in England and on the Continent, 
 do not yet know — the potent virtues of that strange fungus, with 
 which Lapps and Samoiedes have, it is said, practised wonders 
 for centuries past. 
 
 The worst of the matter was, that Martin Lightfoot, who had 
 drank most of the poison, and had always been dreamy and un- 
 canny, in spite of his shrewdness and humor, had, from that day 
 forward, something very like a bee in his bonnet. 
 
 But before Count Robert and Hereward could collect sufficient 
 troops for the invasion of Holland, another chance of being slain 
 in fight arose, too tempting to be overlooked ; namely, the annual 
 tournament at Pont de I'Arche above Rouen, where all the no- 
 blest knights of Normandy would assemble, to win their honor 
 and ladies' love by hewing at each other's sinful bodies. Thither, 
 too, the best knights of Flanders must needs go, and with them 
 Hereward. Though no knight, he was allowed in Flanders, as 
 he had been in Scotland, to take his place among that honorable 
 company. For, though he still refused the honor of knighthood, 
 on the ground that he had, as yet, done no deed deserving there- 
 of, he was held to have deserved it again and again, and all the 
 more from his modesty in declining it. 
 
 So away they all went to Pont de I'Arche, a right gallant 
 meinie : and Torfrida watched them go from the lattice window. 
 
 And when they had passed down the street, tramping and jin- 
 gling and caracoling, young Arnulf ran into the house with eyes 
 full of tears, because he was not allowed to go likewise ; and with 
 a message for Torfrida, from no other than Hereward. 
 
 " I was to tell you this and no more : that if he meets your 
 favor in the field, he tliat wears it will have hard work to keen it." 
 
112 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Torfrida turned pale as ashes ; first with wild delight, and 
 then with wild fear. 
 
 " Ha ? — does he know who — Sir Aseelin ? " 
 
 " He knows well enough. Why not ? Every one knows. Are 
 you afraid that he is not a match tor that great bullock ? " 
 
 " Afraid ? "V^ho said I was afraid ? Sir Aseelin is no bullock 
 either ; but a courteous and gallant knight." 
 
 " You are as pale as death, and so — " 
 
 "Nevermind what I am,". said she, putting her hands over 
 his eyes, and kissing him again and again, as a vent for her 
 
 joy- 
 
 The next few days seemed years for length : but she could 
 wait. She was sure of him now. She needed no charms. 
 " Perhaps," thought she, as she looked in the glass, " I was my 
 own charm." And, ind-ed, she had every fair right to say so. 
 
 At last news came. 
 
 She was sitting over her books ; her mother, as usual, was 
 praying in the churches ; when the old Lapp nurse came in. A 
 knii^ht was at the door. His name, he said, was Siward the 
 White, and he came from Hereward. 
 
 From Hereward ! He was at least alive: he might be wounded, 
 though ; and she rushed out of the chamber into the hall, looking 
 never more beautiful ; her color heightened by the quick beating 
 of her heart ; her dark hair, worn loose and long, after the fashion 
 of those days, streaming around her and behind her. 
 
 A handsome young man stood in the door-way, armed from 
 head to foot. 
 
 " You are Siward, Hereward's nephew ? " 
 
 He bowed assent. Sl^e took him by the hands, and, after the 
 fashion of those days, kissed him on the small space on either 
 cheek, which was left bare between the nose-piece and the chain- 
 mail. 
 
 "You are welcome. Hereward is — is alive?" 
 
 " Alive and gay, and all the more gay at being able to send to 
 the Lady TordiiJa by me something which was once hers, and 
 now is liers^ once more." 
 
 And he drew from his bosom the ribbon of the knight of St. 
 Valeri. 
 
 Slie almost snatched it from his hand, in her delight at recov- 
 ering hej, favor. 
 
 " How — where — did he get this ? " 
 
 " He saw it, in the thick of the tournament, on the helm of a 
 knight who, he knew, had vowed to maim him or take his life; 
 and, wishing to give him a chance of fulfilling his vow, rode him 
 down, horse and man. The knight's Norman friends attacked us 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 113 
 
 in force ; and we Flemings, with Hereward at our head, beat 
 them off, and overthrew so many, that we are almost all horsed 
 at the Norman's expense. Three more knights, with their horses, 
 fell tefore Hereward's lance." 
 
 " And what of this favor ? " 
 
 " He sends it to its owner. Let her say what shall be done 
 with it." 
 
 Torfrida was on the point of saying, " He has won it ; let him 
 wear it for my sake." But she paused. She longed to see 
 •Hereward face to face ; to speak to him, if but one word. If 
 she allowed him to wear the favor, she must at least have the 
 pleasure of giving it with her own hands. And she paused. 
 
 " And he is killed ? " 
 
 "Who? Hereward?" 
 
 « Sir Ascelin." 
 
 " Only bruised ; but he shall be killed, if you will." 
 
 "God forbid!" 
 
 " Then," said Siward, mistaking her meaning, " all I have to 
 tell Hereward is, it seems, that hfe has wasted his blow. He will 
 return, therefore, to the Knight of St. Valeri his horse, and, if 
 the Lady Torfrida chooses, the favor which he has taken by mis- 
 take from its rightful owner." And he set his teeth, and could 
 not prevent stamping on the ground, in evident passion. Tliere 
 was a tone, too, of deep disappointment in his voice, which made 
 Torfrida look keenly at him. Why should Hereward's nephew 
 feel so deeply about that favor? And as she looked, — could 
 that man be the youth Siward? Young he was, but surely thirty 
 years old at least. His face could hardly be seen, hidden by 
 helmet and nose-piece above, and mailed up to the mouth below. 
 But his long mustache was that of a grown man ; his va<t 
 breadth of shoulder, his hard hand,- his sturdy limbs, — these 
 surely belonged not to the slim youth whom she had seen from 
 her lattice riding at Hereward's side. And, as she looked, she 
 saw upon his hand the bear of which her nurse had told her. 
 
 " You are deceiving me ! " and .she turned first deadly pale, 
 and then crimson. "You — you are Hereward himself!" 
 
 " I ? Pardon me, my lady. Ten minutes ago I should have 
 been glad enough to have been Hereward. Now, I am thankful 
 enough that I am only Siward ; and not Hereward, who wins for 
 himself contempt by overthrowing a knight more fortunate than 
 he." And he bowed, and turned away to go. 
 
 " Hereward ! Hereward ! " and, in her passion, she seized 
 him by both his hands. "I knew you! I know that device 
 upon your hand. At last ! at last my hero, — my idol ! How 
 I have longed for this moment ! How I have toiled for it, and 
 
114 HEEEWAED. THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 not in vain! Good heavens! what am I saying?" And she 
 tried, in her turn, to escape from Hereward's mailed arms. 
 
 " Then you do not care for that man ? " 
 
 " For him ? Here ! take my favor, wear it before all the 
 world, and guard it as you only can ; and let them all know that 
 Torfridij is your love." 
 
 And with hands trembling with passion, she bound the ribbon 
 tvund his helm. 
 
 " Yes ! I am IJerevvard," he almost shouted ; " the Berserker, 
 the brain-hewer, the land-thief, the sea-thief, the feeder of wolf 
 and raven, — Aoi ! Ere my beard was grown, I was a match 
 for giants. How much more now, that I am a man whom ladies 
 love? Many a champion has quailed before my very glance. 
 How much more, now that I wear Torfrida's gift? Aoi ! " 
 
 Torfrida had often heard that wild battle-cry of Aoi ! of which 
 the early minstrels were so fond, — with which the great poet 
 who wrote the "Song of Roland" ends every paragraph; which 
 has now fallen (displaced by our modern Hurrah), to be merely 
 a sailor's call or hunter's cry. 'But she shuddered as she heard 
 it close to her ears, and saw, from the flashing eye and dilated 
 nostril, the temper of the man on whom she had thrown herself 
 so utterly. She laid her hand upon his lips. 
 
 " Silence ! silence for pity's sake. Remember that you are in 
 a maiden's house ; and think of her good fame." 
 
 Hereward collected himself instantly, and then holding her at 
 arm's length, gazed upon her. "I was mad a moment. But is 
 it not enough to make me mad to look at you ? " 
 
 " Do not look at me so, I cannot bear it," said she, hanging 
 down her head. " You forget that I am a poor weak girl." 
 
 " Ah ! we are rough wooers, we sea-rovers. We cannot pay 
 glozing French compliments like your knights here, who fawn on 
 a damsel with soft words in the hall, and will kiss the dust off 
 their queen's feet, and die for a hair of their goddess's eyebrow ; 
 and then if they catch her in the forest, show them.selves as very 
 rutBans as if they were Paynim Moors. We are rough, lady, 
 we English : but those who trust us, find us true." 
 
 " And I can trust you ? " she asked, still trembling. 
 
 " On God's cross there round your neck," and he took her cru- 
 cifix and kissed it. " You only I love, you only I will love, and 
 you wUil love in all honesty, before the angels of heaven, till we 
 be wedded man and wife. Who but a fool would soil the flower 
 which he means to wear before all the world ? " 
 
 '' I knew Hereward was noble ! I knew I had not trusted him 
 
 m vam 
 
 "I kept faith and honor with the Princess of Cornwall, when I 
 
HEEEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 115 
 
 had her at my will, and shall I not keep faith and honor with 
 you ? " 
 
 " The Princess of Cornwall ? " asked Torfrida. 
 
 " Do not be jealous, fair queen. I brought her safe to her be- 
 trothed ; and wedded she is, long ago. I will tell you that story 
 some day. And now — I must go." 
 
 '• Not yet ! not yet ! I have something to — to show you." 
 
 She motioned him to go up the narrow stairs, or rather lad- 
 der, which led to the upper floor, and then led him into her 
 chamber. 
 
 A lady's chamber was then, in days when privacy was little 
 cared for, her usual reception room ; and the bed, which stood in 
 an alcove, was the common seat of her and her guests. But Tor- 
 frida did not ask him to sit down. She led the way onward 
 towards a door beyond. 
 
 Hereward followed, glancing with awe at the books, parch- 
 ments, and strange instruments which lay on the table and the 
 floor. 
 
 The old Lapp nurse sat in the window, sewing busily. She 
 looked up, and smiled meaningly. But as she saw Torfrida un- 
 lock the further door with one of the keys which hung at her 
 girdle, she croaked out, — 
 
 " Too fast ! Too fast ! Trust lightly, and repent heavily." 
 
 " Trust once and for all, or never trust at all," said Torfrida, as 
 she opened the door. 
 
 Hereward saw within rich dresses hung on perches round the 
 wall, and chests barred and padlocked. 
 
 " These are treasures," said she, " which many a knight and 
 nobleman has coveted. By cunning, by flattery, by threats of 
 force even, have they tried to win what lies here, — and Torfrida 
 herself, too, for the sake of her wealth. But thanks to the Abbot 
 my uncle, Torfrida is still her own mistress, and mistress of the 
 wealth which her forefathers won by sea and land far away in . 
 the East. All here is mine, — and if you be but true to me, 
 all mine is yours. Lift the lid for me, it is too heavy for my 
 arms." 
 
 , Hereward did so ; and saw within golden cups and bracelefs, 
 horns. of ivory and silver, bags of coin, and among them a mail 
 shirt and helmet, on which he fixed at once silent and greedy 
 eyes. 
 
 She looked at his face askance, and smiled. '' Yes, fhese are 
 more to Hereward's taste than gold and jewels. And he shall 
 have them. He shall have them as a proof that if Torfrida has 
 set her love upon a worthy knight, she is at least worthy of him ; 
 and does not demand, without being able to give in return." 
 
116 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 And she took out the armor, and held it up to him. 
 
 " This is the work of dwarfs or enchanters ! This was no< 
 forged by mortal man! It must have come out of some old 
 cavern, or dragon's hoard!" said Hereward, in astonishment at 
 the extreme delicacy and slightness of the mail-rings, and the 
 richness of the gold and silver with which both hauberk and helm 
 were inlaid. 
 
 " Enchanted it is, they say ; but its maker, who can tell? My 
 ancestor won it, and by the side of Charles Martel. Listen, and 
 I will tell you how. 
 
 " You have heard of fair Provence, where I spent my youth ; 
 the land of the sunny south ; the land of the fig and the olive, 
 the mulberry and the rose, the tulip and the anemone, and all 
 rich fruits and fair flowers, — the land where every city is piled 
 with temples and theatres and towers as high as heaven, which 
 the old Eomans built with their enchantments, and tormented the 
 blessed martyrs therein." 
 
 " Heavens, how beautiful you are ! " cried Hereward, as her 
 voice shaped itself into a song, and her eyes flashed, at the re- 
 membrance of her southern home. 
 
 Torfrida was not altogether angry at finding that he was think- 
 ing of her, and not of her words. 
 
 " Peace, and listen. You know how the Paynim held that 
 land, — the Saracens, to whom Mahound taught all the wisdom 
 of Solomon, — as they teach us in turn," she added in a lower 
 voice. 
 
 "And how Charles and his Paladins," [Charles Martel and 
 Charlemagne were perpetually confounded in the legends of the 
 time] "drove them out, and conquered the country again for 
 God and his mother." 
 
 '' I have heard — " but he did not take his eyes off her face. 
 
 " They were in the theatre at Aries, the Saracens, where the 
 blessed martyr St. Trophimus had died in torments ; they had 
 set up there their idol of Mahound, and turned the place into a 
 fortress. Charles burnt it over their heads : you see — I have 
 seen — the blackened walls, the blood-stained marbles, to this 
 day. Then they fled into the plain, and there they turned and 
 fought. Under Mont Majeur, by the hermit's cell, they fought a 
 isummer's day, till they were all slain. There was an Emir 
 among them, black as a raven, clad in magic armor. All lances 
 turned from it, all swords shivered on it. He rode through the 
 press without a wound, while every stroke of his scymitar shore 
 off a head of horse or man. Charles himself rode at him, and 
 gmote him with his hammer. They heard the blow in Avignon, 
 full thirty miles away. The flame flashed out from the. magic 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLTSH. 117 
 
 armor a fathom's length, blinding all around ; and when they 
 recovered their sight, the enchanter was far away in the battle, 
 killing as he went. 
 
 "Then Charles cried, 'Who will stop that devil, whom no 
 steel can wound? Help us, O blessed martyr St. Trophimus, 
 and save the soldiers of the Cross from shame ! ' 
 
 " Then cried Torfrid, my forefather, ' What use in crying to 
 St. Trophimus ? He could not help himself, when the Paynira 
 burnt him : and how can he help us ? A tough arm is worth a 
 Bcore of martyrs here.' 
 
 " And he rode at that Emir, and gript him in his arms. They 
 both fell, and rolled together on the ground ; but Torfrid never 
 loosed his hold till he had crushed out his unbaptized soul and 
 Bent it to join Mahound in hell. 
 
 "Then he took his armor, and brought it home in triumph. 
 But after a while he fell sick of a fever; and tlie blessed St. 
 Trophimus appeared to him, and told him that it was a punish- 
 ment for his blasphemy in the battle. So he repented, and vowed 
 to serve the saint all his life. On which he was healed instantly, 
 and fell to religion, and went back to Mont Majeur ; and there 
 he was a hermit in the cave under the rock, and tended the 
 graves hewn in the living stone, where his old comrades, the 
 Paladins who were slain, sleep side by side round the church 
 of the Holy Cross. But the armor he left here ; and he laid a 
 curse upon it, that whosoever of his descendants should lose that 
 armor in fight, should die childless, without a son to wield a 
 sword. And therefore it is that none of his ancestors, valiant 
 as they have been, have dared to put this harness on their 
 backs." 
 
 And so ended a story, which Torfrida believed utterly, and 
 Hereward likewise. 
 
 " And now, Hereward mine, dare you wear that magic armor, 
 and face old Torfrid's curse ? " 
 
 " What dare I not ? " 
 
 " Think. If you lose it, in you your race must end." 
 
 " Let it end. I accept the curse." 
 
 And he put the armor on. 
 
 But he trembled as he did it. Atheism and superstition go 
 too often hand in hand; and godless as he was, sceptical of 
 Providence itself, and much more of the help of saint or angel, 
 still the curse of the old warrior, like the malice of a witch or a 
 demon, was to him a thing possible, probable, and formidable. 
 
 She looked at him in pride and exultation. 
 
 " It is yours, — the invulnerable harness ! Wear it in the fore- 
 front of the battle ! And if weapon wound you through it, may 
 
118 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 I, as punishment for my lie, suffer the same upon my tender 
 body, — a wound for every wound of yours, my knight ! " * 
 
 And after that they sat side by side, and talked of love with 
 all honor and honesty, never heeding the old hag, who crooned 
 to herself in her barbarian tongue, — 
 
 " Qniok thaw, long frost, 
 Quick joy, long pain, \ 
 Soon found, soon lost, 
 Yon will take your gift again." 
 
 * " yplo enim in meo tale quid nunc perpeti corpore semel, qnicqnid eas 
 ferrei vel e metallo exoederet." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW THE HOLLANDERS TOOK HEREWARD FOR A MAGICIAN. 
 
 Of this weary Holland war which dragged itself on campaign 
 after campaign for several years, what need to tell? There was, 
 doubtless, the due amount of murder, plunder, burning, and 
 worse ; and the final event was certain from the beginning. It 
 was a struggle between civilized and disciplined men, armed to 
 the teeth, well furnished with ships and military engines, against 
 poor simple folk in "felt coats stiffened with tar or turpentine, or 
 in very short jackets of hide," says the chronicler, " who fought 
 by threes, two with a crooked lance and three darts each, and 
 between them a man with a sword or an axe, who held his 
 shield before those two ; — a very great multitude, but in com- 
 position utterly undisciplined," who came down to the sea-coast, 
 with carts and wagons, to carry off the spoils of the Flemings, 
 and bade them all surrender at discretion, and go home again 
 after giving up Count Eobert and Here ward, with the " tribunes 
 of the brigades," to be put to death, as valiant South Sea island- 
 ers might have done ; and then found themselves as sheep to the" 
 slaughter before the cunning Hereward, whom they esteemed a 
 magician on account of his craft and his invulnerable armor. 
 
 So at least says Leofric's paraphrast, who tells long, confused 
 stories of 'battles and campaigns, some of them without due re- 
 gard to chr(3hology ; for it is certain that the brave Frisians 
 could not on Robert's first landing have "feared lest they should 
 be conquered by foreigners, as they had heard the English were 
 by the French," because that event had not then happened. 
 
 And so much for the war among the Meres of Scheldt. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW HEREWAED TUENED BERSEEK. 
 
 Toeprida's heart misgave her that first night as to the effects 
 of her exceeding frankness. Her pride in the first place was 
 somewhat wounded ; she had dreamed of a knight who would 
 worship her as his queen, hang on her smile, die at her frown ; 
 and she had meant to bring Hereward to her feet as such a 
 slave, in boundless gratitude ; but had he not rather held his 
 own, and brought her to his feet, by assuming her devotion as 
 his right ? And if he assumed that, how far could she trust him 
 not to abuse his claim ? Was he quite as perfect seen close as 
 seen afar off? And now that the intoxication of that meeting 
 had passed off, she began to remember more than one little fault 
 which she would have gladly seen mended. Certain roughnesses 
 of manner which contrasted unfavorably with the polish (merely 
 external though it was) of the Flemish and Norman knights ; 
 a boastful self-sufficiency, too, which bordered on the ludicrous at 
 whiles even in her partial eyes ; which would be a matter of 
 .open laughter to the knights of the Court. Besides, if they 
 laughed at him, they would laugh at her for choosing him. And 
 then wounded vanity came in to help wounded pride ; and she 
 sat over the cold embers till almost dawn of day, her head 
 between her hands, musing sadly, and half wishing that the ir- 
 revocable yesterday had never come. 
 
 But when, after a few months, Hereward returned from his 
 first campaign in Holland, covered with glory and renown, all 
 smiles, and beauty, and health, and good-humor, and gratitude 
 for the magic armor which had preserved him unhurt, then 
 Torfrida forgot all her fears, and thought herself the happiest 
 maid alive for four-and-twenty hours at least. 
 
 And then came back, and after that again and again, the old 
 fears. Gradually she found out that the sneers which she had 
 heard at English barbarians were not altogether without ground. 
 Not only had her lover's life been passed among half-brutal and 
 wild adventurers ; but, like the rest of his nation, he had never 
 felt the influence of that classic civilization without which good 
 manners seem, even to this day, almost beyond the reach of the 
 
HEEEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 121 
 
 white man. Those among whom she had beeii brought up, 
 ■whetlier soldiers or clerks, were probably no nobler or purer at 
 heart — she would gladly have believed them far less so — than 
 Hereward ; but the merest varnish of Roman civilization had 
 given a charm to their manners, a wideness of range to their 
 thoughts, which Hereward had not. 
 
 Especially when he had taken too much to drink, — which he 
 did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Bald- 
 win's men, — he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would 
 chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word 
 was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and 
 outvied each other in impossible fanfarronades, simply to laugh 
 down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of 
 a true knight. Bitter it was to her to hear him announcing to 
 the company, not for the first or second time, how he had slain 
 the Cornish giant, whose height increased by a foot at least every 
 time he was mentioned ; and then to hear him answered by some 
 smart, smooth-shaven youth, who, with as much mimicry of his 
 manner as he dared to assume, boasted of having §lain in Araby 
 a giant with two heads, and taken out of his two mouths the two 
 halves' of the princess whom he was devouring, which being 
 joined together afterwards by the prayers of a holy hermit, were 
 delivered back safe and sound to her father the King of Antioch. 
 And more bitter still, to hear Hereward angrily dispute the 
 story, unaware (at least at first) that he was being laughed at. 
 
 Then she grew sometimes cold, sometimes contemptuous, some- 
 times altogether fierce ; and shed bitter tears in secret, when she 
 was complimented on the modesty of her young savage. 
 
 But she was a brave maiden ; and what was more, she loved 
 him with all her heart. Else why endure bitter words for his 
 sake? And she set herself to teach and train the wild outlaw 
 into her ideal of a very perfect knight. 
 
 She talked to him of modesty and humility, the root of all 
 virtues ; of chivalry and self-sacrifice ; of respect to the weak, 
 and mercy to the fallen ; of devotion to God, and awe of His 
 commandments. She set before him the example of ancient 
 heroes and philosophers, of saints and martyrs ; and as much 
 awed him by her learning as by the new world of higher and 
 purer morality which was opened for the first time to the 
 wandering Viking. 
 
 And he drank it all in. Taught by a woman who loved him, 
 he could listen to humiliating truths, which he would have 
 sneered at, had they come from the lips of a hermit or a priest. 
 Often he rebelled ; often he broke loose, and made her angry, and 
 himself ashamed: but the spell was on him, — a far surer, as well 
 6 
 
122 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 as purer spell than any love-potion of which foolish Torfrida had 
 ever dreamed, — the only spell which can really civilize man, — 
 that of woman's tact and woman's purity. 
 
 But there were relapses, as was natural. The wine at Robert 
 the Prison's table was often too good; and then Hereward's 
 tongue was loosed, and Torfrida justly indignant. And one 
 evening there came a very serious relapse, and out of which arose 
 a strange adventure. 
 
 For one day the Great Marquis sent for his son to Bruges, 
 ere he set out for another campaign in Holland ; and made him a 
 great feast, to which he invited Torfrida and her mother. For 
 Adela of France, the Queen Countess, had heard so much of 
 Torfrida's beauty, that she must needs have her as one of her 
 bower-maidens ; and her mother, who was an old friend of 
 Adela's, of course was highly honored by such a promotion for 
 her daughter. 
 
 So they went to Bruges, and Plereward and his men went of 
 course ; and they feasted and harped and sang ; and the saying 
 was fulfilled, — 
 
 " 'T is merry in the hall 
 When beards wag all." 
 
 But the only beard which wagged in that hall was Hereward's ; 
 for the Flemings, like the Normans, prided themselves on their 
 civilized and smooth-shaven chins, and laughed (behind his back) 
 at Hereward, who prided himself on keeping his beautiful Eng- 
 lish beard, with locks of gold which, like his long golden hair, 
 were combed and curled daily, after the fashion of the Anglo- 
 Danes. 
 
 But Hereward's beard began to wag somewhat too fast, as he 
 sat by Torfrida's side, when some knight near began to tell of a 
 wonderful mare, called Swallow, which was to be found in one of 
 the islands of the Scheldt, and was famous through all the coun- 
 try round ; insinuating, moreover, that Hereward might as well 
 have brought that mare home with him as a trophy. 
 
 Hereward answered, in his boasting vein, that he would bring 
 home that mare, or aught else that he had a liking to. 
 
 " You will find it not so easy. Her owner, they say, is a 
 mighty strong churl of a horse-breeder. Dirk Hammerhand by 
 name ; and as for cutting his throat, that you must not do ; for he 
 has been loyal to Countes^ Gertrude, and sent her horses when- 
 ever she needed." 
 
 " One may pick a fair quarrel with him nevertheless." 
 
 " Then you must bide such a buffet as you never abode before. 
 They say his arm has seven men's strength ; and whosoever visits 
 him, he challenges to give and take a blow ; but every man that 
 has taken a blow as yet has never needed another." 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 123 
 
 " Hereward will have need of his magic head-piece, if he tries 
 that adventure," quoth another. 
 
 " Ay," retorted the first speaker ; " but the helmet may stand 
 the rap well enough, and yet the brains inside be the worse." 
 
 " Not a doubt. I knew a man once, who was so strong, that he 
 would shake a nut till the kernel went to powder, and yet never 
 break the shell." 
 
 " That is a lie ! " quoth Hereward. And so it was, and told 
 purposely to make him expose himself. 
 
 Whereon high words followed, which Torfrida tried in vain to 
 stop. Hereward was flushed with ire and scorn. 
 
 " Magic armor, forsooth ! " cried he at last. " What care I 
 for armor or for magic ? I will wager to you " — " my armor," 
 he was on the point of saying, but he checked himself in time — 
 " any horse in my stable, that I go in ray shirt to-Scaldmariland, 
 and bring back that mare single-handed." 
 
 ". Hark to the Englishman. He has turned Berserk at last, 
 like his forefathers. You will surely start in a pair of hose as 
 well, or the ladies will be shamed." 
 
 And so forth, tiU Torfrida was purple with shame, and wished 
 herself fathoms deep ; and Adela of France called sternly from 
 the head of the table to ask what the wrangling meant. 
 
 " It is only the English Berserker, the Lady Torfrida's cham- 
 pion," said some one, in his most courteous tone, " who is not yet 
 as well acquainted with the customs of knighthood as that fair 
 lady hopes to make him hereafter." 
 
 " Torfrida's champion ? " asked Adela, in a tone of surprise, 
 if not scorn. 
 
 " If any knight quarrels with my Hereward, he quarrels with 
 Kobert himself ! " thundered Count Robert. " Silence ! " 
 
 And so the matter was hushed up. 
 
 The banquet ended ; and they walked out into the garden to 
 cool their heads, and play at games, and dance. 
 
 Torfrida avoided Hereward : but he, with the foolish perti- 
 nacity of a man who knows he has had too much wine, and yet 
 pretends to himself that he has not, would follow her, and speak 
 to her. 
 
 She turned away more than once. At last she was forced to 
 speak to him. 
 
 " So ! You have made me a laughing-stock to these knights. 
 You have scorned at my gifts. You have said — and before 
 these men, too — that you need neither helm nor hauberk. Give 
 me them back, then. Berserker as you are, and go sleep off your 
 wine." 
 
 " That will I," laughed Hereward boisterously. 
 
124 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 "You are tipsy," said she, "and do not know what you say* 
 
 " You are angry, and do not Itnow what you say." Hearken 
 proud lass. I will take care of one thing, and that is, that you 
 shall speak the truth." 
 
 " Did I not say that you were tipsy ? " 
 
 " Pish ! You said that I was a Berserker. And truth you 
 shall speak ; for baresark I go to-morrow to the war, and baresark 
 I win that mare or die." 
 
 " That will be very fit for you." 
 
 And the two turned haughtily from each other. 
 
 Ere Toririda went to bed that night, there was a violent knock- 
 ing. Angry as she was, she was yet anxious enough to hurry out 
 of her chamber, and open the door herself. 
 
 Martin Lightfoot stood there with a large leather case, which 
 he flung at her feet somewhat unceremoniously. 
 
 " There is some gear of yours," said he, as it clanged and rat- 
 tled on the floor. 
 
 " What do you mean, man ? " 
 
 " Only that my master bid me say that he cares as little for his 
 own life as you do." And he turned away. 
 
 She caught him by the arm : — 
 
 " What is the meaning of this ? What is in this mail ? " 
 
 "You should know best. If young folks cannot be content 
 when they are well off, they will go farther and fare worse," says 
 Martin Lightfoot. And he slipt from her grasp and fled into the 
 night. 
 
 She took the mail to her room and opened it. It contained 
 the magic armor. 
 
 All lier anger was melted away. She cried ; she blamed her- 
 self. He would be killed ; his blood would be on her head. She 
 would have carried it back to him with her own hands ; she would 
 have entreated him on her knees to take it back. But how face 
 the courtiers? and how find him? Very probably, too, he was by 
 that time hopelessly drunk. And at that thought she drew her- 
 self into herself, and trying to harden her heart again, went to 
 bed, but not to sleep ; and bitterly she cried as she thought over 
 the old hag's croon : — 
 
 " Quick joy, long pain, 
 You will take your gift again." 
 
 It might have been five o'clock the next morning when the 
 clarion rang down the street. She sprang up and drest herself 
 quickly ; but never more carefully or gayly. She heard the tramp 
 of horse-hoofs. He was moving a-fleld early, indeed. Should 
 she go to the window to bid him fai-ewell ? Should she hide her- 
 self in just anger ? 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 123 
 
 She looked out stealthily through the blind of the little window 
 in the gable. There rode down the street Robert le Frison in 
 full armor, and behind him, knight after knight, a wall of shining 
 steel. But by his side rode one bare-headed, his long yellow 
 curls floating over his shoulders. His boots had golden spurs, a 
 gilt belt held up his sword ; but his only dress was a silk shirt 
 and silk hose. He laughed and sang, and made his horse caracol, 
 and tossed his lance in the air, and caught it by the point, like 
 Taillefer at Hastings, as he passed under the window. 
 
 She threw open the blind, careless of all appearances. She 
 would have called to him : but the words choked her ; and what 
 should she say ? 
 
 He looked up boldly, and smiled. 
 
 " Farewell, fair lady mine. Drunk I was last night : but not 
 so drunk as to forget a promise." 
 
 And he rode on, while Toifrida rushed away and broke into 
 wild weeping. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOW HEREWAED WON MARE SWALLOW. 
 
 On a bench at the door of his high-roofed wooden house sal 
 Dii'k Hammerhand, the richest man in Walcberen. From within 
 the house sounded the pleasant noise of slave-women, grinding 
 and chatting at the handquern ; from without, the pleasant noise 
 of geese and fowls without number. And as he sat and drank 
 his ale, and watched the herd of horses in the fen, he thought 
 himself a happy man, and thanked his Odin and Thor that owing 
 to his princely supplies of horses to Countess Gertrude, Robert 
 the Frison and his Christian Franks had not harried him to the 
 bare walls, as they would probably do ere all was over. 
 
 As he looked at the horses, some half-mile off, he saw a strange 
 Btir among them. They began whinnying and pawing round 
 a four-footed thing in the midst, which might be a badger, or a 
 wolf, — though both were very uncommon in that pleasant isle of 
 Walcberen ; but which plainly had no business there. Whereon 
 he took up a mighty staff, and strode over the fen to see. 
 
 He found neither wolf nor badger ; but to his exceeding sur- 
 prise, a long lean man, clothed in ragged horse-skins, whinnying 
 and neighing exactly like a horse, and then stooping to eat grass 
 like one. He advanced to do the first thing which came into his 
 head, namely to break the man's back with his staff, and ask him 
 afterwards who he might be. But ere he could strike, the man 
 or horse kicked up with his hind legs in his face, and then spring- 
 ing on to the said hind legs ran away with extraordinary swiftness 
 some fifty yards ; and then went down on all-fours and began 
 grazing again. 
 
 " Beest thou man or devil ? " cried Dirk, somewhat frightened. 
 
 The thing looked up. The face at least was human. 
 
 " Art thou a Christian man ? " asked it in bad Frisian, inter- 
 mixed with snorts and neighs. 
 
 " What 's that to thee ? " growled Dirk ; and began to wish a 
 little that he was one, having heard that the sign of the cross was 
 of great virtue in driving away fiends. 
 
 " Thou art not Christian. Thou believest in Thor and Odin ? 
 Then there is hope." ' 
 
HEEEWAED,- THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 127 
 
 " Hope of what ? " Dirk was growing more and more fright- 
 ened. 
 
 " Of her, my sister ! Ah, my sister, can it be that I shall find 
 thee at last, after ten thousand miles, and thirty years of woful 
 wandering ? " 
 
 " I have no man's sister here. At least, my wife's brother was 
 killed — " 
 
 " I speak not of a sister in a woman's shape. Mine, alas ! — 
 O woful prince, O more woful princess! — eats the herb of the 
 field somewhere in the shape, of a mare, as ugly as she was once 
 beautiful, but swifter than the swallow on the wing." 
 
 " I 've none such here," quoth Dirk, thoroughly frightened, and 
 glancing uneasily at mare Swallow. 
 
 " You have not ? Alas, wretched me ! It was prophesied to 
 me, by the witch, that I should find her in the field of one who 
 worshipped the old gods ; for had she come across a holy priest, 
 she had been a woman again, long ago. Whither must I wan- 
 der afresh ! " And the thing began weeping bitterly, and then 
 ate more grass. 
 
 "I — that is — thou poor miserable creature," said Dirk, half 
 pitying, half wishing to turn the subject, " leave off making a 
 beast of thyself awhile, and tell me who thou art." 
 
 "I have made no beast of myself, most noble Earl of the 
 Frisians, for so you doubtless are. I was made a beast of, — a 
 horse of, by an enchanter of a certain land, and my sister a 
 mare." 
 
 " Thou dost not say so ? " quoth Dirk, who considered such an 
 event quite possible. 
 
 " I was a prince of the county of Alboronia, which lies between 
 Cathay and the Mountains of the Moon, as fair once as I am foul 
 now, and only less fair than my lost sister ; and, by the enchant- 
 ments of a cruel magician, we became what we are." 
 
 " But thou art not a horse, at all events ? " 
 
 " Am I not ? Thou knovvest, then, more of me than I do of 
 myself," — and it ate more grass. " But hear the rest of my 
 story. My hapless sister was sold away, with me, to a mer- 
 chant; but I, breaking loose from him, fled until I bathed in a 
 magic fountain. At once I recovered my man's shape, and was 
 rejoicing therein, when out of the fountain rose a fairy more 
 beautiful than an elf, and smiled upon me with love. 
 
 " She asked me my story, and I told it. And when it was 
 fold, ' Wretch ! ' she cried, ' and coward, who hast deserted thy 
 sister in her need. I would have loved thee, and made thee im- 
 mortal as myself; but now thou shalt wander, ugly, and eating 
 grass, clothed in the horse-hide which has just dropped from thy 
 
128 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 limbs, till thou shalt find thy sister, and bring her to bathe, lika 
 thee, in this magic well.' " 
 
 " All good spirits help ns ! And you are really a prince ? " 
 
 " As surely," cried the thing, with a voice of sudden rapture, 
 "as that mare is my sister"; and he rushed at mare Swallow, 
 " I see, I see, my mother's eyes, my father's nose — " 
 
 " He must have been a chuckle-headed king that, then," 
 grinned Dirk to himself. " The mare's nose is as big as a buck- 
 basket. But how can she be a princess, man, — prince, I mean ? 
 she has a foal running by her here." 
 
 "A foal?" said the thing, solemnly. "Let me behold it. 
 Alas, alas, my sister ! Thy tyrant's threat has come true, that 
 thou shouldst be his bride whether thou wouldst or not. I see, I 
 see in the features of thy son his hated lineaments." 
 
 " Why he must be as like a horse, then, as your father. But 
 this will not do, Master Horse-man ; I know that foal's pedigree 
 better than I do my own." 
 
 " Man, man, simple, though honest 1 Hast thou never heard 
 of the skill of the enchanter of the East ? How they transform 
 their victims at night back again into human shape, and by day 
 into the shape of beasts again ? " 
 
 " Yes — well — I know that — " 
 
 " And do you not see how you are deluded ? Every night, 
 doubt not, that mare and foal take their human shape again ; and 
 every night, perhaps, that foul enchanter visits in your fen, per- 
 haps in your very stable, his wretched and perhaps unwilling 
 bride." 
 
 " An enchanter in my stable ? That is an ugly guest. But 
 no. I 've been into the stables fifty times, to see if that mare 
 was safe. Mare was mare, and colt was colt, Mr. Prince, if I 
 have eyes to see." 
 
 " And what are eyes against enchantments ? The moment you 
 opened the door, the spell was cast over them again. You ought 
 to thank your stars that no worse has ha,ppened yet; that thei 
 enchanter, in fleeing, has not wrung your neck as he went out, or 
 cast a spell on you, which will fire your barns, lame your geese, 
 give your fowls the pip, your horses the glanders, your cattle the 
 murrain, your children the St. Vitus' dance, your wife the creep- 
 ing palsy, and yourself the chalk-stones in all your fingers." 
 
 " The Lord have mercy on me ! If the half of this be true, 
 I will turn Christian. I will send for a priest, and be baptized 
 to-morrow ! " 
 
 " my sister, my sister ! Dost thon not know me ? Dost 
 thou answer my caresses with kicks ? Or is thy heart, as well 
 as thy body, so enchamed by that cruel necromancer, that thou 
 
HEKEWABD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 129 
 
 preferest to be his, and scornest thine own salvation, leaving me 
 to eat grass till I die ? "^ 
 
 " I say, Prince, — I say, — What would you have a man to 
 do? I bought the mare honestly, and I have kept her well. 
 She can't say aught against me on that score. And whether she 
 be princess or not, I 'm loath to part with her." 
 
 " Keep her then, and keep with her the curse of all the saints 
 and angels. Look down, ye holy saints " (and the thing poured 
 out a long string of saints' names), "and avenge this Catholic 
 princess, kept in bestial durance by an unbaptized heathen ! 
 May his — " 
 
 " Don't ! don't ! " roared Dirk. " And don't look at me like 
 that " (for he feared the evil eye), " or I '11 brain you with my 
 staff! " 
 
 " Fool, if I have lost a horse's figure, I have not lost his swift- 
 ness. Ere thou couldst strike, I should have run a mile and 
 back, to curse thee afresh." And the thing ran round him, and 
 fell on all-fours again, and ate grass. 
 
 " Mercy, mercy ! And that is more than I ever asked yet of 
 man. But it is hard," growled he, " that a man should lose his 
 money, because a rogue sells him a princess in disguise." 
 
 " Then sell her again ; sell her, as thou valuest thy life, to the 
 first Christian man thou meetest. And yet no. What matters ? 
 Ere a month be over, the seven years' enchantment will have 
 passed, and she wiU return to her own shape, with her son, and 
 vanish from thy farm, leaving thee to vain repentance, and so 
 thou wilt both lose thy money and get her curse. Farewell, 
 and my malison abide with thee." 
 
 And the thing, without another word, ran right away, neigh- 
 ing as it went, leaving Dirk in a state of abject terror. 
 
 He went home. He cursed the mare, he cursed the man who 
 sold her, he cursed the day he saw her, he cursed the day he was 
 born. He told his story with exaggerations and confusions in 
 plenty to all in the house ; and terror fell on them likewise. No 
 one, that evening, dare go down into the fen to drive the horses 
 up ; and Dirk got very drunk, went to bed, and trembled there 
 all night (as did the rest of the household), expecting the en- 
 chanter to enter on a flaming fire-drake, at every howl of the 
 wind. 
 
 The next morning, as Dirk was going about his business with 
 a doleful face, casting stealthy glances at the fen, to see if the 
 mysterious mare was still there, and a chance of his money still 
 left, a man rode up to the door. 
 
 He was poorly clothed, with a long rusty sword by his side 
 A broad felt hat, long boots, and a haversack behind his saddle, ' 
 6* I 
 
130 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Bhowed him to be a traveller, seemingly a horse-dealer; foJ 
 there followed him, tied head and tail, a Brace of sorry nags. 
 
 " Heaven save all here," quoth he, making the sign of the 
 cross. " Can any good Christian give me a drink of milk ? " 
 
 " Ale, if thou wilt," said Dirk. " But what art thou, and 
 whence ? " 
 
 On any other day, he would have tried to coax his guest into 
 trying a buffet with him for his horse and clothes ; but this morn- 
 ing his heart was heavy with the thought of the enchanted mare, 
 and he welcomed the chance of selling her to the stranger. 
 
 " We are not very fond of strangers about here, since these 
 Flemings have been harrying our borders. If thou art a spy, it 
 will be worse for thee." 
 
 " I am neither spy nor Fleming ; but a poor servant of the 
 Lord Bishop of Utrecht's, buying a garron or two for his lord- 
 ship's priests. As for these Flemings, may St. John Baptist 
 save from them both me and you. Do you know of any man 
 who has horses to sell hereabouts ? " 
 
 " There are horses in the fen yonder," quoth Dirk, who knew 
 that churchmen were likely to give a liberal price, and pay in 
 good silver. 
 
 " I saw them as I rode up. And a fine lot they are ; but of 
 too good a stamp for my short purse, or for my holy master's rid- 
 ing, — a fat priest likes a quiet nag, my master." 
 
 " Humph. Well, if quietness is what you need, there is a 
 mare down there, a child might ride her with a thread of wool. 
 But as for price, — and she has a colt, too, running by her." 
 
 "Ah?" quoth the horseman. "Well, your Walcheren folk 
 make, good milk, that's certain. A colt by her? That 's awk- 
 ward. My Lord does not like young horses ; and it would be 
 troublesome, too, to take the thing along with me." 
 
 The less anxious the dealer seemed to buy, the more anxious 
 grew Dirk to sell ; but he concealed his anxiety, and let tiie - 
 stranger turn away, thanking him for his drink. 
 
 " I say 1 " he called after him. " You might look at her as 
 you ride past the herd." 
 
 The stranger assented, and they went down into the fen, and 
 looked over the precious mare, whose feats were afterwards sung 
 by many an English fireside, or in the forest, beneath the hollins 
 green, by such as Robin Hood and his merry men. The ugliest, 
 as well as the swiftest, of mares, she was, say the old chroniclers ; 
 and it was not till the stranger had looked twice at her, that he 
 forgot her great chuckle head, greyhound-flanks, and drooping 
 hind-quarters, and began to see the great length of those same 
 quarters, — the thighs let down into the hocks, the arched 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 13] 
 
 loin, the extraordinary girth through the saddle, the sloping 
 shoulder, the long arms, the flat knees, the large, well-set hoofs,, 
 and all the other points which showed her strength and speed, 
 and justified her fame. 
 
 " She might carry a big man like you through the mud," said 
 he, carelessly, "but as for pace, one cannot expect that with such 
 a chuckle head. And if one rode her through a town, the boys 
 would call after one, ' All head and no fail.' Why, I can't see 
 her tail for her quarters, it is so ill set on." 
 
 " 111 set on, or none," said Dirk, testily ; " don't go to speak 
 against her pace till you have seen it. Here, lass ! " 
 
 Dirk was, in his heart, rather afraid of the princess ; but he 
 was comforted when she came up to him like a dog. 
 
 " She 's as sensible as a woman," said he ; and then, grumbled 
 to himself, " may be she knows I mean to part with her." 
 
 " Lend me your saddle," said he to th6 stranger. 
 
 The stranger did so ; and Dirk mounting galloped her in a 
 ring. There was no doubt of her powers, as soon as she began 
 to move. 
 
 " I hope you won't remember this against me, madam,'' said 
 Dirk, as soon as he got out of the stranger's hearing. " I can't 
 do less than sell you to a Christian. And certainly I have been 
 as good a master to you as if I 'd known who you were ; but if 
 you wish to stay with me you 've only to kick me off, and say so, 
 and I 'm yours to command." 
 
 " Well, she can gallop a bit," said the stranger, as Dirk 
 pulled her up and dismounted ; " but an ugly brute she is never- 
 theless, and such a one as I should not care to ride, for I am a 
 gay man among the ladies. However, what is your price ? " 
 
 Dirk named twice as much as he would have taken. 
 
 " Half that, you mean." And the usual haggle began. 
 - " Tell thee what," said Dirk at last, " I am a man who has 
 his fancies ; and this shall be her price ; half thy bid, and a box 
 on the ear." 
 
 The demon of covetousness had entered Dirk's heart. What 
 if he got the money, brained or at least disabled the stranger, 
 and so had a chance of selhng the mare a second time to some 
 fresh comer ? 
 
 " Thou art a strange fellow," quoth the horse-dealer. " But 
 80 be it." 
 
 Dirk chuckled. "He does not know," thought he, "that he 
 has to do with Dirk Hammerhand," and he clenched his fist in 
 anticipation of his rough joke. 
 
 " There," quoth the stranger, counting out the money carefully, 
 "is thy coin. And there — is thy box on the ear." 
 
132 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 And with a blow which rattled over the fen, he felled Dirk 
 Hammerhand to the ground. 
 
 He lay senseless for a moment, and then looked wildly round. 
 His jaw was brolien. 
 
 " Villain ! " groaned he. " It was I who was to give the 
 buffet, not thou ! " 
 
 "Art mad.'" asked the stranger, as he coolly picked up the 
 coins, which Dirk had scattered in his fall. "It is the seller's 
 business to take, and the buyer's to give." 
 
 And while Dirk roared for help in vain he leapt on mare 
 Swallow and rode off shouting, " Aha ! Dirk Hammerhand '. 
 So you thought to knock a hole in my skull, as you have done 
 to many a better man than yourself. He is a lucky man who 
 never meets his match. Dirk. I shall give your love to the 
 Enchanted Prince, my faithful serving-man, whom they call 
 Martin Lightfoot. 
 
 Dirk cursed the day he was born. Instead of the mare and 
 colt, he had got the two wretched garrons which the stranger 
 had left, and a face which made him so tender of his own teeth, 
 that he never again offered to try a buffet with a strangtir. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOW HEREWABD RODE INTO BRUGES LIKE A BEGGAR-MAN. 
 
 The spring and summer had passed, and the autumn was 
 almost over, when great news came to the Court of Bruges, 
 where Torfrida was now a bower-maiden. 
 
 The Hollanders had been beaten till they submitted ; at least 
 for the present. There was peace, at least for the present, 
 through all the isles of Scheldt ; and more than all, the lovely 
 Countess Gertrude had resolved to reward her Champion by 
 giving him her hand, and the guardianship of her lands and the 
 infant son. 
 
 And Hereward ? 
 
 From him, or of him, there was no word. That he was alive 
 and fighting, was all the messenger could say. 
 
 Then Robert came back to Bruges, with a gallant retinue, 
 leading home his bride. And there met him his father and 
 mother, and his brother of Mons, and Richilda the beautiful and 
 terrible sorceress, — who had not yet stained her soul with those 
 fearful crimes which she had expiated by fearful penances in 
 after years, when young Arnoul, the son for whom she had sold 
 her soul, lay dead through the very crimes by which she had 
 meant to make him a mighty prince. And Torfrida went out 
 with them to meet Count Robert, and looked for Hereward, till 
 her eyes were ready to fall out of her head. But Hereward was 
 not with them. 
 
 " He must be left behind, commanding the army," thought she. 
 " But he might have sent one word ! " 
 
 There was a great feast that day, of course ; and Torfrida sat 
 thereat : but she could not eat. Nevertheless she was too proud 
 to let the knights know what was in her heart ; so she chatted 
 and laughed as gayly as the rest, watching always for any word 
 of Hereward. But none mentioned his name. 
 
 The feast was long ; the ladies did not rise till nigh bedtime ; 
 and then the men drank on. 
 
 They went up to the Queen-Countess's chamber ; where a sol- 
 emn undressing of that royal lady usually took place. 
 
 The etiquette was this. The Queen-Countess sat in her chair 
 
134 HEKEWARD, THE XAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 of state in the midst, till her shoes were taken off, and her hail 
 dressed for the night. Eight and left of her, according to their 
 degrees, sat the other great ladies ; and behind each of them, 
 where they could find places, the maidens. 
 
 It was Torfrida's turn to take off the royal shoes ; and she 
 advanced into the middle of the semicircle, slippers in hand. 
 
 " Stop there ! " said the Countess-Queen. 
 
 Whereat Torfrida stopped, very much frightened. 
 
 " Countesses and ladies," said the mistress. " There are, m 
 Provence and the South, what I wish there were here in Flan- 
 ders, — Courts of Love, at which all offenders against the sacred 
 laws of Venus and Cupid are tried by an assembly of their peers, 
 and punished according to their deserts." 
 
 Torft-ida turned scarlet. 
 
 " I know not why we, countesses and ladies, should have less 
 knowledge of the laws of love than those gayer dames of the 
 South, whose blood runs — to judge by her dark hair — in the 
 veins of yon fair maid." 
 
 There was a silence. Torfrida was the most beautiful woman 
 in the room ; more beautiful than even Richilda the terrible : 
 and therefore there w«re few but were glad to see her — as it 
 seemed — in trouble. 
 
 Torfrida's mother began whimpering, and praying to six or 
 seven saints at once. But nobody marked her, — possibly not 
 even the saints ; being preoccupied with Torfrida. 
 
 " I hear, fair maid, — for that you are that I will do you the 
 justice to confess, — that you are old enough to be married this 
 four years since." 
 
 Torfrida stood like a stone, frightened out of her wits, plentiful 
 as they were. 
 
 " Why are you not married ? " 
 
 There was, of course, no answer. 
 
 " I hear that knights have fought for you ; lost their lives for 
 you." 
 
 " I did not bid them," gasped Torfrida, longing that the floor 
 would open, and swallow up the Queen-Countess and all her kin 
 and followers, as it did for the enemies of the blessed Saint 
 Dunstan, while he was arguing with them in an upper room at 
 Calne. 
 
 " And that the knight of St. Valeri, to whom you gave your 
 favor, now lies languishing of wounds got in your cause." 
 
 "I — I did not bid him fight," gasped Torfrida, now wishing 
 that the floor would open and swallow up herself. 
 
 " And that he who overthrew the knight of St. Valeri, — to 
 whom you gave that favor, and more — " 
 
HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 135 
 
 " I gave him nothing a maiden might not give," cried Torfrida, 
 so fiercely that the Queen-Countess recoiled somewhat. 
 
 " I never said that you did, girl. Your love you gave him. 
 Can you deny that?" 
 
 Torfrida laughed bitterly : her Southern blood was rising. 
 
 " I put my love out to nurse, instead of vpeaning it, as many a 
 maiden has done before me. When my love cried for hunger 
 and cold, I took it back again to my own bosom : and whether it 
 has lived or died there, is no one's matter but my own." 
 
 " Hunger and cold? I hear that him to whom you gave your 
 love you drove out to the cold, bidding him go fight in his bare 
 shirt, if he wished to win your love." 
 
 " I did not. He angered me — he — " and Torfrida found 
 herself in the act of accusing Hereward. 
 
 She stopped instantly. 
 
 " What more. Majesty ? If this be true, what more may not 
 be true of such a one as I ? I submit myself to your royal 
 grace." 
 
 " She has confessed. What punishment, ladies, does she de- 
 serve ? Or, rather, what punishment would her cousins of Pro- 
 vence inflict, did we send her southward, to be judged by their 
 Courts of Love ? " 
 
 One lady said one thing, one another. Some spoke cruelly, 
 some worse than cruelly ; for they were coarse ages, the ages of 
 faith ; and ladies said things then in open company which gentle- 
 men would be ashamed to say in private now. 
 
 " Marry her to a fool," said Richilda, at last, bitterly. 
 
 " That is too common a misfortune," answered the lady of 
 France. " If we did no more to her, she might grow as prond 
 as her betters." 
 
 Adela knew that her daughter-in-law considered her husband 
 a fool ; and was somewhat of the same opinion, though she hated 
 Eichilda. 
 
 " No," said she ; " we will do more. We will marry her to the 
 first man who enters the castle." 
 
 Torfrida looked at her mistress to see if she were mad. But 
 the Countess-Queen was serene and sane. Then Torfrida's south' 
 ern heat and northern courage burst forth. 
 
 " You — marry — me — to — " said she, slowly, with eyes sa 
 fierce, and lips so vivid, that Richilda herself quailed. 
 
 There was a noise of shouting and laughing in the court below, 
 which made all turn and listen. 
 
 The next moment a serving-man came in, puzzled and inclined 
 to laugh. 
 
 " May it please your Majesty, here is the strangest adventure. 
 
136 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 There is ridden into the castle-yard a beggar-man, with scarce 3 
 shirt to his back, on a great ugly mare, with a foal running by 
 her, and a fool behind him, carrying lance and shield. And he 
 says that he is come to fight any knight of the Court, ragged as 
 he stands, for the fairest lady in the Court, be she who she may, 
 if she have not a wedded husband already." 
 
 " And what says my Lord Marquis ? " 
 
 " That it is a fair challenge, and a good adventure ; and that 
 fight he shall, if any man will answer his defiance." 
 
 " And I say, tell my Lord the Marquis, that fight he shall not : 
 for he shall have the fairest maiden in this Court for the trouble 
 of carrying her away ; and that I, Adela of France, will give 
 her to him. So let that beggar dismount, and be brought up 
 hither to me." 
 
 There was silence again. Torfrida looked round her once 
 more, to see whether or not she was dreaming, and whether 
 there was one human being to whom she could appeal. Her 
 mother sat praying and weeping in a corner. Torfrida looked at 
 her with one glance of scorn, which she confessed and repented, 
 with bitter tears, many a year after, in a foreign land ; and then 
 turned to bay with the spirit of her old Paladin ancestor, who 
 choked the Emir at Mont Majeur. 
 
 Married to a beggar ! It was a strange accident ; and an 
 ugly one ; and a grfeat cruelty and wrong. But it was not im- 
 possible, hardly improbable, in days when the caprice of the 
 strong created accidents, and when cruelty and wrong went for 
 nothing, even with very kindly honest folk. So Torfrida faced 
 the danger, as she would have faced that of a kicking horse, or 
 a flooded ford ; and like the nut-brown bride, 
 
 " She pulled out a little penknife, 
 That was both keen and sharp," 
 
 and considered that the beggar-man could wear no armor, and 
 that she wore none either. For if she succeeded in slaying that 
 beggai--man, she might need to slay herself after, to avoid being — 
 according to the fashion of those days — burnt alive. 
 
 So when the arras was drawn back, and that beggar-man came 
 into the room, instead of shrieking, fainting, hiding, or turning, 
 she made three steps straight toward him, looking him in the face 
 like a wild-cat at bay. Then she threw up her arms ; and fell 
 upon his neck. 
 
 It was Hereward himself. Filthy, ragged : but Hereward. 
 
 His shirt was brown with gore, and torn with wounds ; and 
 through its rents showed more than one hardly healed scar. His 
 hair and beard was all in elf-locks ; and one heavy cut across the 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 137 
 
 head had shorn not only hair, but brain-pan, very close. More- 
 over, any nose, save that of Love, might have required perfume. 
 
 But Hereward it was ; and regardless of all beholders, she lay 
 upon his neck, and never stirred nor spoke. 
 
 " I call you to witness, ladies," cried the Queen-Countess, 
 " that I am guiltless. She has given herself to this beggar-man 
 of her own free will. What say you ? " And she turned to Tor- 
 frida's mother. 
 
 Torfrida's mother only prayed and whimpered. 
 
 " Countesses and Ladies," said the Queen-Countess, " there 
 will be two weddings to-morrow. The first will be that of my 
 son Robert and my pretty Lady Gertrude here. The second 
 will be that of my pretty Toi-frida and Hereward." 
 
 " And the second bride," said the Countess Gertrude, rising 
 and taking Torfrida in her arms, " will be ten times prettier 
 than the first. There, sir, I have done all you asked of me. 
 Now go and wash yourself." 
 
 ****** 
 
 " Hereward," said Torfrida, a week after, " and did you really 
 never change your shirt all that time ? " 
 
 " Never. 1 kept my promise." 
 
 " But it must have been very nasty." 
 
 " Well, I bathed now and then." 
 
 " But it must have been very cold." 
 
 " I am warm enough now." 
 
 " But did you never comb your hair, neither ? " 
 
 " Well, I won't say that. Travellers find strange bed-fellows. 
 But I had half a mind never to do it at all, just to spite you." 
 
 " And what matter would it have been to me ? " 
 
 " O, none. It is only a Danish fashion we have of keeping 
 clean." 
 
 ■' Clean ! You were dirty enough when you came home. How 
 silly you were ! If you had sent me but one word ! " 
 
 " You would have fancied me beaten, and scolded me all over 
 again. I know your ways now, Torfrida." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HOW EAEL TOSTI GODAVINSSON CAME TO ST. OMER. 
 
 The winter passed in sweet madness ; and for the first time in 
 her life, Torfrida regretted the lengthening of the days, and the 
 flowering of the primroses, and the return of the now needless 
 wryneck ; for they warned her that Hereward must forth again, 
 to the wars in Scaldmariland, which had broken out again, aa 
 was to be expected, as soon as Count Robert and his bride had 
 turned their backs. 
 
 And Hereward, likewise, for the first time in his life, was loath 
 to go to war. He was, doubtless, rich enough in this world's 
 goods. Torfrida herself was rich, and seems to have had the dis- 
 posal of her own property, for her mother is not mentioned iu 
 connection therewith. Hereward seems to have dwelt in her 
 house at St. Omer as long as he remained in Flanders. He had 
 probably amassed some treasure of his own by the simple, but 
 then most aristocratic, method of plunder. He had, too, probably, 
 grants of land in Holland from the Frison, the rents whereof were 
 not paid as regularly as might be. Moreover, as " Magister Mili- 
 tum," " Master of the Kiiights," he had, it is likely, pay as well 
 as honor. And he approved himself worthy of his good fortune. 
 He kept forty gallant housecarles in his hall all the winter, and 
 Torfrida and her lasses made and mended their clothes. He gave 
 large gifts to the Abbey of St Bertin ; and had masses sung for 
 the souls of all whom he had slain, according to a rough list which 
 he furnished, — bidding the monks not to be chary of two or three 
 masses extra at times, as his memory was short, and he might 
 have sent more souls to purgatory than he had recollected. He 
 gave great alms at his door to all the poor. He befriended, 
 especially, all shipwrecked and needy mariners, feeding and 
 clothing them, and begging their freedom as a gift from Baldwin. 
 He feasted the knights of the neighborhood, who since his Bare- 
 sark campaign, had all vowed him the most gallant of warriors, 
 and since his accession of wealth, the most courteous of gentle- 
 men ; and so all went merrily, as it is written, " As long as thou 
 doest well unto thyself, men will speak well of thee." 
 
 So he would have fain stayed at home at St. Omer ; but he 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 139 
 
 was Robert's man, and his good friend likewise ; and to the wars 
 he must go forth once more ; and for eight or nine weary months 
 Torfrida was alone : but very happy, for a certain reason of her 
 own. 
 
 At last the short November days came round ; and a joyful 
 woman was fair Torfrida, when Martin Lightfbot ran into the 
 hall, and throwing himself down on the rushes like a dog, an- 
 nounced that Hereward and his men would be home before noon, 
 and then fell fast asleep. 
 
 There was bustling to and fro of her and her maids ; decking 
 of the hall in the best hangings ; strewing of fresh rushes, to the 
 dislodgement of Martin ; setting out of square tables, and stoops 
 and mugs thereon ; cooking of victuals, broaching of casks ; and 
 above all, for Hereward's self, heating of much water, and setting 
 out, in the inner chamber, of the great bath-tub and bath-sheet, 
 which was the special delight of a hero fresh from the war. 
 
 And by midday the streets of St. Omer rang with clank and 
 tramp and trumpet-blare, and in marched Hereward and all his 
 men, and swung round through the gateway into the court, vvhere 
 Torfrida stood to welcome them, as fair as day, a silver stirrup- 
 cup in her hand. And while the men were taking off their har- 
 ness and dressing their horses, she and Hereward went in togeth- 
 er, and either took such joy of the other, that a year's parting 
 was forgot in a minute's meeting. 
 
 " Now," cried she, in a tone half of triumph, half of tenderness, 
 "look there!" 
 
 "A cradle? And a baby?" 
 
 " Your baby." 
 
 " Is it a boy ? " asked Hereward, who saw in his mind's eye a 
 thing which would grow and broaden at his knee year by year, 
 and learn from him to ride, to shoot, to fight. " Happy for him 
 if he does not learn worse from me," thought Hereward, with a 
 sudden movement of humility and contrition, which was surely 
 marked in heaven ; for Torfrida marked it on earth. 
 
 But she mistook its meaning. 
 
 " Do not be vexed. It is a girl." 
 
 " Never mind ! " as if it was a calamity over which he was 
 bound to comfort the mother. " If she is half as beautiful as 
 you look at this moment, what splintering of lances there will be 
 about her ! How jolly, to see the lads hewing at each other, 
 while our daughter sits in the pavilion, as Queen of Love 1 " 
 
 Torfrida laughed. " You think of nothing but fighting, bear 
 of the North Seas." 
 
 " Every one to his trade. Well, yes, I am glad that it is a 
 girl." 
 
140 HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 "I thought you seemed vexed. Why did you cross youi- 
 self?" 
 
 "Because I thought to myself, how unfit I was to bring up a 
 Doy to be such a knight as — as you would have him ; how 
 likely I was, ere all was over, to make him as great a ruffian as 
 myself." 
 
 " Hereward ! Hereward ! " and she threw her arms round his 
 neck for the tenth time. " Blessed be you for those words ! Those 
 are the fears which never come true, for they bring down from 
 heaven the grace of God, to guard the humble and contrite heart 
 from that which it fears." 
 
 " Ah, Torfrida, I wish I were as good as you ! " 
 
 " Now — my joy and my life, my hero and my skald — I have 
 great news for you, as well as a little baby. News from Eng- 
 land." 
 
 " You, and a baby over and above, are worth all England to 
 me." 
 
 " But listen : Edward the king is dead ! " 
 
 " Then there is one fool less on earth ; and one saint more, I 
 suppose, in heaven." 
 
 "And Harold Godwinsson is king in his stead. And he has 
 married your niece Aldytha, and sworn friendship with her broth- 
 ers." 
 
 " I expected no less. Well, every dog has his day.'' 
 
 " And his will be a short one. William of Normandy has 
 sworn to drive him out." 
 
 " Then he will do it. And so the poor little Swan-neck is 
 packed into a convent, that the houses of Godwin and Leofric 
 may rush into each other's arms, and perish together ! Fools, 
 fools, fools ! I will hear no more of such a mad world. My 
 queen, tell me about your sweet self. What is all this to me ? 
 Am -I not a wolf's head, and a landless man ? " 
 
 " my king, have not the stars told me that you will be an 
 earl and a ruler of men, when all your foes are wolves' heads as 
 you are now ? And the weird is coming true already.' Tosti 
 Godwinsson is in the town at this moment, an outlaw and a 
 wolf's head himself." 
 
 Hereward laughed a great laugh. 
 
 " Aha ! Every man to his right place at last. Tell me about 
 that, for it will amuse me. I have heard naught of him since 
 he sent the king his Hereford thralls' arms and legs in the pickle- 
 bari-els ; to show him, he said, that there was plenty of cold meat 
 on his royal demesnes." 
 
 '' You have not heard, then, how he murdered in his own 
 chamber at York, Gamel OrmsBon and Ulf Dolflnsson ? " 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 141 
 
 •' That poor little lad ? Well, a gracious youth was Tosti, ever 
 Bince he went to kill his brother Harold with teeth and claws, 
 like a wolf; and as he grows in years, he grows in grace. But 
 what said Ulf's father and the Gospatricks ? " 
 
 " Dolfin and young Gospatrick were I know not where. But 
 old Gospatrick came down to Westminster, to demand law for iiis 
 grandnephew's blood." 
 
 "A silly thing of the old Thane, to walk into the wolf's den." 
 
 " And so he found. He was stabbed there, three days after 
 Christmas-tide, and men say that Queen Edith did it, for love of 
 Tosti, her brother. Then Dolfin and young Gospatrick took to 
 the sea, and away to Scotland : and so Tosti rid himself of all 
 the good blood in the North, except young Waltheof Siwardsson, 
 whose turn, I fear, will come next." 
 
 " How comes he here, then ? " 
 
 " The Northern men rose at that, killed his servant at York, 
 took all his treasures, and marched down to Northampton, plunder- 
 ing and burning. They would have marched on London town, if 
 Harold had not met them there from the king. There they cried 
 out against Tosti, and all his taxes, and his murders, and his 
 changing Canute's laws, and would have young Morcar for their 
 earl. A tyrant they would not endure. Free they were born 
 and bred, they said, and free they would live and die. Harold 
 must needs do justice, even on his own brother." 
 
 " Especially when he knows that that brother is his worst foe." 
 
 " Harold is a better man than you take him for, my Hereward. 
 But be that as it may, Morcar is earl, and Tosti outlawed, and 
 here in St. Omer, with wife and child." 
 
 " My nephew Earl of Northumbria ! As I might have been, if 
 I had been a wiser man." 
 
 "If you had, you would never have found me." 
 
 " True, my queen ! They say Heaven tempers the wind to the 
 shorn lamb; but it tempers it too, sometimes, to the hobbled ass; 
 and so it has done by me. And so the rogues have fallen out, 
 and honest men may come by their own. For, as the Northern 
 men have done by one brother, so will the Eastern men do by the 
 other. Let Harold see how many of those fat Lincolnshire 
 manors, which he has seized into his own hands, he holds by this 
 day twelve months. But what is all this to me, my queen, while 
 you and I can kiss, and laugh the world to scorn ? " 
 
 " This to you, beloved, that, great as you are, Torfrida mus( 
 have you greater still ; and out of all this coil and confusion 
 you may win something, if you be wise." 
 " Sweet lips, be still, and let us love instead of plotting.'' 
 
142 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " And this, too — you shall not stop my mouth — that Harold 
 Godwinsson has sent a letter to you." 
 
 " Harold Godwinsson is my very good lord," sneered Hereward. 
 
 " And this it said, with such praises and courtesies concerning 
 you, as made thy wife's heart beat high with pride : ' If Here- 
 ward Leofricsson will come home to England, he shall have his 
 rights in law again, and his manors in Lincolnshire, and a thanes- 
 ship in East Anglia, and manors for his men-at-arms ; and if that 
 be not enough, he shall have an earldom, as soon as there is one 
 to give.' " 
 
 " And what says to that, Torfrida, Hereward's queen ? " 
 
 '■ You will not be angry if I answered the letter for you ? " 
 
 " If you answered it one way, — no. If another, — yes." 
 
 Torfrida trembled. Then she looked Hereward full in the face 
 with her keen clear eyes. 
 
 " Now shall I see whether I have given myself to Hereward in 
 vain, body and soul, or whether I have trained him to be my true 
 and perfect knight." 
 
 " You answered, then," said Hereward, " thus — " 
 
 " Say on," said she, turning her face away again. 
 
 " Hereward Leofricsson tells Harold Godwinsson that he is 
 his equal, and not his man ; and that he will never put his hands 
 between the hands of a son of Godwin. An Etheling born, a 
 king of the house of Cerdic, outlawed him from his right, and 
 none but an Etheling born shall give him his right again." 
 
 " I said it, I said it. Those were my very words ! " and Tor- 
 frida burst into tears, while Hereward kissed her, almost fawned 
 upon her, calling her his queen, his saga-wife, his' guardian angel. 
 
 " I was sorely tempted," sobbed she. " Sorely. To see you, 
 rich and proud, upon your own lands, an earl may be, — may be, 
 I thought at whiles, a king. But it could not be. It did not 
 stand with honor, my hero, — not with honor." 
 
 " Not with honor. Get me gay garments out of the chest, and 
 let us go in royally, and royally feast my jolly riders." 
 
 '■ Stay awhile," said she, kissing his head as she combed and 
 curled his long golden locks ; and her own raven ones, hardly 
 more beautiful, fell over them and mingled with them. " Stay 
 awhile, my pride. There is another spell in the wind, stirred up 
 by devil or witch-wife, and it comes from Tosti Godwinsson." 
 
 " Tosti, the cold-meat butcher ? What has he to say to me ? " 
 
 "This, — 'If Hereward will come with me to William of Nor- 
 mandy, and help us against Harold, the perjured, then will Wil- 
 liam do for him all that Harold would have done, and more 
 beside.' " 
 
 " And what answered Torfrida ? " 
 
HEEEWAR0, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 143 
 
 " It was not so said to me that I could answer. I had it by a 
 side-wind, through the Countess Judith." * 
 
 " And she had it from her sister, Matilda.'' 
 
 " And she, of course, from Duke William, himself." 
 
 " And what would you have answered, if you had answered, 
 pretty one?" 
 
 " Nay, I know not. I cannot be always queen. You must be 
 king sometimes." 
 
 Torfrida did not say that this latter offer had been a much 
 sorer temptation than the former. 
 
 " And has not the base-born Frenchman enough knights of 
 his own, that he needs the help of an outlaw like me ? " 
 
 " He asks for help from all the ends of the earth. He has 
 sent that Lanfranc to the Pope ; and there is talk of a sacred ban- 
 ner, and a crusade against England." 
 
 " The monks are with him, then ? " said Hereward. " That is 
 one more count in their score. But I am no monk. I have shorn 
 many a crown, but I have kept my own hair as yet, you see." 
 
 "I do see," said she, playing with his locks. " But, — but he 
 wants you. He has sent for Angevins, Poitevins, Bretons, 
 Flemings, — promising lands, rank, money, what not. Tosti is 
 recruiting for him here in Flanders now. He will soon be off to 
 the Orkneys, I suspect, or to Sweyn in Denmark, after Vik- 
 ings." 
 
 " Here ? Has Baldwin promised him men ? " 
 
 " What could the good old man do ? He could not refuse his 
 own son-in-law. This, at least, I know, that a messenger has 
 gone off to Scotland, to Gilbert of Ghent, to bring or send any 
 bold Flemings who may prefer fat England to lean Scotland." 
 
 " Lands, rank, money, eh ? So he intends that the war should 
 pay itself — out of English purses. What answer would you 
 have me make to that, wife mine ? " 
 
 " The Duke is a terrible man. What if he conquers ? And 
 conquer he will." 
 
 " Is that written in your stars ? " 
 
 " It is, I fear. And if he have the Pope's blessing, and the 
 Pope's banner — Dare we resist the Holy Father T " 
 
 " Holy step-father, you mean ; for a step-father he seems to 
 prove to merry England. But do you really believe that an old 
 man down in Italy can make a bit of rag conquer by saying a 
 few prayers at it ? If I am to believe in a magic flag, give me 
 Harold Hardraade's Landcyda, at least, with Harold and his 
 Norsemen behind it." 
 
 • Tosti's wife, Earl Baldwin's daughter, sister of Matilda, William the Con 
 jneror's wife. 
 
144 flEEEWAEi), THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 "William's French are as good as those Norsemen, man foi 
 man ; and horsed withal, Hereward." 
 
 " That may be," said he, half testily, with a curse ori the tan- 
 ner's grandson and his French popinjays, "and our Englishmen 
 are as good as any two Norsemen, as the Norse themselves say." 
 He could not divine, and Torfiida hardly liked to explain to him 
 the glamour which the Duke of Normandy had cast over her, as 
 the representative of chivalry, learning, civilization, a new and 
 nobler life for men than the world had yet seen ; one which 
 seemed to connect the young races of Europe with the wisdom 
 of the ancients and the magic glories of old Imperial Rome. 
 
 " You are not fair to that man," said she, after a while. " Here- 
 ward, Hereward, have I not told you how, though body be strong, 
 mind is stronger? That is what that man knows ; and therefore 
 he has prospered. Therefore his realms are full of wise scholars, 
 and thriving schools, and fair minsters, and his men are sober, 
 and wise, and learned like clerks — " 
 
 "And false like clerks, as he is himself. Schoolcraft and 
 honesty never went yet together, Torfrida — " 
 
 " Not in me ? " 
 
 " You are not a clerk, you are a woman, and more, you are an 
 elf, a goddess; there is none like you. But hearken to me. 
 Th's man is false. All the world knows it." 
 
 " He promises, they say, to govern England justly as King 
 Edward's heir, according to the old laws and liberties of the 
 realm." 
 
 " Of course. If he does not come as the old monk's heir, how 
 does he come at all? If he does not promise our — their, I 
 mean, for I am no Englishman — laws and liberties, who will 
 join him ? But his riders and hirelings will not fight for nothing. 
 They must be paid with English land, and English land they will 
 have, for tliey will be his men, whoever else are not. They will 
 be his darlings, his housecarles, his hawks to sit on his fist and fly 
 at his game ; and English bones will be picked clean to feed 
 them. And you would have me help to do that, Torfrida? Is 
 that the honor of which you spoke so boldly to Harold God- 
 winsson ? " 
 
 Torfrida was silent. To have brought Hereward under the 
 influence of William was an old dream of hers. And yet she 
 was proud at the dream being broken thus. And so she said : 
 " You are right. It is better for you, — it is better than to be 
 William's darling, and the greatest earl in his court, — to feel 
 that you are still an Englishman. Promise me but one thing, 
 that you will make no fierce or desperate answer to the Duke." 
 
 " And why not answer the tanner as he deserves ? " 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. MS' 
 
 ** Because my art, and my heart too, tells me that your for- 
 tunes and his are linked together. I have studied my tables, but 
 they would not answer. Then I cast lots in Virgilius — " 
 
 " And what found you there ? " asked he, anxiously 
 
 " I opened at the lines, — 
 
 " Paoem ma exanimis et Martis sorte peretnptis 
 Oiatis ? Equidem et vivis conoedere vellem." 
 
 " And what means that ? " 
 
 " That you may have to pray him to pity the slain ; and have 
 for answer, that their lands may be yours if you will but make 
 peace with him. At least, do not break hopelessly with that 
 man. Above all, never use that word concerning him which you 
 used just now ; the word which he never forgives. Remember 
 what he did to them of Alengon, when they hung raw hides over 
 the wall, and cried, ' Plenty of work for the tanner ! ' " 
 
 " Let him pick out the prisoners' eyes, and chop off their 
 hands, and shoot them into the town from mangonels, — he must 
 go far and thrive well ere I give him a chance of doing that by 
 me." ^ 
 
 " Hereward, Hereward, my own ! Boast not, but fear God. 
 Who knows, in such a world as this, to what end we may come ? 
 Night after night I am haunted with spectres, eyeless, hand- 
 less—" 
 
 '* This is cold comfort for a man just out of hard fighting in 
 the ague-fens ! " 
 
 She threw her arms round him, and held him as if she would 
 never let him go. 
 
 " When you die, I die. And you will not die : you will be 
 great and glorious, and your name will be sung by skald and min- 
 strel through many a land, far and wide. Only be not rash. 
 Be not high-minded. Promise me to answer this man wisely. 
 The more crafty he is, the more crafty must you be likewise." 
 
 " Let us tell this mighty hero, then," said Hereward, — trying 
 to laugh away her fears, and perhaps his own, — " that while he 
 has the Holy Father on his side, he can need no help from a poor 
 sinful worm like me." 
 
 " Hereward, Hereward ! " 
 
 " Why, is there aught about hides in that ? " 
 
 " I want, — I want an answer which may not cut off all hope 
 in case of the worst." 
 
 " Then let us say boldly, ' On the day that William is King of 
 all England, Hereward will come and put his hands between his, 
 and be his man.' " 
 
 That message was sent to William at Rouen. He laughed — ■ 
 7 J 
 
146 HEBEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " It is a fair challenge from a valiant man. The day shall 
 come when I will claim it." 
 
 Tosti and Hereward passed that winter in St. Omer, living in 
 the same street, passing each other day by day, and never spoke 
 a word one to the other. 
 
 Kobert the Frison heard of it, and tried to persuade Hereward, 
 
 " Let him purge himself of the murder of Ulf, the boy, son of 
 my friend Dolfin ; and after that, of Gamel, son of Orra ; and 
 after that, again, of Gospatrick, my father's friend, whom his sister 
 slew for his sake ; and then an honest man may talk with him. 
 Were he not my good lord's brother-in-law, as he is, more 's the 
 pity, I would challenge him to fight a Voutrance, with any weap- 
 ons he might choose." •■ 
 
 " Heaven protect him in that case," quoth Robert the Frison. 
 
 " As it is, I will keep the peace. And I will see that my men 
 keep the peace, though there are Scarborough and Bamborough 
 lads among them, who long to cut his throat upon the streets. 
 But more I will not do." 
 
 So Tosti sulked through the winter at St. Omer, and then 
 went off to get help from Sweyn, of Denmark, and failing that, 
 from Harold Hardraade of Norway. But how he sped there 
 must be read in the words of a cunninger saga-man than this 
 chronicler, even in those of the "Icelandic Homer," Snorro 
 Sturleson. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HOW HEREWAED WAS ASKED TO SLAY AN OLD COMRADE. 
 
 In those days Hereward went into Bruges, to Marquis Bald- 
 win, about his business. And as he walked in Bruges street, he 
 met an old friend, Gilbert of Ghent. 
 
 He had grown somewhat stouter, and somewhat grayer, in the 
 last ten years : but he was as hearty as ever ; and as honest, ac- 
 cording to his own notions of honesty. 
 
 He shook Hereward by both hands, clapt him on the back, 
 swore with many oaths, that he had heard of his fame in all lands, 
 that he always said that he would turn out a champion and a 
 gallant knight, and had said it long before he killed the bear. 
 As for killing it, it was no more than he expected, and nothing to 
 what Hereward had done since, and would do yet. 
 
 Wherefrom Hereward opined that Gilbert had need of him. 
 
 They chatted on : Hereward asking after old friends, and 
 sometimes after old foes, whom he had long since forgiven ; for 
 though he always avenged an injury, he never bore malice for 
 one ; a distinction less common now than then, when a man's 
 honor, as well as his safety, depended on his striking again, when 
 he was struck. 
 
 " And how is little Alftruda ? Big she must be now ? " asked 
 he at last. 
 
 " The fiend fly away with her, — or rather, would that he had 
 flown away with her, before ever I saw the troublesome little 
 jade. Big ? She is grown into the most beautiful lass that ever 
 was seen, — which is, what a young fellow like you cares for; 
 and more trouble to me than all my money, which is what an old 
 fellow like me cares for. It is partly about her that I am over 
 here now. Fool that I was, ever to let an Etheliza* into my 
 house " ; and Gilbert swore a great deal. 
 
 " How was she an Etheliza ? " asked Hei-eward, who cared 
 nothing about the matter. "And how came she into your 
 house ? I never could understand that, any more than how the 
 bear came there." 
 
 * A princess of the royal blood of Cerdio, and therefore of Edward the Con- 
 fessor. 
 
148 HEKEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Ah ! As to the bear, I have my secrets, which I tell no 
 one. He is dead and buried, thanks to you.'' 
 
 " And I sleep on his skin every night." 
 
 " You do, my little Champion ? Well, warm is the bed that 
 is well earned. But as for her ; — see here, and I '11 tell you. 
 She was Gospatrick's ward, and kinswoman, — how, I do not 
 rightly know. But this I know, that she comes from Uchtred, 
 the earl whom Canute slew, and that she is heir to great estates 
 in Northumberland. 
 
 " Gospatrick, that fought at Dunsinane ? " 
 
 " Yes, not the old Thane, his uncle, whom Tosti has mur- 
 dered ; but Gospatrick, King Malcolm's cousin, Dolfin's father. 
 Well, she was his ward. He gave me her to keep, for he 
 wanted her out of harm's way — the lass having a bonny dower, 
 lands and money — till he could marry her up to one of his sons. 
 I took her ; of course I was not going to do other men's work for 
 naught ; so I would have married her up to my poor boy, if he 
 had but lived. But he would not live, as you know. Then I 
 would have married her to you, and made you my heir, I tell 
 you honestly, if you had not flown off, like a hot-headed young 
 springald, as you were then." 
 
 " You were very kind. But how is she an Etheliza ? " 
 
 " Etheliza ? Twice over. Her father was of high blood 
 among those Saxons ; and if not, are not all the Gospatricks Eth- 
 elings ? Their grandmother, Uchtred's wife, was Etheh-ed, Evil- 
 Counsel's daughter. King Edward of London's sister ; and I have 
 heard that this girl's grandfather was their son, — but died young, 
 — or was killed with his father. Who cares ? " 
 
 " Not r," quoth Hereward. 
 
 "Well — he wants to marry her to Dolfin, his eldest son." 
 
 " Why, Dolfin had a wife when I waa at Dunsinane." 
 
 " But she is dead since, and young Ulf, her son, murdered by 
 Tosti last winter." 
 
 " I know." 
 
 " Whereon Gospatrick sends, to me for the girl and her dowry. 
 What was I to do ? Give her up ? Little it is, lad, that I ever 
 gave up, after I had it once in my grip, or I should be a poorer 
 man than I am now. Have and hold, is my rule. What should 
 I do? What I did. I was coming hither on business of my own, 
 so I put her on board ship, and half her dower, — where the 
 other half is, I know ; and man must draw me with wild horses, 
 before he finds out ; — and came here to my kinsman, Baldwin, to 
 see if he had any proper young fellow to whom we might marry 
 the lass, and so go shares in her money and the family connection. 
 Could a man do more wisely ? " 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 149 
 
 " Impossible," quoth Hereward. 
 
 " But see how a wise man is lost by fortune. When I come 
 here, whom should I find but Dolfin himself? The dog had scent 
 of my plan, all the way from Dolfinston there, by Peebles. He 
 hunts me out, the hungry Scotch wolf; rides for Leith, takes ship, 
 and is here to meet me, having accused me before Baldwin as a 
 robber and ravisher, and offers to prove his right to the jade on 
 my body in single combat." 
 
 " The villain ! " quoth Hereward. " There is no modesty left 
 on earth, nor prudence either. To come here, where he might 
 have stumbled on Tosti, who murdered his son, and I would 
 surely do the like by him, himself. Lucky for him that Tosti is 
 off to Norway on his own errand." 
 
 " Modesty and prudence ? None now-a-days, young sire ; nor 
 justice either, I think ; for when Baldwin hears us both — and I 
 told my story as cannily as I could — he tells me that he is very 
 sorry for an old vassal and kinsman, and so forth, — but I must 
 either disgorge or fight." 
 
 " Then fight," quoth Hereward. 
 
 " ' Per se aut per campioneem,' — that 's the old law, you 
 know." 
 
 " Not a doubt of it." 
 
 " Look you, Hereward. I am no coward, nor a clumsy man 
 of my hands." 
 
 " He is either fool or liar who says so." 
 
 " But see. I find it hard work to hold my own in Scotland now. 
 Folks don't like me, or trust me ; I can't say why." 
 
 " How unreasonable ! " quoth Hereward. 
 
 " And if I kill this youth, and so have a blood-feud with Gos- 
 patrick, I have a hornet's nest about my ears. Not only he and 
 his sons, — who are masters of Scotch Northumberland,* — but 
 all his cousins ; King Malcolm, and Donaldbain, and, for aught I 
 know, Harold and the Godwinssons, if he bid them take up the 
 quarrel. And beside, that Dolfin is a big man. If you cross 
 Scot and Saxon, you breed a very big man. If you cross again 
 with a Dane or a Norseman, you breed a giant. His grandfather 
 was a Scots prince, his grandmother an English Etheliza, his 
 mother a Norse princess, as you know, — and how big he is, you 
 should remember. He weighs half as much again as I, and twice 
 as much as you." 
 
 " Butchers count by weight, and knights by courage," quoth 
 Hereward. 
 
 " Very weU for you, who are young and active ; but I fake 
 
 * Between Tweed and Forth. 
 
150 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 him to be a better man than that ogre of Cornwall, whom they 
 say you killed." 
 
 " "What care I ? Let him be twice as good, I 'd try him." 
 
 " Ah ! I knew you were the old Hereward still. Now hearken 
 to me. Be my champion. You owe me a service, lad. Fight 
 that man, challenge him in open field. Kill him, as you are sure 
 to do. Claim the lass, and win her, — and then we will part her 
 dower. And (though it is little that I care for young lasses' 
 fancies), to tell you truth, she never favored any man but you. 
 
 Hereward started at the snare which had been laid for him ; 
 and then fell into a very great laughter. 
 
 " My most dear and generous host : you are the wiser, the 
 older you grow. A plan worthy of Solomon ! You are rid of 
 Sieur Dolfin without any blame to yourself." 
 
 " Just so." 
 
 " While I win the lass, and, living here in. Flanders, am toler- 
 ably safe from any blood-feud of the Gospatricks." 
 
 " Just so." 
 
 " Perfect : but there is only one small hinderance to the plan ; 
 and that is — that I am married already." 
 
 Gilbert stopped short, and swore a great oath. 
 
 ".But," he said, after a while, " does that matter so much 
 after all?" 
 
 " Very little, indeed, as all the world knows, if one has money 
 enough, and power enough." 
 
 " And you have both," they say. 
 
 " But, still more unhappily, my money is my wife's." 
 
 " Peste ! " 
 
 " And more unhappily still, I am so foolishly fond of her, that 
 I would sooner have her in her smock, than any other woman 
 with half England for a dower." 
 
 " Then I suppose I must look out for another champion." 
 
 " Or save yourself the trouble, by being — just as a change — 
 an honest man." 
 
 " I believe you are right," said Gilbert, laughing ; " but it is 
 hard to begin so late in lite." 
 
 " And after one has had so little practice.'' 
 
 " Aha ! Thou art the same merry dog of a Hereward. 
 Come along. But could we not poison this Dolfin, after all?" 
 
 To which proposal Hereward gave no encouragement. 
 
 " And now, my tres beau sire, may I ask you, in return, what 
 business brings you to Flanders ? " 
 
 " Have I not told you ? " 
 
 " No, but I have guessed. Gilbert of Ghent is on his way to 
 William of Normandy." 
 
HEKp;WAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 151 
 
 "Well. "Why not?" 
 
 " Why not ? — certainly. And has brought out of Scotland a 
 few gallant gentlemen, and stout housecarles of my acquaintance." 
 
 Gilbert laughed. 
 
 " You may well say that. To tell you the truth, we have 
 flitted, bag and baggage. I don't believe that we have left a 
 dog behind." 
 
 " So you intend to ' colonize ' in England, as the learned clerks 
 would call it ? To settle ; to own land ; and enter, like the Jews 
 of old, into goodly houses which you builded not, farms which 
 you tilled not, wells which you digged not, and orchards which 
 you planted not ? " 
 
 " Why, what a clerk you are ! That sounds like Scripture." 
 
 ■' And so it is. I heard it in a French priest's sermon, which 
 he preached here in St. Oraer a Sunday or two back, exhorting 
 all good Catholics, in the Pope's name, to enter upon the barba- 
 rous land of England, tainted with the sin of Simon Magus, and 
 expel thence the heretical priests, and so forth, promising them 
 that they should have free leave to cut long thongs out of other 
 men's hides." 
 
 Gilbert chuckled. 
 
 " You laugh. The priest did not ; for after sermon I went up 
 to him, and told him how I was an Englishman, and an outlaw, ' 
 and a desperate man, who feared neither saint nor devil ; and if 
 I heard such talk as that again in St. Omer, I would so shave 
 the speaker's crown that he should never need razor to his dying 
 day." 
 
 " And what is that to me ? " said Gilbert, in an uneasy, half- 
 defiant tone ; for Hereward's tone had been more than half- 
 defiant. 
 
 " This. That there are certain broad lands in England, which 
 were my father's, and are now my nephews' and my mother's, 
 and some which should by right be mine. And I advise you, as 
 a friend, not to make entry on those lands, lest Hereward in turn 
 make entry on you. And who is he that will deliver you out of 
 my hand?" 
 
 " God and his Saints alone, thou fiend out of the pit ! " quoth 
 Gilbert, laughing. But he was growing warm, and began to 
 tutoyer Hereward. 
 
 " I am in earnest, Gilbert of Ghent, my good friend of old 
 time." 
 
 "I know thee well enough, man. Why in the name of all 
 glory and plunder art thou not coming with us ? They say Wil- 
 liam has offered thee the earldom of Northumberland." 
 
 " He has not. And if he has, it is not his to give. And if it 
 
152 HEREWAED, THE LA&T OP THE ENGLISH. 
 
 were, it is by right neither mine nor my nephews', but Waltlieof 
 Siwardsson's. Now heaiken unto me ; and settle it in your mind, 
 thou and William both, that your quarrel is against none but 
 Harold and the Godwinssons, and their men of Wessex; but 
 that if you go to cross the Watling street, and meddle with the 
 free Danes, who are none of Harold's men — " 
 
 " Stay. Harold has large manors in Lincolnshire, and so has 
 Edith his sister ; and what of them, Sir Hereward ? " 
 
 " That the man who touches tliem, even though the men on 
 them may fight on Harold's side, had better have put his head 
 into a hornet's nest. Unjustly were they seized from their true 
 owners by Harold and his fathers ; and the holders of them will 
 owe no service to him a day longer than they can help ; but will, 
 if he fall, demand an earl of their own race, or fight to the death." 
 
 " Best make young Waltheof earl, then." 
 
 " Best keep thy foot out of them, and the foot of any man for 
 whom thou carest. Now, good by. Friends we are, and friends 
 let us be." 
 
 " Ah, that thou wert coming to England ! " 
 
 " I bide my time. Come I may, when I see fit. But whether 
 I come as friend or foe depends on that of which I have given 
 thee fair warning." 
 
 So they parted for the time. 
 
 It will be seen hereafter how Gilbert took his own advice about 
 young Waltheof, but did not take Hereward's advice about the 
 Lincoln manors. 
 
 In Baldwin's hall that day Hereward met Dolfin ; and when the 
 magnificent young Scot sprang to him, embraced him, talked over 
 old passages, complimented him on his fame, lamented that he 
 himself had won no such honors in the field, Hereward felt much 
 more inclined to fight for him than against hini. 
 
 Presently the ladies entered from the bower inside the hall. 
 A buzz of expectation rose from all the knights, and Alftruda's 
 name was whispered round. 
 
 She came in, and Hereward saw at the first glance that Gilbert 
 had for once in his life spoken truth. So beautiful a girl he had 
 never beheld; and as she swept down toward him he for one 
 moment forgot Torfrida, and stood spell-bound like the rest. 
 
 Her eye caught his. If his face showed recognition, hers 
 showed none. The remembrance of their early friendship, of 
 her deliverance from the monster, had plainly passed away. 
 
 " Fickle, ungrateful things, these women," thought Hereward. 
 
 She passed him close. And as she did so, she turned her head 
 and looked him full in the face one moment, haughty and cold. 
 
 " So you could not wait for me ? " said she, in a quiet whisper, 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 153 
 
 and went on straight to Dolfin, who stood trembling with ex- 
 pectation and deh'ght. 
 
 She put her hand into his. 
 
 " Here stands my champion," said she. 
 
 " Say, here kneels your slave," cried the Scot, dropping to the 
 pavement a true Highland knee. Whereon forth shrieked a 
 bagpipe, and Dolfin's minstrel sang, in most melodious Gaelic, — 
 
 " Strong as a horse's hock, shaggy as a stag's brisket, 
 Is the knee of the young torreut-Ieaper, the pride of the house of Crinan. 
 It bent not to Macbeth the accursed, it bends not even to Malcolm the 
 
 Anointed, 
 But it bends like a harebell — who shall blame it? — before the breath of 
 
 beauty." 
 
 Which magnificent effusion being interpreted by Hereward for 
 the instruction of the ladies, procured for the red-headed bard 
 more than one handsome gift. 
 
 A sturdy voice arose out of the crowd. 
 
 " The fair lady, my Lord Count, and knights all, will need no 
 champion as far as I am concerned. When one sees so fair a 
 pair together, what can a knight say, in the name of all knight- 
 hood, but that the heavens have made them for each other, and 
 that it were sin and shame to sunder them ? " 
 
 The voice was that of Gilbert of Ghent, who, making a virtue 
 of necessity, walked up to the pair, his weather-beaten counte- 
 nance wreathed into what were meant for paternal smiles. 
 
 " Why did you not say as much in Scotland, and save me all 
 this trouble ? " pertinently asked the plain-spoken Scot. 
 
 " My Lord Prince, you owe me a debt for my caution. With- 
 out it, the poor lady had never known the whole fervency of 
 your love ; or these noble knights and yourself the whole even- 
 ness of Count Baldwin's justice." 
 
 Alftruda turned her head away half contemptuously ; and as 
 she did so, she let her hand drop listlessly from Dolfin's grasp, 
 and drew back to the other ladies. 
 
 A suspicion cros.-'ed Hereward's mind. Did she really love 
 the Prince? Did those strange, words of hers mean that she 
 had not yet forgotten Hereward himself ? 
 
 However, he said to himself that it was no concern of his, 
 as if certainly was not : went home to Torfrida, told her every- 
 thing that had happened, laughed over it with her, and then 
 forgot Alftruda, Dolfin, and Gilbert, in the prospect of a great 
 campaign in Holland. 
 
 7* 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HOW HEEEWAED TOOK THE NEWS FROM STANFORD BRIGG 
 AND HASTINGS. 
 
 After that, news came thick and fast. 
 
 News of all the fowl of heaven flocking to the feast of the 
 great God, that they might eat the flesh of kings, and captains, 
 and mighty men, and horses, and them that sit on them, and the 
 flesh of all men, both bond and free. 
 
 News from Rome, how England, when conquered, was to be 
 held as a fief of St. Peter, and spiritually, as well as temporarily, 
 enslaved. News how the Gonfanon of St. Peter, and a ring with 
 a bit of St. Peter himself enclosed therein, had come to Rouen, to 
 go before the Norman host, as the Ark went before that of Israel. 
 
 Then news from the North. How Tosti had been to Sweyn, 
 and bid him come back and win the country again, as Canute 
 his uncle had done ; and how the cautious Dane had answered 
 that he was a much smaller man than Canute, and had enough 
 to hold his own against the Norsemen, and could not afford to 
 throw for such high stakes as his mighty uncle. 
 
 Then how Tosti had been to Norway, to Harold Hardraade, 
 and asked him why he had been fighting fifteen years for Den- 
 mark, when England lay open to him. And how Harold of 
 Norway had agreed to come ; and how he had levied one half 
 of the able-bodied men in Norway; and how he was gathering 
 a mighty fleet at Solundir, in the mouth of the Sogne Fiord. 
 Of all this Hereward was well informed.; for Tosti came back 
 again to St. Omer, and talked big. But Hereward and he had 
 no dealings with each other. But at last, when Tosti tried to 
 entice some of Hereward's men to sail with him, Hereward sent 
 him word that if he met him, he would kill him in the streets. 
 
 Then Tosti, who (though he wanted not for courage) knew 
 that he was no match for Hereward, went off to Bruges, leaving 
 his wife and family behind, gathered sixty ships at Ostend, went 
 off to the Isle of Wight, and forced the landsfolk to give him 
 money and food. And then Harold of England's fleet, which 
 was watching the coast against the Normans, drove him away; 
 and he sailed off north, full of black rage against his brother 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 155 
 
 Harold and all Englishmen, and burned, plundered, and mur- 
 dered, along the coast of Lincolnshire, out of brute spite to the 
 Danes who had expelled him. 
 
 Then came news how he had got into the Humber ; how Earl 
 Edwin and his Northumbrians had driven him out ; and how he 
 went off to Scotland to meet Harold of Norway ; and how he 
 had put his hands between Harold's, and become his man. 
 
 And all the while the Norman camp at St. Pierre-sur-Dive 
 grew and grew; and all was ready, if the wind would but 
 change. 
 
 And so Hereward looked on, helpless, and saw these two great 
 storm-clouds growing, — one from north, and one from south,— 
 to burst upon his native land. 
 
 Two invasions at the same moment of time ; and these no 
 mere Viking raids for plunder, but deliberate attempts at con- 
 quest and colonization, by the two most famous captains of the 
 age. What if both succeeded ? "What if the two storm-clouds 
 swept across England, each on its own path, and met in the midst, 
 to hurl their lightnings into each other ? , A fight between Wil- 
 liam of Normandy and Harold of Norway, on some moorland 
 in Mercia, — it would be a battle of giants; a sight at which 
 Odin and the Gods of Valhalla would rise from their seats, and 
 throw away the mead-horn, to stare down on the deeds' of heroes 
 scarcely less mighty than themselves. Would that neither might 
 win ! Would that they would destroy and devour, till there was 
 none left of Frenchmen or of Norwegians ! 
 
 So sung Hereward, after his heathen fashion ; and his house- 
 carles applauded the song. But Torfrida shuddered. 
 
 " And what will become of the poor English in the mean time?" 
 
 " They have brought it on themselves," said Hereward, bitterly. 
 " Instead of giving the crown to the man who should have had it, 
 — to Sweyn of Denmark, — they let Godwin put it on the head 
 of a drivelling monk ; and as they sowed, so will they reap." 
 
 But Hereward's own soul was black within him. To see these 
 mighty events passing as it were within reach of his hand, and 
 he unable to take his share in them, — for what share could he 
 take? That of Tosti Godwinsson against his own nephews? 
 That of Harold Godwinsson, the usurper? That of the tanner's 
 grandson against any man ? Ah that he had been in England f 
 Ah that he had been where he might have been, — where he 
 ought to have been but for his own folly, — high in power in hi.s 
 native land, — perhaps a great earl; perhaps commander of all 
 the armies of the Danelagh. And bitterly he cursed his youth- 
 ful sins as he rode to and fro almost daily to the port of Calais, 
 asking for news, and getting often only too much. 
 
156 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 For now came news that the Norsemen had landed in Humber ; 
 that Edwin and Morcar were beaten at York ; that Hardraade 
 and Tosti were masters of the North. 
 
 And with that, news that, by the virtue of the relics of St. Va- 
 leri, which had been brought out of their shrine to frighten the 
 demons of the storm, and by the intercession of the blessed St. 
 Michael, patron of Normandy, the winds had changed, and "Wil- 
 liam's whole armament had crossed the Channel, landed upon 
 an undefended shore, and fortified themselves at Pevensey and 
 Hastings. 
 
 And then followed a fortnight of silence and torturing sus- 
 pense. 
 
 Here ward could hardly eat, drink, sleep, or speak. He answered 
 Torfrida's consolations curtly and angrily, till she betook herself 
 to silent caresses, as to a sick animal. But she loved him all the 
 better for his suUenness ; for it showed that his English heart was 
 wakening again, sound and strong. 
 
 At last news came. He was down, as usual, at the port. A 
 ship had just come in from the northward. A man just landed 
 stood on the beach gesticulating, and calling in an unknown tongue 
 to the bystanders, who laughed at him, and seemed inclined to 
 misuse him. 
 
 Hereward galloped down the beach. 
 
 " Out of the way, villains ! Why man, you are a Norseman ! " 
 
 " Norseman am I, Earl, Thord Gunlaugsson is my name, and 
 news I bring for the Countess Judith (as the French call her) 
 that shall turn her golden hair to snow, — yea, and all fair lasses' 
 .hair from Lindesness to Loffoden ! " 
 
 " Is the Earl dead ? " 
 
 " And Harold Sigurdsson ! " 
 
 Hereward sat silent, appalled. For Tosti he cared not. But 
 Harold Sigurdsson, Harold Hardraade, Harold the Viking, Harold 
 the Varanger, Harold the Lionslayer, Harold of Constantinople, 
 the bravest among champions, the wisest among kings, the cunning- 
 est among minstrels, the darling of the Vikings of the north ; the 
 one man whom Hereward had taken for his pattern and his ideal, 
 the one man under whose banner he would have been proud 
 to fight — the earth seemed empty, if Harold Hardraade were 
 gone. 
 
 " Thord Gunlaugsson," cried he, at last, " or whatever be thy 
 name, if thou hast lied to me, I will draw thee with wild horses." 
 
 " Would God that I did lie ! I saw him fall with an arrow 
 through his throat. Then Jarl Tosti took the Land-ravager and 
 held it up till he died. Then Eystein Orre took it, coming up 
 hot from the ships. And then lie died likewise. Then they all. 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 157' 
 
 died. We would take no quarter. "We threw off our mail, and 
 fought baresark, till all were dead together." * 
 
 " How earnest thou, then, hither ? " 
 
 '' Styrkar the marshal escaped in the night, and I with him, 
 and a few more. And Styrkar bade me bring the news to Flan- 
 ders, to the Countess, while he took it to Olaf Haroldsson, who 
 lay off in the ships." 
 
 " And thou shalt take it. Martin ! get this man a horse. A 
 horse, ye villains, and a good one, on your lives ! " 
 
 " And Tosti is dead ? " 
 
 '■ Dead like a hero. Harold offered him quarter, — offered him 
 his earldom, they say : even in the midst of battle : but he would 
 not take it. He said he was the Sigurdsson's man now, and true 
 man he would be ! " 
 
 " Harold offered him — what art babbling about ? Who fought 
 you ? " 
 
 " Harold Godwinsson, the king.'' 
 
 « Where ? " 
 
 " At Stanford Brigg, by York Town." 
 
 " Harold Godwinsson slew Harold Sigurdsson ? After this 
 wolves may eat lions ! " 
 
 " The Godwinsson is a gallant fighter, and a wise general, or I 
 had not been here now." 
 
 " Get on thy horse, man ! " said he, scornfully and impatiently, 
 " and gallop, if thou canst." 
 
 " I have ridden many a mile in Ireland, Earl, and have not 
 forgotten my seat." 
 
 " Thou hast, hast thou ? " said Martin ; " thou art Thord Gun- 
 laugsson of Waterford." 
 
 " That am I. How knowest thou me, man ? " 
 
 " I am of Waterford. Thou hadst a slave lass once, I think ; 
 Mew : they called her Mew, her skin it was so white." 
 
 " What 's that to thee ? " asked Thord, turning on him sav- 
 agely. 
 
 " Why, I meant no harm. I saw her at Waterford when I 
 was a boy, and thought her a fair lass enough, that is all." 
 
 And Martin dropped into the rear. By this time they were at 
 the gates of St. Omer. 
 
 As they rode side by side, Hereward got more details of the 
 fight. 
 
 " I knew it would fall out so. I foretold it ! " said Thord. " I 
 had a dream. I saw us come to English land, and fight ; and I 
 saw the banners floating. And before the English army was a 
 
 • For the details of this battle, see Skorro Stnrleson, or the admirable descrip- 
 tion in Bulwer's " Harold." 
 
158 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 great witchwife, and rode upon a wolf, and he had a corpse in his 
 bloody jaws. And when he had eaten one up, she threw him 
 another, till he had swallowed all." 
 
 " Did she throw him thine ? " asked Martin, who ran holding 
 by the stirrup. 
 
 " That did she, and eaten I saw myself. Yet here I am 
 aUve." 
 
 " Then thy dreams were naught." 
 
 " I do not know that. The wolf may have me yet." 
 
 " I fear thou art fey." * 
 
 " What the devil is it to thee if I be ? " 
 
 " Naught. But be eomtbrted. I am a necromancer ; and this 
 I know by my art, that the weapon that will slay thee was never 
 forged in Flanders here." 
 
 " There was another man had a dream," said Thord, turning 
 from Martin angrily. " He was standing in the king's ship, and 
 he saw a great witchwife with a fork and a trough stand on the 
 island. And he saw a fowl on every ship's stem, a raven, or else 
 an eagle, and he heard the witchwife sing an evil song." 
 
 By this time they were in St. Omer. 
 
 Hereward rode straight to the Countess Judith's house. He 
 never had entered it yet, and was likely to be attacked if he en- 
 tered it now. But when the door was opened, he thrust in with 
 so earnest and sad a face that the servants let him pass, but not 
 without growling and motions' as of getting their weapons. 
 
 " I come in peace, my men, I come in peace : this is no time 
 for brawls. Where is the steward, or one of the Countess's la- 
 dies ? Tell her, madam, that Hereward waits her commands, 
 and entreats her, in the name of St. Mary and all Saints, to 
 vouchsafe him one word in private." 
 
 The lady hurried into the bower. The next moment Judith 
 hurried out into the hall, her fair face blanched, her fair eyes 
 wide with terror. 
 
 Hereward fell on his knee. 
 
 " What is this ? It must be bad news if you bring it." 
 
 " Madam, the grave covers all feuds. Earl Tosti was a very 
 valiant hero ; and would to God that we had been friends 1 " 
 
 She did not hear the end of the sentence, but fell back with a 
 shriek into the women's arms. 
 
 Hereward told them all that they needed to know of that frat- 
 ricidal strife ; and then to Thord Gunlaugsson, — 
 
 " Have you any token that this is true ? Mind what I warned 
 you, if you lied ! " 
 
 " This have I, Earl and ladies," and he drew from his bosom a 
 
 • Prophesying his own death. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 159 
 
 reliquary, " Ulf the marshal took this oflf his neck, and bade me 
 give it to none but his lady. Therefore, with your pardon, Sir 
 Earl, I did not tell you that I had it, not knowing whether you 
 were an honest man." 
 
 " Thou hast done well, and an honest man thou shalt find me. 
 Come home, and I will feed thee at my own table ; for I have 
 been a sea-rover and a Viking myself." 
 
 They left the reliquary with the ladies, and went. 
 
 " See to this good man, Martin." 
 
 " That will I, as the apple of my eye.'' 
 
 And Hereward went into Torfrida's room. 
 
 " I have news, news ! " 
 
 " So have I." 
 
 " Harold Hardraade is slain, and Tosti too ! " 
 
 "Where? how?" 
 
 " Harold Godwinsson slew them by York.'' 
 
 " Brother has slain brother ? O God that died on cross ! " 
 murmured Torfrida, " when will men look to thee, and have 
 mercy on their own souls ? But, Hereward, I have news, — 
 news more terrible by far. It came an hour ago. I have been 
 dreading your coming back." 
 
 " Say on. If Harold Hardraade is dead, no worse can happen." 
 
 " But Harold Godwinsson is dead ! " 
 
 " Dead ! Who next ? William of Normandy ? The world 
 seems coming to an end, as the monks say it wiU soon." * 
 
 " A great battle has been fought at a place they call Heath- 
 field." 
 
 " Close by Hastings ? Close to the landing-place ? Harold 
 must have flown thither back from York. What a captain the 
 man is, after all." 
 
 " Was. He is dead, and all the Godwinssons, and England 
 lost." 
 
 If Torfrida had feared the effect of her news, her heart was. 
 lightened at once as Hereward answered haughtily, — 
 
 " England lost ? Sussex is not England, nor Wessex either, 
 any more than Harold was king thereof. England lost ? Let 
 the tanner try to cross the Watling street, and he will find out 
 that he has another stamp of Englishmen to deal with." 
 
 "Hereward, Hereward, do not be unjust to the dead. Men 
 gay — the Normans say — that they fought like heroes." 
 
 " I never doubted that ; but it makes me mad — as it does all 
 Eastern and Northern men — to hear these Wessex churls and 
 Godwinssons calling themselves all England.'/ 
 
 • There was a general rumor abroad that the end of the world was at hand, 
 that the "one thousand years" of prophecy had expired. 
 
160 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Torfrida shook her head. To her, as to most foreigner, Wes- 
 sex and the southeast counties were England ; the most civilized; 
 the most Norman ; the seat of royalty ; having all the prestige of 
 law, and order, and wealth. And she was shrewd enough to see, 
 that as it was the part of England which had most sympathy with 
 Norman civilization, it was the very part where the Norman could 
 most easily gain and keep his hold. The event proved that Tor- 
 frida was right : but all she said was, " It is dangerously near to 
 France, at least." 
 
 " It is that. I would sooner see 100,000 French north of the 
 Humber, than 10,000 in Kent and Sussex, where he can hurry 
 over supplies and men every week. It is the starting-point for 
 him, if he means to conquer England piecemeal." 
 
 " And he does." 
 
 " And he shall not ! " and Hereward started up, and walked to 
 and fro. " If all tlie Godwinssons be dead, there are Leofricssons 
 left, I trust, and Siward's kin, and the Gospatricks in Northum- 
 bria. Ah ? Where were my nephews in the battle ? Not killed 
 too, I trust ? " 
 
 " Tliey were not in the battle." 
 
 " Not with their new brother-in-law ? Much he has gained by 
 throwing away the Swan-neck, like a base hound as he was, and 
 marrying my pretty niece. But where were they ? " 
 
 " No man knows clearly. They followed him down as far as 
 London, and then lingered about the city, meaning no man can 
 tell what : but we shall hear — and I fear hear too much — before 
 a week is over." 
 
 " Heavens ! this is madness, indeed. This is the way to be 
 eaten up one by one ! Neither to do the thing, nor leave it alone. 
 If I had been there I If I had been there — " 
 
 " You would have saved England, my hero ! " and Torfrida 
 believed her own words. 
 
 " I don't say that. Besides, I say that England is not lost 
 But tliere were but two things to do : either to have sent to Wil- 
 liam at once, and offered him the crown, if he would but guarantee 
 the Danish laws and liberties to all north of the Watling street ; 
 and if he would, fall on the Godwinssons themselves, by fair 
 means or foul, and send their heads to William." 
 
 " Or what ? " 
 
 " Or have marched down after him, with every man they could 
 muster, and thrown themselves on the Frenchman's flank in the 
 ,attle ; or between him and the sea, cutting him off from France ; 
 or — O that I had but been there, what things could I have 
 done! And now these two wretched boys have fooled away 
 their only chance — " 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 161 
 
 •* Some say that they hoped for the crown themselves. 
 
 " Which ? — not both ? Vain babies ! " And Hereward laughed 
 bitterly. " I suppose one will murder the other next, in order to 
 make himself the stronger by being the sole rival to the tanner. 
 The midden cock, sole rival to the eagle ! Boy "Waltheof will 
 set up his claim next, I presume, as Siward's son ; and then Gos- 
 patrick, as Ethelred Evil-Counsel's great-grandson ; and so forth, 
 and so forth, till they all eat each other up, and the tanner's grand- 
 son eats the last. What care I ? Tell me about the battle, my 
 lady, if you know aught. That is more to my way than their 
 statecraft." 
 
 And Torfrida told him all she knew of the great fight on Heath- 
 field Down — which men call Senlac — and the Battle of Has- 
 tings. And as she told it in her wild, eloquent fashion, Hereward's 
 face reddened, and his eyes kindled. And when she told of the 
 last struggle round the Dragon * standard ; of Harold's mighty 
 figure in the front of all, hewing with his great double-headed 
 axe, and then rolling in gore and agony, an arrow in his eye ; of 
 the last rally of the men of Kent ; of Gurth, the last defender 
 of the standard, falling by William's sword, the standard hurled 
 to the ground, and the Popish Gonfanon planted in its place, — 
 then Hereward's eyes, for the first and last time for many a year, 
 were flushed with noble tears ; and springing up he cried : " Honor 
 to the Godwinssons ! Honor to the Southern men ! Honor to 
 all true English hearts ! Why was I not there to go with them 
 to Valhalla?" 
 
 Torfrida caught him round the neck. " Because you are here, 
 my hero, to free your country from her tyrants, and win yourself 
 immortal fame." 
 
 " Fool that I am, I verily believe I am crying.'' 
 
 " Those tears," said she, as she kissed them away, " are more 
 precious to Torfrida than the spoils of a hundred fights, for they 
 tell me that Hereward still loves his country, still honors virtue, 
 even in a foe." 
 
 And thus Torfrida — whether from woman's sentiment of pity, 
 or from a woman's instinctive abhorrence of villany and wrong, 
 — had become there and then an Englishwoman of the English, 
 as she proved by strange deeds and sufferings for many a year. 
 
 » I have dared to differ from the excellent authorities who say that the stand- 
 ard was that of " A Fighting Man " j becaus9the Bayeux Tapestry represents 
 the last struggle as in front of a Dragon standard, which must be — as is to be 
 expected — the old standard of Wessex, the standard of English Royalty. That 
 Harold had also a " Fighting IMan " standard, and that it was sent by William 
 ,, to the Pope, there is no reason to doubt. But if the Bayeux Tapestry be ooi-- 
 rect, the fury of the fight for,the standard would be explained. It would be a 
 fight for the very symbol of King Edward's dynasty. 
 
 K 
 
162 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 "Where is that Norseman, Martin?" asked Hereward that 
 night ere he went to bed. " I want to hear more of poor Har- 
 draade." 
 
 " You can't speak to him now, master. He is sound asleep 
 this two hours ; and warm enough, I will warrant." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "In the great green bed with blue curtains, just above the 
 kitchen." 
 
 " What nonsense is this ? " 
 
 " The bed where you and I shall lie some day ; and the kitchen 
 which we shall be sent down to, to turn our own spits, unless we 
 mend our manners mightily." 
 
 Hereward looked at the man. Madness glared in his eyes, 
 unmistakably. 
 
 " You have killed him ! " 
 
 " And buried him, cheating the priests." 
 
 •' Villain ! " cried Hereward, seizing him. 
 
 " Take your hands oflF my throat, master. He was only my 
 father." 
 
 Hereward stood shocked and puzzled. After all, the man was 
 " No-man's-man," and would not be missed ; and Martin Light 
 foot, letting alone his madness, was as a third hand and foot to 
 him all day long. 
 
 So all he said was, " I hope you have buried him well and 
 safely?" 
 
 " You may walk your bloodhound over his grave, to-morrow, 
 without finding him." 
 
 And where he lay, Hereward never knew. But from that 
 night Martin got a trick of stroking and patting his little axe, and 
 talking to it as if it had been alive. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HOW EARL GODWIN'S WIDOW CAME TO ST. OMEB. 
 
 It would be vain to attempt even a sketch of the reports wliich 
 came to Flanders from England during the next two years, or of 
 the conversation which ensued thereon between Baldwin and his 
 courtiers, or Hereward and Torfrida. Two reports out of three 
 were doubtless false, and two conversations out of three founded 
 on those false reports. 
 
 It is best, therefore, to interrupt the thread of the story, by 
 some small sketch of the state of England after the battle of 
 Hastings ; that so we may, at least, guess at the tenor of Here- 
 ward and Torfrida's counsels. 
 
 William had, as yet, conquered little more than the South of 
 England : hardly, indeed, all that ; for Herefordshire, Worcester- 
 shire, and the neighboring parts, which had belonged to Sweyn, 
 Harold's brother, were still insecure ; and the noble old city of 
 Exeter, confident in her Roman walls, did not yield till two years 
 after, in A. D. 1068. 
 
 North of his conquered territory, Mercia stretched almost 
 across England, from Chester to the Wash, governed by Edwin 
 and Morcar, the two fair grandsons of Leofric, the great earl, and 
 sons of Alfgar. Edwin called himself Earl of Mercia, and held 
 the Danish burghs. On the extreme northwest, the Roman ciiy 
 of Chester was his ; while on the extreme southeast (as Domes- 
 day book testifies), Morcar held large lands round Bourne, and 
 throughout the south of Lincolnshire, besides calling himself the 
 Earl of Northumbria. The young men seemed the darlings of 
 the half-Danish northmen. Chester, Coventry, Derby, Notting- 
 ham, Leicester, Stamford, a chain of fortified towns stretching 
 across England, were at their command ; Blethyn, Prince of 
 North Wales, was their nephew. 
 
 Northumbria, likewise, was not yet in William's hands. In- 
 deed, it was in no man's hands, since the free Danes, north of the 
 Humber, had expelled Tosti, Harold's brother, putting Morcar in 
 his place, and helped that brother to slay him at Stanford Brigg. 
 Morcar, instead of residing in his earldom of Northumbria. had 
 made one Oswulf his deputy ; but he had rivals enough. There 
 
164 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 was Gospatrick, claiming through his grandfather, Uchtred, and 
 strong in the protection of his cousin Malcolra, King of Scotland ; 
 there was young Waltheof, " the forest thief," who had been born 
 to Si ward Biorn in his old age, just after the battle of Dunsinane; 
 a fine and gallant young man, destined to a swift and sad end. 
 
 William sent to the Northumbrians one Copsi, a Thane of 
 mark and worth, as his procurator, to expel Oswulf. Oswulf 
 and the land-folk answered by killing Copsi, and doing, every 
 man, that which was right in his own eyes. 
 
 William determined to propitiate the young earls. Perhaps 
 he intended to govern the centre and north of England through 
 them, as feudal vassals, and hoped, meanwhile, to pay his 
 Norman conquerors sufficiently out of the forfeited lands of 
 Harold, and those who had fought by his side at Hastings. It 
 was not his policy to make himself, much lessjo call himself, the 
 Conqueror of England. He claimed to be its legitimate sover- 
 eign, deriving from his cousin, Edward the Confessor ; and who- 
 soever would acknowledge him as such had neither right nor 
 cause to fear. Therefore he sent for the young earls. He court- 
 ed Waltheof, and more, really loved him. He promised Edwin 
 his daughter in marriage. Some say it was Constance, after- 
 wards married to Alan Fergant of Brittany ; but it may, also, 
 have been the beautiful Adelaide, who, none knew why, early 
 gave up the world, and died in a convent. Be that as it may, 
 the two young people saw each, and loved each other at Rouen, 
 whither William took Waltheof, Edwin, and his brother; as hon- 
 ored guests in name, in reality as hostages, likewise. 
 
 With the same rational and prudent policy, WiUiam respected 
 the fallen royal families, both of Harold and of Edward ; at least, 
 he warred not against women ; and the wealth and influence of 
 the great English ladies was enormous. Edith, sister of Harold, 
 and widow of the Confessor, lived in wealth and honor at Win- 
 chester. Gyda, Harold's mother, retained Exeter and her land. 
 Aldytha,* or Elfgiva, sister of Edwin and Morcar, niece of Here- 
 ward, and widow, first of Griffin of Wales, and then of Harold, 
 Hved rich and safe in Chester. Godiva, the Countess, owned, so 
 antiquarians say, manors from Cheshire to Lincolnshire, which 
 wonld be now yearly worth the income of a great duke. Agatha, 
 the Hungarian, widow of Edmund the outlaw, dwelt at Romscy, 
 in Hampshire, under William's care. Her son, Edward Ethe- 
 ling, the rightful heir of England, was treated by William not 
 only with courtesy, but with affection ; and allowed to rebel, 
 when he did rebel, with impunity. For the descendant of 
 
 * See her history, told as none other can tell it, in Bulwer's " Harold." 
 
 B 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 165 
 
 RoUo, the heathen Viking, had become a civilized, chivalrous, 
 Christian knight. His mighty forefather would have split the 
 Etheling's skull with his own axe. A Frank king would have 
 shaved the young man's head, and immersed him in a monastery. 
 An eastern sultan would have thrust out his eyes, or strtingled 
 him at once. But William, however cruel, however unscrupu- 
 lous, had a knightly heart, and somewhat of a Christian con- 
 science ; and his conduct to his only lawful rival is a noble trait 
 amid many sins. 
 
 So far all went well, till William went back to France ; to be 
 likened, not as his ancestors, to the gods of Valhalla, or the bar- 
 barous and destroying Viking of mythic ages, but to Csesar, Pom- 
 pey, Vespasian, and the civilized and civilizing heroes of classic 
 Kome. 
 
 But while he sat at the Easter feast at Fecamp, displaying to 
 Franks, Flemings, and Bretons, as well as to his own Normans, 
 the treasures of Edward's palace at Westminster, and more Eng- 
 lish wealth than could be found in the whole estate of Gaul ; 
 while he sat there in his glory, with his young dupes, Edwin, 
 Morcar, and Waltheof by his side, having sent Harold's banner 
 in triumph to the Pope, as a token that he had conquered the 
 Church as well as the nation of England, and having founded 
 abbeys as thank-offerings to Him who had seemed to prosper him 
 in his great crime : at that very hour the handwriting was on the 
 wall, unseen by man ; and he and his policy and his race were 
 weighed in the balance, and found wanting. 
 
 For now broke out in England that wrong-doing, which en- 
 dured as long as she was a mere appanage and foreign farm of 
 Norman kings, whose hearts and homes were across the seas in 
 France. Fitz-Osbern, and Odo the warrior-prelate, William's 
 half-brother, had been left as his regents in England. Little do 
 they seem to have cared for William's promise to the English 
 people that they were to be ruled still by the laws of Edward the 
 Confessor, and that where a grant of land was made to a Nor- 
 man, he was to hold it as the Englishman had done before him, 
 with no heavier burdens on himself, but with no heavier burdens 
 on the poor folk who tilled the land for him. Oppression began, 
 lawlessness, and violence ; men were ill-treated on the highways ; 
 and women — what was worse — in their own homes j and the 
 regents abetted the ill-doers. " It seems," says a most impartial 
 historian,* " as if the Normans, released from all authority, all 
 restraint, all fear of retaliation, determined to reduce the English 
 nation to servitude, and drive them to despair." 
 
 • The late Sir F. Palgrave. 
 
166 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 In the latter attempt they succeeded but too soon ; in the for< 
 mer, they succeeded at last: but they paid dearly for their 
 success. 
 
 Hot young Englishmen began to emigrate. Some went to the 
 court of Constantinople, to join the Varanger guard, and have 
 their chance of a Polotaswarf like Harold Hardraade. Some 
 went to Scotland to Malcolm Canmore, and brooded over return 
 and revenge. But Harold's sons went to their father's cousin ; 
 to Sweyn — Swend — Sweno Ulfsson, and called on him to come 
 and reconquer England in the name of his uncle Canute the 
 Great ; and many an Englishman went with them. 
 
 These things Gospatrick watched, as earl (so far as he could 
 make any one obey him in the utter subversion of all order) of 
 the lands between Forth and Tyne. And he determined to flee, 
 ere evil befell him, to his cousin Malcolm Canmore, taking with 
 him Marlesweyn of Lincolnshire, who had fought, it is said,' by 
 Harold's side at Hastings, and young "Waltheof of York. But, 
 moreover, having a head, and being indeed, as his final success 
 showed, a man of ability and courage, he determined on a stroke 
 of policy, which had incalculable after-effects on the history of 
 Scotland. He persuaded Agatha the Hungarian, Margaret and 
 Christina her daughters, and Edgar the Etheling himself, to flee 
 with him to Scotland. How he contrived to send them messages 
 to Romsey, far south in Hampshire ; how they contrived to es- 
 cape to the Humber, and thence up to the Forth ; this is a ro- 
 mance in itself, of which the chroniclers have left hardly a hint. 
 But the thing was done ; and at St. Margaret's Hope, as tradi- 
 tion tells, the Scottish king met, and claimed as his unwiUing 
 bride, that fair and holy maiden who was destined to soften his 
 fierce passions, to civilize and purify his people, and to become — 
 if all had their just dues — the true patron saint of Scotland. 
 
 Malcolm Canmore promised a mighty army ; Sweyn, a mighty 
 fleet. And meanwhile, Eustace of Boulogne, the Confessor's 
 brother-in-law, himself a Norman, rebelled at the head of the 
 down-trodden men of Kent ; and the Welshmen were harrying 
 Herefordshire with fire and sword, in revenge for Norman 
 ravages. 
 
 But as yet the storm did not burst. "William returned, and 
 with him something like order. He conquered Exeter ; he 
 destroyed churches and towns to make his New Forest. He 
 brought over his Queen Matilda with pomp and great glory ; and 
 with her, the Bayeux tapestry which she had wrought with her 
 own hands ; and meanwhile Sweyn Ulfsson was too busy threat- 
 ening Olaf Haroldsson, the new king of Norway, to sail for Eng- 
 land ; and the sons of King Harold of England had to seek help 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 167 
 
 from the Irish Danes, and ravaging the country round Bristol, be 
 beaten off by the valiant burghers with heavy loss. 
 
 So the storm did not burst ; and need not have burst, it may 
 be, at all, had William kept his plighted word. But he would 
 not give his fair daughter to Edwin. His Norman nobles,,doubt- 
 less, looked upon such an alliance as debasing to a civilized lady. 
 In their eyes, the Englishman was a barbarian ; and though the 
 Norman might well marry the Englishwoman, if she had beauty 
 or wealth, it was a dangerous precedent to allow the Englishman 
 to marry the Norman woman, and that woman a princess. Be- 
 side, there were those who coveted Edwin's broad lands ; Roger 
 de Montgomery, who already (it is probable) held part of them 
 as Earl of Shrewsbury, had no wish to see Edwin the son-in-law 
 of his sovereign. Be the cause what it may, William faltered, 
 and refused; and Edwin and Morcar left the Court of Westmin- 
 ster in wrath. Waltheof followed them, having discovered — what 
 he was weak enough continually to forget again — the treachery 
 of the Norman. The young earls went off, one midlandward, one 
 northward. The people saw their wrongs in those of their earls, 
 and the rebellion burst forth at once, the Welsh under Blethyn, 
 and the Cumbrians under Malcolm and Donaldbain, giving their 
 help in the struggle. 
 
 It was the year 1069. A more evil year for England than 
 even the year of Hastings. 
 
 The rebellion was crushed in a few months. The great general 
 marched steadily north, taking the boroughs one by one, storm- 
 ing, massacring young and old, burning, sometimes, whole towns, 
 and leaving, as he went on, a new portent, a Norman donjon — 
 till then all but unseen in England — as a place of safety for his 
 garrisons. At Oxford (sacked horribly, and all but destroyed), 
 at Warwick (destroyed utterly), at Nottingham, at Stafford, at 
 Shrewsbury, at Cambridge, on the huge barrow which overhangs 
 the fen ; and at York itself, which had opened its gates, ti'em- 
 bling, to the great Norman strategist ; at each doomed free bor- 
 ough rose a castle, with its tall square tower within, its bailey 
 around, and all the appliances of that ancient Roman science of 
 fortification, of whicli the Danes, as well as the Saxons, knew 
 nothing. Their struggle had only helped to tighten their bonds ; 
 and what wonder? There was among them neither unity nor 
 plan nor governing mind and will. Hereward's words had come 
 true. The only man, save Gospatrick, who had a head in Eng- 
 land, was Harold Godwinsson : and he lay in Walthara Abbey, 
 while the monks sang masses for his soul. 
 
 Edwin, Morcar, and Waltheof trembled before a genius su- 
 perior to their own, — a genius, indeed, which had not its equal 
 
168 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 then in Christendom. They came in and begged grace of the 
 king. They got it. But Edwin's earldom was forfeited, and he 
 and his brother became, from thenceforth, desperate men. 
 
 Malcolm of Scotland trembled likewise, and asked for peace. 
 The clans, it is said, rejoiced thereat, having no wish for a war 
 ■which could buy them neither spoil nor land. Malcolm sent am- 
 bassadors to William, and took that oath of fealty to the " Basileus 
 of Britain," which more than one Scottish king and kinglet had 
 taken before, — with the secret proviso (which, during the Middle 
 Ages, seems to have been thorouglily understood in such cases by 
 both parties), that he should be William's man just as long as 
 William could compel him to be so, and no longer. 
 
 Then came cruel and unjust confiscations. Ednoth the stand- 
 ard-bearer had fallen at Bristol, fighting for William against the 
 Haroldssons, yet all his lands were given away to Normans. Ed- 
 win and Morcar's lands were parted likewise ; and — to specify 
 cases which bear especially on the history of Hereward — Oger 
 the Briton got many of Morcar's manors round Bourne, and 
 Gilbert of Ghent many belonging to Marlesweyn aboiit Lincoln 
 city. And so did that valiant and crafty knight find his legs once 
 more on other men's ground, and reappears in monkish story aa 
 " the most devout and pious earl, Gilbert of Ghent." 
 
 What followed, Hereward heard not from flying rumors ; but 
 from one who had seen and known and judged of all.* 
 
 For one day, about this time, Hereward was riding out of the 
 gate of St. Omer, when the porter appealed to him. Begging for 
 admittance were some twenty women, and a clerk or two ; and 
 they must needs see the chatelain. The chatelain was away. 
 What should he do ? 
 
 Hereward looked at the party, and saw, to his surprise, that 
 they were Englishwomen, and two of them women of rank, to 
 judge from the rich materials of their travel-stained and tattered 
 garments. The ladies rode on sorry country garrons, plainly 
 hired from the peasants who drove them. The rest of the women 
 had walked ; and weary and footsore enough they were. 
 
 " You are surely Englishwomen ? " asked he of the foremost, 
 as he lifted his cap. 
 
 The lady bowed assent, beneath a heavy veil. 
 
 " Then you are my guests. Let them pass in." And Here- 
 ward threw himself off his horse, and took the lady's bridle. 
 
 " Stay," she said, with an accent half Wessex, half Danish. 
 " I seek the Countess Judith, if it will please you to tell me where 
 Bhe lives." 
 
 * For Gyda's coming to St. Omer that year, see Orderious Vitalis. 
 
HEBEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 169 
 
 " The Countess Judith, lady, lives no longer in St. Omer. Since 
 her husband's death, she lives with her mother at Bruges." 
 
 The lady made a gesture of disappointment. 
 
 " It were best for you, therefore, to accept my hospitality, till 
 such time as I can send you and your ladies on to Bruges." 
 
 " I must first know who it is who offers me hospitality ? " 
 
 This was said so proudly, that Hereward answered proudly 
 enough in return, — 
 
 " I am Hereward Leofricsson, whom his foes call Hereward 
 the outlaw ; and his friends, Hereward the master of knights." 
 
 She started, and threw her veil back, looking intently at him. 
 He, for his part, gave but one glance, and then cried, — 
 
 " Mother of Heaven ! You are the great Countess ! " 
 
 " Yes, I was that woman once, if all be not a dream. I am 
 now I know not what, seeking hospitaUty — if I can believe my 
 eyes and ears — of Godiva's son." 
 
 " And from Godiva's son you shall have it, as though you were 
 Godiva's self. God so deal with my mother, madam, as I will 
 deal with you.'' 
 
 " His father's wit, and his mother's beauty ! " said the great 
 Countess, looking upon him. " Too, too like my own lost 
 Harold!" 
 
 " Not so, my lady. I am a dwarf compared to him." And 
 Hereward led the garron on by the bridle, keeping his cap in 
 hand, while all wondered who the dame could be, before whom 
 Hereward the champion would so abase himself. 
 
 " Leofric's son does me too much honor. He has forgotten, in 
 his chivalry, that I am Godwin's widow." 
 
 " I have not forgotten that you are Sprakaleg's daughter, and 
 niece of Canute, king of kings. Neither have I forgotten that 
 you are an English lady, in times in which all English folk are 
 one, and all old English feuds are wiped away." 
 
 " In English blood. Ah ! if these last words of yours were 
 true, as you, perhaps, might make them true, England might be 
 saved even yet." 
 
 "Saved?" 
 
 " If there were one man in it, who cared for aught but him- 
 self." 
 
 Hereward was silent and thoughtful. 
 
 He had sent Martin back to his house, to tell Torfrida to pre- 
 pare bath and food ; for' the Countess Gyda, with all her train, 
 was coming to be her guest. And when they entered the court, 
 Torfrida stood ready. 
 
 "Is this your lady?" asked Gyda, as Hereward lifted her 
 from her horse. 
 
 8 
 
170 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " I am his lady, and your servant," said Torfrida, bowing. 
 
 " Child ! child ! Bow not to me. Talk not of servants to a 
 wretched slave, who only longs to crawl into some hole and die, 
 forgetting all she was and all she had." 
 
 And the great Countess reeled with weariness and woe, and 
 fell upon Torfrida's neck. 
 
 A tall veiled lady next her helped to support her ; and be- 
 tween them they almost carried her through the hall, and into 
 Torfrida's best guest-chamber. 
 
 And there they gave her wine, and comforted her, and let her 
 weep awhile in peace. 
 
 The second lady had unveiled herself, displaying a beauty 
 which was still brilliant, in spite of sorrow, hunger, the stains 
 of travel, and more than forty years of life. 
 
 " She must be Gunhilda," guessed Torfrida to herself, and not 
 amiss. 
 
 She offered Gyda a bath, which she accepted eagerly, like a 
 true Dane. 
 
 " I have not washed for weeks. Not since we sat starving on 
 the Flat-Holme there, in the Severn sea. I have become as 
 foul as my own fortunes : and why not ? It is all of a piece. 
 Why should not beggars beg unwashed ? " 
 
 But when Torfrida offered Gunhilda the bath she declined. 
 
 " I have done, lady, with such carnal vanities. What use in 
 cleansing that body which is itself unclean, and whitening the 
 outside of this sepulchre? If I can but cleanse my soul fit for 
 my heavenly Bridegroom, the body may become — as it must at 
 last — food /or worms." 
 
 " She will needs enter religion, poor child," said Gyda; "anr" 
 what wonder ? " 
 
 " I have chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken from 
 me." 
 
 " Taken ! taken ! Hark to her ! She means to mock me, the 
 proud nun, with that same ' taken.' " 
 
 " God forbid, mother ! " 
 
 " Then why say taken, to me from whom all is taken ? — 
 husband, sons, wealth, land, renown, power, — power which I 
 lo\ed, wretch that I was, as well as husband and as sons. Ah 
 God! the girl is right. Better to rot in the convent, than 
 writhe in the world. Better never to have had, than to have 
 had and lost." 
 
 " Amen ! " said Gunhilda. " ' Blessed are the barren, and 
 they that never gave suck,' saith the Lord." 
 
 "No! not so!" cried Torfrida. "Better, Countess,, to have 
 Lad and lost, than never to have had at all. The glutton was 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 171 
 
 right, swine as he was, when he said that not even Heaven could 
 take from him the dinners he had eaten. How much more we, 
 if we say, not even Heaven can take from us the love wherewith 
 we have loved. Will not our souls be richer thereby, through 
 all eternity?" 
 
 " In Purgatory ? " asked Gunhilda. 
 
 " In Purgatory, or where else you will. I love my love ; 
 d,nd though my love prove false, he has been true ; though he 
 trample me under foot, he has held me in his bosom ; though he 
 kill me, he has lived for me. What I have had will still be 
 mine, when that which I have shall fail me." 
 
 " And you would buy short joy with lasting woe ? " 
 
 " That would I, like a brave man's child. I say, — The pres- 
 ent is mine, and I will enjoy it, as greedily as a child. Let the 
 morrow take thought for the things of itself. — Countess, your 
 bath is ready." 
 
 Nineteen years after, when the great conqueror lay, tossing 
 with agony and remorse, upon his dying bed, haunted by the 
 ghosts of his victims, the clerks of St. Saviour's in Bruges city 
 were putting up a leaden tablet (which remains, they say, unto 
 this very day) to the memory of one whose gentle soul had 
 gently passed away. " Charitable to the poor, kind and agreea- 
 ble to her attendants, courteous to strangers, and only severe to 
 herself," Gunhilda had lingered on in a world of war and crime ; 
 and had gone, it may be, to meet Torfrida beyond the grave, and 
 there finish their doubtful argument. 
 
 The Countess was served with food in Torfrida's chamber. 
 Hereward and his wife refused to sit, and waited on her stand- 
 ing. 
 
 " I wish to show these saucy Flemings," said he, " that an 
 English princess is a princess stUl in the eyes of one more nobly 
 born than any of them." 
 
 But after she had eaten, she made Torfrida sit before her on 
 . the bed, and Hereward likewise ; and began to talk ; eagerly, as 
 one who had not unburdened her mind for many weeks ; and 
 eloquently too, as became Sprakaleg's daughter and Godwin's 
 wife. 
 
 She told them how she had fled from the storm of Exeter, with 
 a troop of women, who dreaded the brutalities of the Normans.* 
 How they had wandered up through Devon, found fishers' boats 
 at Watchet in Somersetshire, and gone off to the little desert island 
 of the Flat-Holme, in hopes of there meeting with the Irish fleet, 
 
 * To do William justice, he would not allow his men to enter the city while 
 they were blood-hot ; and so prevented, as far as he could, the excesses which 
 Gyda had feared. 
 
172 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 which her sons, Edmund and Godwin, were bringing against the 
 West of England. How the fleet had never come, and they had 
 starved for many days ; and how she had bribed a passing mer- 
 chantman to take her and her wretched train to the land of 
 Baldwin the Debonnaire, who might have pity on her for the 
 Bak# of his daughter Judith, and Tosti her husband who died in 
 his sins. 
 
 And at his name, her tears began to flow afresh ; fallen in his 
 overweening pride, — like Sweyn, like Harold, like herself — 
 
 " The time was, when I would not weep. If I could, I would 
 not. For a year, lady, after Senlac, I sat like a stone. I hard- 
 ened my heart like a wall of brass, against God and man. Then, 
 there upon the Flat-Holme, feeding on shell-fish, listening to the 
 wail of the sea-fowl, looking outside the wan water for the sails 
 which never came, my heart broke down in a moment And I 
 heard a voice crying, ' There is no help in man, go thou to God.' 
 And I answered, That were a beggar's trick, to go to God in 
 need, when I went not to him in plenty. No. Without Grod 
 I planned, and without Him I must fail. Without Him I 
 went into the battle, and without Him I must bide the brunt. 
 And at best. Can He give me back my sons? And I har- 
 dened my heart again like a stone, and shed no tear till I saw 
 your fair face this day." 
 
 " And now ! " she said, turning sharply on Hereward, " what 
 do you do here ? Do you not know that your nephews' lands are 
 parted between grooms from Angers and scullions from Nor- 
 mandy ? " 
 
 " So much the worse for both them and the grooms." 
 
 ■'Sir?" 
 
 " You forget, lady, that I am an outlaw." 
 
 " But do you not know that your mother's lands are seized like- 
 wise ? " 
 
 " She will take refuge with her grandsons, who are, as I hear, 
 again on good terms with their new master, showing thereby a 
 most laudable and Christian spirit of forgiveness." 
 
 '• On good terras ? Do you not know, then, that they are fight- 
 ing again, outlaws, and desperate at the Frenchman's treachery ? 
 Do }ou not know that they have been driven out of York, after 
 defending the city street by street, house by house ? Do you not 
 know that there is not an old man or a child in arms left in York ; 
 and tliat your nephews, and the few fighting men who were left, 
 went down the llumber in boats, and north to Scotland, to Gos- 
 patrick and Waltheof ? Do you not know that your mother is left 
 alone — at Bourne, or God knows where — to endure at the 
 hands of Norman ruffians what thousands more endure ? " 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 173 
 
 Hereward made no answer, but played with his dagger. 
 
 " And do you not know that England is ready to burst into a 
 Dlaze, if there be one man wi^e enough to put the live coal into 
 the right place ? That Sweyn UlfFson, his kinsman, or Osbern, 
 his brother, will surely land there within the year with a mighty 
 host ? And that if there be one man in England of wit enough, 
 and knowledge enough of war, to lead the armies of England, 
 the Frenchman may be driven into the sea — Is there any here 
 who understands English ? " 
 
 " None but ourselves." 
 
 " And Canute's nephew sit on Canute's throne?" 
 
 Hereward still played with his dagger. 
 
 " Not the sons of Harold, then ? " asked he, after a while. 
 
 " Never ! I promise you that — I, Countess Gyda, their grand- 
 mother." 
 
 " Why promise me, of all men, great lady ? " 
 
 " Because — I will tell you after. But this I say, my curse on 
 the grandson of mine who shall try to seize that fatal crown, 
 which cost the life of my fairest, my noblest, my wisest, my bra- 
 vest ! " 
 
 Hereward bowed his head, as if consenting to the praise of 
 Harold. But he knew who spoke ; and he was thinking within 
 himself: " Her curse may be on him who shall seize, and yet 
 not on him to whom it is given." 
 
 " All that they, young and unskilful lads, have a right to ask 
 is, their father's earldoms and their father's lands. Edwin and 
 Morcar would keep their earldoms as of right. It is a pity that 
 there is no lady of the house of Godwin, whom we could honor 
 by offering her to one of your nephews, in return for their noble- 
 ness in giving Aldytha to my Harold. But this foolish girl here 
 refuses to wed — ". 
 
 " And is past forty," thought Hereward to himself. 
 
 " However, some plan to join the families more closely together 
 might be thought of. One of the young earls might marry 
 Judith here.* Waltheof would have Northumbria, in right of 
 his father, and ought to be well content, — for although she is 
 somewhat older than he, she is peerlessly beautiful, — to marry 
 your niece Aldytha." f 
 
 " And Go.<patrick ? " 
 
 " Gospatrick," she said, with a half-sneer, " will be as sure, as 
 he is able, to get something worth having for himself out of any 
 medley. Let him have Scotch Northumbria, if he claim it. 
 He is a Dane, and our work will be to make a Danish England 
 once and forever." 
 
 * Tosti's widow, daughter of Baldwin o( Flanderi. 
 t Harold's widow. 
 
174 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 ■' But what of Sweyn's gallant holders and housecarles, who 
 are to help to do this mighty deed ? " 
 
 " Senlac. left gaps enough among the noblemen of the South, 
 which they can fill up, in the place of the French scum who 
 now riot over Wessex. And if that should not suffice, what 
 higher honor for me, or for my daughter the Queen-Dowager, 
 than to devote our lands to the heroes who have won them bank 
 for us?" 
 
 Hereward hoped inwardly that Gyda would be as good as her 
 word ; for her greedy grasp had gathered to itself, before the 
 Battle of Hastings, no less than six-and-thirty thousand acres of 
 good English soil. 
 
 " I have always heard," said he, bowing, " that if the Lady 
 Gyda had been born a man, England would have had another 
 all-seeing and all-daring statesman, and Earl Godwin a rival, 
 instead of a helpmate. Now I believe wiiat I have heard." 
 
 But Torfrida looked sadly at the Countess. There was some- 
 thing pitiable in the sight of a woman ruined, bereaved, seemingly 
 hopeless, portioning out the very land from which she was a 
 fugitive ; unable to restrain the passion for intrigue, which had 
 been the toil and the bane of her ^ad and splendid life. 
 
 " And now," she went on, " surely some kind saint brought 
 me, even on my first landing, to you of all living men." 
 
 " Doubtless the blessed St. Berlin, beneath whose shadow we 
 repose here in peace," said Hereward, somewhat dryly. 
 
 " I will go barefoot to his altar to-morrow, and offer my last 
 jewel," said Gunhilda. 
 
 " You," said Gyda, without noticing her daughter, " are, above 
 all men, the man who is needed." And she began praising 
 Hereward's 'valor, his fame, his eloquence, his skill as a general 
 and engineer ; and when he suggested, smiling, that he was an 
 exile and an outlaw, she insisted that he was all the fitter from 
 that very fact. He had no enemies among the nobles. He had 
 been mixed up in none of the civil wars and blood feuds of the 
 last fifteen years. He was known only as that which he was, 
 the ablest captain of his day, — the only man who could cope 
 with William, the only man whom all parties in England would 
 alike obey. 
 
 And so, with flattery as well as with truth, she persuaded, if 
 not Hereward, at least Torfrida, that he was the man destined tn 
 free England once more ; and that an earldom — anything which 
 he chose to ask — would be the sure reward of his assistance. 
 
 " Torfrida," said Hereward that night, " kiss me well ; for you 
 will not kiss me again for a while." 
 
 "What?" 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 175 
 
 " I am going to England to-morrow." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 " Alone. I and Martin to spy out the land ; and a dozen or 
 no ol housecarles to take care of the ship in harbor." 
 
 " But you have promised to fight the Viscount of Pinkney." 
 
 " I will be back again in time for him. Not a word, — I must 
 go to England, or go mad." 
 
 " But Countess Gyda ? Who will squire her to Bruges ? " 
 
 " You, and the rest of my men. You must tell her all. She 
 has a woman's heart, and will understand. And tell Baldwin I 
 ehall be back within the month, if I am alive on land or water." 
 
 " Hereward, Hereward, the French will kill you ! " 
 
 " Not while I have your armor on. Peace, little fool ! Are 
 you actually afraid for Hereward at last ? " 
 
 " O heavens ! when am I not afraid for you ! " and she cried 
 herself to sleep upon his bosom. But she knew that it was the 
 right, and knightly, and Christian thing to do. 
 
 Two days after, a long ship ran out of Calais, and sailed away 
 north and east. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HOW HEREW.UID CLEAEED BOUENE OF FEENCHMEN. 
 
 It may have been well, a week after, that Hereward rode from 
 the direction of Boston, with Martin running at his heels. 
 
 As Hereward rode along the summer wold the summer sun 
 Bank low, till just before it went down he came to an island of 
 small enclosed fields, high banks, elm-trees, and a farm inside ; 
 one of those most ancient holdings of the South and East Counts, 
 still to be distinguished, by their huge banks and dikes full of 
 hedgerow timber, from the more modern corn-lands outside, 
 which were in Hereward's time mostly common pasture-lands. 
 
 " This should be Azerdun," said he ; " and there inside, as I 
 live, stands Azer getting in his crops. But who has he with 
 him ? " 
 
 With the old man were some half-dozen men of his own rank ; 
 some helping the serfs with might and main ; one or two stand- 
 ing on the top of the banks, as if on the lookout ; but all armed 
 cap-a-pie. 
 
 " His friends are helping him to get them in," quoth Martin, 
 " for fear of the rascally Normans. A pleasant and peaceable 
 country we have come back to." 
 
 " And a very strong fortress are they holding," said Hereward, 
 " against either Norman horsemen or Norman arrows. How to 
 dislodge those six fellows without six times their number, I do 
 not see. It is well to recollect that." 
 
 And so he did ; and turned to use again and again, in afler 
 years, the strategetic capabilities of an old-fashioned English 
 farm. 
 
 Hereward spurred his horse up to the nearest gate, and was 
 in.-tantly confronted by a httle fair-haired man, as broad as he 
 was tall, who heaved up a long " twybill," or double axe, and 
 bade him, across the gate, go to a certain place. 
 
 " Little Winter, little Winter, my chuck, my darling, my mad 
 fellow, my brother-in-arms, my brother in robbery and murder, 
 are you grown so honest in your old age that you will not know 
 Hereward the wolf s-head ? " 
 
 " Hereward ! " shrieked the doughty little man. " I took you 
 
HEKEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 177 
 
 for an accursed Norman in those outlandish clothes '' ; and lifting 
 up no little voice, he shouted, — 
 
 " Hereward is back, and Martin Lightfoot at his heels ! " 
 
 The gate was thrown open, and Hereward all but pulled off 
 his horse. He was clapped on the back, turned round and 
 round, admired from head to foot, shouted at by old companions 
 of his boyhood, naughty young housecarles of his old troop, now 
 settled down into honest thriving yeomen, hard working and hard 
 fighting, who had heard again and again, with pride, his doughty 
 doings over sea. There was Winter, and Gwenoch, and Gery, 
 Hereward's cousin, — ancestor, it may be, of the ancient and 
 honorable house of that name, and of those parts ; and Duti and 
 Guti, the two valiant twins ; and Ulfard the White, and others, 
 some of whose names, and those of their sons, still stand in 
 Domesday-book. 
 
 "And what," asked Hereward, after the first congratulations 
 were over, " of my mother ? What of the folk at Bourne ? " 
 
 All looked each at the other, and were silent. 
 
 " You are too late, young lord," said Azer. 
 
 "Too late?" 
 
 " The Norman " — Azer called him what most men called him 
 then — " has given it to a man of Gilbert of Ghent's, — his but- 
 ler, groom, cook, for aught I know." 
 
 " To Gilbert's man ? And my mother ? " 
 
 " God help your mother, and your young brother, too. We 
 only know that three days ago some five-and-twenty French 
 marched into the place." 
 
 -" And you did not stop them ? " 
 
 " Young sir, who are we to stop an army ? We have enough 
 to keep our own. Gilbert, let alone the villain Ivo of Spalding, 
 can send a hundred men down on us in four-and-twenty hours." 
 
 " Then I," said Hereward in a voice of thunder, " will find the 
 way to send two hundred down on him" ; and turning his horse 
 from the gate, he rode away furiously towards Bourne. 
 
 He turned back as suddenly, and galloped into the field. 
 
 " Lads ! old comrades ! will you stand by me if I need you ? 
 Will you follow Hereward, as hundreds have followed him al- 
 ready, if he will only go before ? " 
 
 " We will, we will." 
 
 " I shall be back ere morning. What you have to do, I will 
 tell you then." 
 
 " Stop and eat, but for a quarter of ai;i hour." 
 
 Then Hereward swore a great oath, by oak and ash and thorn, 
 that he would neither eat bread nor drink water while there was 
 a Norman left in Bourne. 
 
 8* I. 
 
178 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " A little ale, then, if no water," said Azer. 
 
 Hereward laughed, and rode away. 
 
 "You will not go single-handed against all those ruffians," 
 shouted the old man after him. " Saddle, lads, and go with him. 
 some of you, for very shame's sake." 
 
 But when they galloped after Hereward, he sent them ba«k. 
 He did not know yet, he said, what he would da Better that 
 they should gather their forces, and see what men they could 
 afford him, in case of open battle. And he rode swiftly on. 
 
 When he came within the lands of Bourne it was dark. 
 
 " So much the better," thought Hereward. " I have no wish 
 to see the old place till I have somewhat cleaned it out." 
 
 He rode slowly into the long street between the overhanging 
 gables. At the upper end he could see the high garden walls of 
 his mother's house, and rising over them the great hall, its nar- 
 row windows all ablaze with light. With a "bitter growl he rode 
 on, trying to recollect a house where he could safely lodge. Mar- 
 tin pointed one out. 
 
 " Old Viking Surturbrand, the housecarle, did live there, and 
 maybe lives there still." 
 
 " We will try." And Martin knocked at the door. 
 
 The wicket was opened, but not the door; and through the 
 wicket window a surly voice asked who was there. 
 
 " Who lives here ? " 
 
 " Perry, son of Surturbrand. Who art thou who askest ? " 
 
 " An honest gentleman and his servant, looking for a night's 
 lodging." 
 
 " This is no place for honest folk." 
 
 " As for that, we don't wish to be more honest than you would 
 have us ; but lodging we will pay for, freely and well." 
 
 " We want none of your money " ; and the wicket was shut. 
 
 Martin pulled out his axe, and drove the panel in. 
 
 " What are you doing ? We shall rouse the town,'' said Here- 
 ward. 
 
 " Let be ; these are no French, but honest English, and like 
 one all the better for a little horse-play." 
 
 "What didst do that for?" asked the surly voice again. "Were 
 it not for those rascal Frenchmen up above, I would come out 
 and split thy skull for thee." 
 
 " If there be Frenchmen up above," said Martin, in a voice of 
 feigned terror, " take us in for the love of the Virgin and all the 
 saints, or murdered we shall be ere morning light." 
 
 " You have no call to stay in the town, man, unless you like." 
 
 Hereward rode close to the wicket, and said in a low voice, 
 " I am a nobleman of Flanders, good sir, and a sworn foe to all 
 
HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 179 
 
 French. My horse is weary, and cannot make a step forward 
 and if you be a Christian man, you will take me in and let me go 
 off safe ere morning light." 
 
 "From Flanders?" And the man turned and seemed to con- 
 sult those within. At length the door was slowly opened, and 
 Perry -appeared, his double axe over liis shoulder. 
 
 " If you be from Flanders, come in for mercy ; but be quick, 
 ere those Frenchmen get wind of you." 
 
 Hereward went in. Five or six men were standing round the 
 long table, upon which they had just laid down their double axes 
 and javelins. More than one countenance Hereward recognized 
 at once. Over the peat-fire in the chimney-corner sat a very old 
 man, his hands upon his knees, as he warmed his bare feet at the 
 embers. He started up at the noise, and Hereward saw at once 
 that it was old Surturbrand, and that he was blind. 
 
 " Who is it ? Is Hereward come ? " asked he, with the dull, 
 dreamy voice of age. 
 
 " Not Hereward, father," said some one, " but a knight from 
 Flanders." 
 
 The old man dropped his head upon his breast again with a 
 querulous whine, while Hereward's heart beat high at hearing 
 his own name. At all events he was among friends ; and ap- 
 proaching the table he unbuckled his sword and laid it down 
 among the other weapons. " At least," said he, " I shall have no 
 need of thee as long as I am here among honest men." 
 
 " What shall I do with my master's horse ? " asked Martin. 
 " He can't stand in the street to be stolen by drunken French 
 horseboys." 
 
 " Bring him in at the front door, and out at the back," said 
 Perry. " Fine times these, when a man dare not open his own 
 yard-gate." 
 
 " You seem to be all besieged here," said Hereward. " How 
 is this?" 
 
 " Besieged we are," said the man ; and then, partly to turn 
 the subject off, " Will it please you to eat, noble sir ? " 
 
 Hereward ate and drank : while his hosts eyed him, not with- 
 out some lingering suspicion, but still with admiration and some 
 respect. His splendid armor and weapons, as well as the golden 
 locks which fell far below his shoulders, and conveniently hid a 
 face which he did not wish yet to have recognized, showed him 
 to be a man of the highest rank ; while the palm of his small 
 hand, as hard and bony as any woodman's, proclaimed hira to 
 be no novice of a fighting man. The strong Flemish accent 
 which both he and Martin Lightfoot had assumed prevented the 
 honest Enghshmen from piercing his disguise. They watched 
 
180 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 him, while he in turn watched them, struck by their uneasy 
 looks and sullen silence. 
 
 " We are a dull company," said he after a while, courteously 
 enough. " We used to be told in Flanders that there were none 
 such stout drinkers and none such jolly singers as you gallant 
 men of the Danelagh here." 
 
 " Dull times make dull company," said one, " and no offence to 
 you, Sir Knight." 
 
 " Are yon such a stranger," asked Perry, " that you do not 
 know what has happened in this town during the last three 
 days?" 
 
 " No good, I will warrant, if you have Frenchmen in it." 
 
 " Why was not Hereward here ? " wailed the old man in the 
 comer. "It never would have happened if he had been in 
 the town.'' 
 
 " What ? " asked Hereward, trying to command himself. 
 
 " What has happened," said Perry, " makes a free English- 
 man's blood boil to tell of. Here, Sir Knight, three days ago, 
 comes in this Frenchman with some twenty ruffians of his own, 
 and more of one Taillebois's, too, to see him safe ; says that this 
 new king, this base-born Frenchman, has given away all Earl 
 Morcar's lands, and that Bourne is his ; kills a man or two ; 
 upsets the women ; gets drunk, ruffles, and roisters ; breaks into 
 my lady's bower, calling her to give up her keys, and when she 
 gives them, will have all her jewels too. She faces them like a 
 brave Princess, and two of the hounds lay hold of her, and say 
 that she shall ride through Bourne as she rode through Coven- 
 try. The boy Godwin — he that was the great Earl's godson, 
 our last hope, the last of our house — draws sword on them ; 
 and he, a boy of sixteen summers, kills them both out of hand. 
 The rest set on him, cut his head off, and there it sticks on the 
 gable spike of the hall to this hour. And do you ask, after that, 
 why free Englishmen are dull company ? " 
 
 " And our turn will come next," growled somebody. " The 
 turn will go all round ; no man's life or land, wife or daughters, 
 will be safe soon for these accursed Frenchmen, unless, as the 
 old man says, Hereward comes back." 
 
 Once again the old man wailed out of the chimney-corner: 
 " Why did they ever send Hereward away ? I warned the good 
 Earl, I warned my good lady, many a time, to let him sow his 
 wild oats and be done with them ; or they might need him some 
 day when they could not find him ! He was a lad ! He was a 
 lad ! " and again he whined, and sank into silence. 
 
 Hereward heard all this dry-eyed, hardening his heart into a 
 great resolve. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 181 
 
 " This is a dark story," said he calmly, " and it would behoove 
 me as a gentleman to succor this distressed lady, did I but know 
 how. Tell me what I can do now, and I will do it." 
 
 " Your health ! " cried one. " You speak like a true knight." 
 
 " And he looks the man to keep his word, I '11 warrant him," 
 spoke another. 
 
 " He does," said Perry, shaking his head ; " but if anything 
 could have been done, sir, be sure we would have done it : but 
 all our armed men are scattered up and down the country, each 
 taking care, as is natural, of his own cattle and his own women. 
 There are not ten men-at-arms in Bourne this night ; and, what 
 is worse, sir, as you know, who seem to have known war as well 
 as me, there is no man to lead them." 
 
 Here Hereward was on the point of saying, " And what if I 
 led you ? " On the point too of discovering himself : but he 
 stopped short. ^ 
 
 Was it fair to involve this little knot of gallant fellows in what 
 might be a hopeless struggle, and have all Bourne burned over 
 their heads ere morning by the ruflBan Frenchmen ? No ; his 
 mother's quarrel was his own private quarrel. He would go 
 alone and see the strength of the enemy ; and afler that, may be, 
 he would raise the country on them : or — and half a dozen plans 
 suggested themselves to his crafty brain as he sat brooding and 
 scheming : then, as always, utterly self-confident. 
 
 He was startled by a burst of noise outside, — music, laughter, 
 and shouts. 
 
 " There," said Perry, bitterly, " are those Frenchmen, dan- 
 cing and singing in the hall with my Lord Godwin's head above 
 them ! " And curses bitter and deep went round the room. They 
 sat sullen and silent it may be for an hour or more ; only moving 
 when, at some fresh outbreak of revelry, the old man started from 
 his doze and asked if that was Hereward coming. 
 
 " And who is this Hereward of whom you speak ? " said Here- 
 ward at last. 
 
 " We thought you might know him, Sir Knight, if you come 
 from Flanders, as you say you do," said three or four voices in a 
 surprised and surly tone. 
 
 " Certainly I know such a man, if he be Hereward the wolf's- 
 head, Hereward the outlaw, as they call him. And a good soldier 
 he is, though he be not yet made a knight ; and married, too, to 
 a rich and fair lady. I served under this Hereward a few months 
 ago in the Friesland War, and know no man whom I would sooner 
 follow." 
 
 " Nor I neither,'" chimed in Martin Lightfoot from the other 
 end of the table. 
 
182 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Nor we," cried all the men-at-arms at once, each vying witt 
 the other in extravagant stories of their hero's prowess, and in 
 asking the knight of Flanders whether they were true or not. 
 
 To avoid offending them, Hereward was forced to confess to a 
 great many deeds which he had never done : but he was right 
 glad to find that his fame had reached his native place, and that 
 he could count on the men if he needed them. 
 
 " But who is this Hereward," said he, " that he should have to 
 do with your town here ? " 
 
 Half a dozen voices at once told him his own story. 
 
 " I always heard," said he, dryly, " that that gentleman was of 
 some very noble kin ; and I will surely tell him all that has be- 
 fallen here as soon as I return to Flanders." 
 
 At last they grew sleepy, and the men went out and brought 
 in bundles of sweet rush, and spread them against the wall, and 
 prepared to lie down, each his weapon by his side. And when 
 they were lain down, Hereward beckoned to him Perry and 
 Martin Lighlfoot, and went out into the back yard, under the 
 pretence of seeing to his horse. 
 
 " Perry Surturbrandsson," said he, " you seem to be an honest 
 man, as we in foreign parts hold all the Danelager to be. Now 
 it is fixed in my mind to go up, and my servant, to your hall, and 
 see what those French upstarts are about. Will you trust me to 
 go, without my fleeing back here if I am found out, or in any way 
 bringing you to harm by mixing you up in my private matters? 
 And will you, if I do not come back, keep for your own the horse 
 which is in your stable, and give moreover this purse and this 
 ring to your lady, if you can find means to see her face to face ; 
 and say thus to her, — that he that sent that purse and ring may 
 be found, if he be alive, at St. Omer, with Baldwin, Count of 
 Flanders ; and that if he be dead, as he is like enough to be, his 
 trade being naught but war, she will still find at St. Omer a 
 home and wealth and friends, till these evil times be overpast?" 
 
 As Hereward had spoken with some slight emotion, he had 
 dropped unawares his assumed Flemish accent, and had spoken 
 in broad burly Lincolnshire ; and therefore it was that Perry, 
 who had been staring at him by the moonlight all the while, said, 
 when he was done, tremblingly, — 
 
 " Either you are Hereward, or you are his fetch. You speak 
 like Hereward, you look like Hereward. Just what Hereward 
 would be now, you are. You are my lord, and you cannot deny ■ 
 it." 
 
 " Perry, if you know me, speak of me to no living soul, save to 
 your lady my mother ; and let ine and my serving-man go free 
 out of your yard-gate. If I ask you before morning to open it 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 183 
 
 again to me, you will know that there is not a Frenchman left in 
 the Hall of Bourne." 
 
 Perry threw his arms around him, and embraced him silently. 
 
 " Get me only," said Hereward, " some long woman's gear 
 and black mantle, if you can, to cover this bright armor of mine." 
 
 Perry went off in silence as one stunned, — brought the mantle, 
 and let them out of the yard-gate. In ten minutes more, the 
 two slipping in by well-known paths, stood under the gable of the 
 great hall. Not a soul w&s stirring outside. The serfs were all 
 cowering in their huts like so many rabbits in their burrows, 
 listening in fear to the revelry of their new tyrants. The night 
 was dark : but not so dark but that Hereward could see between 
 him and the sky his brother's long locks floating in the breeze. 
 
 " That I must have down, at least," said he, in a low voice. 
 
 " Then here is wherewithal," said Martin Lightfoot, as he 
 stumbled over something. " The drunken villains have left the 
 ladder in the yard." 
 
 Hereward got up the ladder, took down the head and wrapped 
 it in the cloak, and ere he did so kissed the cold forehead. How 
 he had hated that boy ! Well, at least he had never wilfully 
 harmed him, — or the boy him either, for that matter. And now 
 he had died like a man, killing his foe. He was of the true old 
 blood after all. And Hereward felt that he would have given all 
 that he had, save his wife or his sword-hand, to have that boy 
 alive again, to pet him, and train him, and teach him to fight 
 at his side. 
 
 Then he slipped round to one of the narrow unshuttered win- 
 dows and looked in. The hall was in a wasteful blaze of light, — 
 a whole month's candles burning in one night. The table was 
 covered with all his father's choicest plate ; the wine was running 
 waste upon the floor ; the men were rolling at the table in every 
 stage of drunkenness ; the loose women, camp-followers, and such 
 like, almost as drunk as their masters ; and at the table head, 
 most drunk of all, sat, in Earl Leofric's seat, the new Lord of 
 Bourne. 
 
 Hereward could scarce believe his eyes. He was none other 
 than Gilbert of Ghent's stout Flemish cook, whom he had seen 
 many a' time in Scotland. Hereward turned from the window in 
 disgust ; but looked again as he heard words which roused his 
 anger still more. 
 
 For in the open space nearest the door stood a gleeman, a 
 dancing, harping, foul-mouthed fellow, who was showing off ape's 
 tricks, jesting against the English, and shuffling about in mock- 
 eries of English dancing. At some particularly coarse jest of 
 his, the new Lord of Bourne burst into a roar of admiration. 
 
184 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Ask what thou wilt, fellow, and thou shalt have it. Thou 
 wilt find me a better master to thee than ever was Morcar, the 
 English barbarian." 
 
 The scoundrel, say the old chroniclers, made a request con- 
 cerning Hereward's family which cannot be printed here. 
 
 Hereward ground his teeth. " If thou livest till morning light," 
 said he, " 1 will not." 
 
 The last brutality awoke some better feeling in one of the 
 girls, — a large coarse Fleming, who' sat by the new lord's side. 
 " Fine words," said she, scornfully enough, " for the sweepings 
 of Norman and Flemish kennels. You forget that you left one 
 of this very Leofric's sons behind in Flanders, who would besom 
 all out if he was here before the morning's dawn." 
 
 " Hereward ? " cried the cook, striking her down with a drunken 
 blow ; " the scoundrel who stole the money which the Frisians 
 sent to Count Baldwin, and gave it to his own troops? "We 
 are safe enough from him at all events ; he dare not show his 
 face on this side the Alps, for fear of the gallows." 
 
 Hereward had heard enough. He slipped down from the 
 window to Martin, and led him round the house. 
 
 " Now then, down with the ladder quick, and dash in the door. 
 I go in : stay thou outside. If any man passes me, see that he 
 pass not thee." 
 
 Martin chuckled a ghostly laugh as he helped the ladder down. 
 In another moment the door was burst in, and Hereward stood 
 upon the threshold. He gave one war-shout, — his own terrible 
 name, — and then rushed forward. As he passed the gleeman, he 
 gave him one stroke across the loins ; the wretch fell shrieking. 
 
 And then began a murder, grim and great. They fought with 
 ale-cups, with knives, with benches : but, drunken and unarmed, 
 they were hewn down like sheep. Fourteen Normans, says the 
 chronicler, were in the hall when Hereward burst in. When the 
 sun rose there were fourteen heads upon the gable. Escape had 
 been impossible. Martin had laid the ladder across the door ; 
 and the few who escaped the master's terrible sword, stumbled 
 over it, to be brained by the man's not less terrible axe. 
 
 Then Hereward took up his brother's head, and went in to his 
 mother. 
 
 The women in the bower opened to him. They had seen all 
 that passed from the gallery above, which, as usual, hidden by a 
 curtain, enabled the women to watch unseen what passed in the 
 hall below. 
 
 The Lady Godiva sat crouched together, all but alone, — for 
 her bower-maidens had fled or been carried off long since, — upon 
 a low stool beside a long dark thing covered with a pall. So 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 185 
 
 Dllerly crushed was she, that she did not even lift up her head as 
 Hereward entered. 
 
 He placed his ghastly burden reverently beneath the pall, and 
 then went and knelt before his mother. 
 
 For a while neither spoke a word. Then the Lady Godiva 
 suddenly drew back her hood, and dropping on her knees, threw 
 her arms round Hereward's neck, and wept till she could weep 
 no more. 
 
 " Blessed strong arms," sobbed she at last, " around me ! To 
 feel something left in the world to protect me ; something left in 
 the world which loves me." 
 
 " You forgive me, mother ? " 
 
 " You forgive me ? It was I, I who was in fault, — I, who 
 should have cherished you, my strongest, my bravest, my noblest, 
 — now my all." , 
 
 " No, it was all my fault ; and on my head is all this misery. 
 If I had been here, as I ought to have been, all this might have 
 never happened." 
 
 " You would only have been murdered too. No : thank God 
 you were away ; or God would have taken you with the rest. 
 His arm is bared against me, and His face turned away from me. 
 All in vain, in vain ! Vain to have washed my hands in inno- 
 cency, and worshipped Him night and day. Vain to have builded 
 minsters in his honor, and heaped the shrines of his saints with 
 gold. Vain to have fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and 
 washed the feet of his poor, that I might atone for my own sins, 
 and the sins of my house. This j^ His answer. He has taken 
 me up, and dashed me down : and naught is left but, like Job, 
 to abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes — of I know not 
 what." 
 
 " God has not deserted you. See, He has sent you me ! " said 
 Hereward, wondering to find himself, of all men on earth, preach- 
 ing consolation. 
 
 " Yes, I have you ! Hold me. Love me. Let me feel that 
 one thing loves me upon earth. I want love ; I must have it : 
 and if God, and his mother, and all the saints, refuse their love, 
 I must turn to the creature, and ask it to love me, but for a day." 
 
 " Forever, mother." 
 
 " You will not leave me ? " 
 
 " If I do, I come back, to finish what I have begun." 
 
 " More Ijlood ? O God ! Hereward, not that ! Let us return 
 good for evil. Let us take up our crosses. Let us humble our- 
 selves under God's hand, and flee into some convent, and there 
 die praying for our country and our kin." 
 
 " Men must work, while women pray. I will take you to a 
 minster, — to Petetborough." 
 
186 HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " No, not to Peterborough ! " 
 
 " But my Uncle Brand is abbot there, they tell me, now this 
 four years ; and that rogue Herluin, prior in his place." 
 
 " He is dying, — dying of a broken heart, like me. And the 
 Frenchman has given his abbey to one Thorold, the tyrant of 
 Malmesbury, — a Frenchman like himself. No, take me where 
 I shall never see a French face. Take rae to Crowland — and 
 him with me — where I shall see naught but En^ish faces, and 
 hear English chants, and die a free Englishwoman under St. 
 Guthlac's wings." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Hereward, bitterly, " St. Guthlac is a right Eng- 
 lishman, and will have some sort of fellow-feeling for us ; while 
 St. Peter, of course, is somewhat too fond of Rome and those 
 Italian monks. Well, — blood is thicker than water ; so I hardly 
 blame the blessed Apostle." 
 
 " Do not talk so, Hereward." 
 
 " Much the saints have done for us, mother, that we are to be 
 BO very respectful to their high mightinesses. I fear, if this 
 Frenchman goes on with his plan of thrusting his monks into our 
 abbeys, I shall have to do more even for St. Guthlac than ever 
 he did for me. Do not say more, mother. This night has made 
 Hereward a new man. Now, prepare " — and she knew what he 
 meut — " and gather all your treasures ; and we will start for 
 Crowland to-morrow afternoon." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HOW HEKEWAED WAS MADE A KNIGHT AFTER THE FASHION 
 OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 A WILD night was that in Bourne. All the folk, free and un- 
 free, man and woman, out on the streets, asking the meaning of 
 those terrible shrieks, followed by a more terrible silence. 
 
 At last Hereward strode down from the hall, his drawn sword 
 in his hand. 
 
 " Silence, good folks, and hearken to me, once for all. There is 
 not a "Frenchman left alive in Bourne. If you be the men I take 
 you for, there shall not be one left alive between Wash and Hum- 
 ber. Silence, again ! " as a fierce cry of rage and joy arose, 
 and men rushed forward to take him by the hand, women to em- 
 brace him. " This is no time "or compliments, good folks, but for 
 quick wit and quick blows. For the law we fight, if we do fight; 
 and by the law we must work, fight or not. Where is the law- 
 man of the town ? " 
 
 " I was lawman last night, to see such law done as there is left," 
 said Perry. " But you are lawman now. Do as you will. We 
 will obey you." 
 
 " You shall be our lawman," shouted many voices. 
 
 " I ! Who am I ? Out-of-law, and a wolf's-head." 
 
 " We will put you back into your law, — we will give you your 
 lands in full busting." 
 
 " Never mind a busting on my behalf. Let us have a busting, 
 if we have one, for a better end than that. Now, men of Bourne, 
 I have put the coal in the bush. Dare you blow the fire till 
 the forest is aflame from south to north ? I have fought a 
 dozen of Frenchmen. Dare you fight Taillebois and Gilbert of 
 Ghent, with William, Duke of Normandy, at their back? Or 
 will you take me, here as I stand, and give me up to them as an 
 outlaw and a robber, to feed the crows outside the gates of Lin- 
 coln ? Do it, if you will. It will be the wiser plan, my friends. 
 Give me up to be judged and hanged, and so purge yourselves of 
 the villanous murder of Gilbert's cook, — your late lord and 
 master." 
 
 " Lord and master ! We are free men ! " shouted the hold- 
 
188 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 erg, or yeomen gentlemen. " We hold our lands from God and 
 the snn." 
 
 " You are our lord ! " shouted the socmen, or tenants. " Who 
 but you ? We will follow, if you will lead ! " 
 
 " Hereward is come home ! " cried a feeble voice behind; " Let 
 me come to him. Let me feel him." 
 
 And through the crowd, supported by two ladies, tottered the 
 mighty form of Surturbrand, the blind Viking. 
 
 " Hereward is come ! " cried he, as he folded his master's son 
 in his arms. " Hoi ! he is wet with blood ! Hoi ! he smells of 
 blood ! Hoi ! the ravens will grow fat now, for Hereward is 
 come home ! " 
 
 Some would have led the old man away ; but he thrust them 
 off fiercely. 
 
 " Hoi ! come wolf ! Hoi ! come kite ! Hoi ! come erne from 
 off the fen ! You followed us, and we fed you well, when Swend 
 Forkbeard brought us over the sea. Follow us now, and we 
 will feed you better still, with the mongrel Frenchers who scoff 
 at the tongue of their forefathers, and would rob their nearest 
 kinsman of land and lass. Hoi ! Swend's men ! Hoi ! Canute's 
 men ! Vikings' sons. Sea-cocks' sons. Berserkers' sons all ! Split 
 up the war-arrow, and send it round, and the curse of Odin on 
 every man that will not pass it on ! A war-king to-morrow, and 
 Hildur's game next day, that the old Surturbrand may fall like a 
 freeholder, axe in hand, and not die like a cow, in the straw 
 which the Frenchman has spared him." 
 
 All men were silent, as the old Viking's voice, cracked and 
 feeble when he began, gathered strength from rage, till it rang 
 through the still night-air like a trurapet-blast. 
 
 The silence was broken by a long wild cry from the fon^t, 
 which made the women start, and catch their children closer to 
 them. It was the howl of a wolf. 
 
 " Hark to the witch's-horse ! Hark to the son of Fenris, how 
 he calls for meat ! Are ye your fathers' sons, ye men of Bourne .' 
 They never let the gray beast call in vain." 
 
 Hereward saw his opportunity and seized it. There were 
 those in the crowd, he well knew, as there must needs be in all 
 crowds, who wished themselves well out of the business ; who 
 shrank from the thought of facing the Norman barons, much 
 more the Norman king ; who were read}' enough, had the tide of 
 feeling begun to ebb, of blaming Hereward for rashness, even 
 (hough they might not have gone so far as to give him up to the 
 Normans ; who would have advised some sort of compromise, 
 pacifying half-measure, or other weak plan for escaping present 
 danger, by delivering themselves over to future destruction. But 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 189 
 
 three out of four there were good men and true. The savage 
 chant of the old barbarian might have startled them somewhat, 
 for they were tolerably orthodox Christian folk. But there was 
 sense as well as spirit in its savageness ; and they growled ap- 
 plause, as he ceased. But Hereward heard, and cried, — 
 
 " The Viking is right ! So speaks the spirit of our fathers, 
 and we must show ourselves their true sons. Send round the 
 war-arrow, and death to the man who does not pass it on ! Bet- 
 ter die bravely together than falter, and part company, to be 
 hunted down one by one by men who will never forgive us as 
 long as we have an acre of land for them to seize. Perry, son 
 bf Surturbrand, you are the lawman. Put it to the vote ! " 
 
 " Send round the war-arrow!" shouted Perry himself; and 
 if there was a man or two wlio shrank from the proposal they 
 found it prudent to shout as loudly as did the rest. 
 
 Ere the morning light, the war-arrow was split into four splin- 
 ters, and carried out to the four airts, through all Kesteven.' If 
 the splinter were put into the house-father's hand, he must send 
 it on at once to the next freeman's house. If he were away, it 
 was stuck into his house-door, or into his great chair by the fire- 
 side, and woe to him if, on his return, he sent it not on likewise. 
 All through Kesteven went that night the arrow.-splinters, and 
 with them the whisper, " Hereward is come again ! " And be- 
 fore midday there were fifty well-armed men in the old camping- 
 field outside the town, and Hereward haranguing them in words 
 of fire. 
 
 A chill came over them, nevertheless, when he told them that 
 he must return at once to Flanders. 
 
 " But it must be," he said. He had promised his good lord 
 and sovereign, Baldwin of Flanders, and his word of honor he 
 must keep. Two visits he must pay, ere he went ; and then to 
 sea. But witliin the year, if he were alive on ground, he would 
 return, and with him ships and men, it might be with Sweyn and 
 all the power of Denmark. Only let them hold their own till 
 the Danes should come, and all would be well. And whenever 
 he came back, he would set a light to three farms that stood upon 
 a hill, whence they could be seen far and wide over the Brunes- 
 wold and over all the fen ; and then all men might know for sure 
 that Hereward was come again. 
 
 " And nine-and-forty of them," says the chronicler, " he chose 
 to guard Bourne," seemingly the lands- which had been his 
 nephew Morcar's, till he should come back and take them for 
 himself. , Godiva's lands, of Witham Toft and Mainthorpe, Gery 
 his cousin should hold till his return, and send what he could off 
 them to his mother at Crowland. 
 
190 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Then they went down to the water and took barge, and laid 
 the corpse therein ; and Godiva and Hereward sat at the dead 
 lad's head ; and Winter steered the boat, and Gwenoch took the 
 etroke-oar. 
 
 And they rowed away for Crowland, by many a mere and 
 many an ea ; through narrow reaches of clear brown glassy 
 water ; between the dark-green alders ; between the pale-green 
 reeds ; where the coot clanked, and the bittern boomed, and the 
 sedge-bird, not content witlrits own sweet song, mocked the song 
 of all the birds around ; and then out into the broad lagoons, 
 where hung motionless, high overhead, hawk beyond hawk, buz- 
 zard beyond buzzard, kite beyond kite, as far as eye could see. 
 Into the air, as they rowed on, whirred up the great skeins of 
 wild fowl innumerable, with a cry as of all the bells of Crowland, 
 or all the hounds of Bruneswold ; and clear above all the noise 
 sounded the wild whistle of the curlews, and the trumpet-note of 
 the great white swan. Out of the reeds, like an arrow, shot the 
 peregrine, singled one luckless mallard from the flock, caught 
 him up, struck him stone dead with one blow of his terrible heel, 
 and swept his prey with him into the reeds again. 
 
 " Death ! death ! death ! " said Lady Godiva, as the feathers 
 fluttered down into the boat and rested on the dead boy's pall. 
 '' War among man and beast, war on earth, war in air, war in 
 the water beneath," as a great pike rolled at his bait, sending a 
 shoal of white fish flying along the surface. "And war, says 
 holy writ, in heaven above. Thou who didst die to destroy 
 death, when will it all be over ? " 
 
 And thus they glided on from stream to stream, until they 
 came to the sacred isle of " the inheritance of the Lord, the soil 
 of St. Mary and St. Bartholomew ; the most holy sanctuary of 
 St. Guthlac and his monks ; the minster most free from worldly 
 servitude ; the special almshouse of the most illustrious kings ; 
 the sole place of refuge for any one in all tribulations ; the per- 
 petual abode of the saints ; the possession of religious men, 
 especially set apart by the Common Council of the kingdom ; by 
 reason of the frequent miracles of the most holy Confessor, an 
 ever fruitful mother of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi ; 
 and, by reason of the privileges granted by the kings, a city of 
 grace and safety to all who repent." 
 
 As they drew near, they passed every minute some fisher's 
 log canoe, in which worked with net or line the criminal who 
 had saved his life by fleeing to St. Guthlac, and becoming hia 
 man henceforth ; the slave who had fled from his master's cruelty; 
 and here and there in those evil days, the master who had fled 
 from the cruelty of Normans, who woulid have done to him as 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 191 
 
 he had done to others. But all old grudges were put away there, 
 They had sought the peace of St. Guthlac ; and ' therefore they 
 mast keep his peace, and get their living from the fish of the 
 five rivera, within the bounds whereof was peace, as of their 
 own quiet streams ; for the Abbot and fit. Guthlac were the only 
 lords thereof, and neither summoner nor sheriff of the king, or 
 armed force of knight or earl, could enter there. 
 
 At last they came to Crowland minster, — a vast range of 
 high-peaktd buildings, founded on piles of oak and hazel driven 
 into the fen, — itself built almost entirely of timber from the 
 Bruneswold ; barns, granaries, stables, workshops, stranger's hall, 
 — fit for the boundless hospitality of Crowland, — infirmary, re- 
 fectory, dormitory, library, abbot's lodgings, cloisters ; and above, 
 the great minster towering up, a steep pile, half wood, half stone, 
 with narrow round-headed windows and leaden roofs ; and above 
 all the great wooden tower, from which, on high days, chimed out 
 the melody of the seven famous bells, which had not their like in 
 English land. Guthlac, Bartholomew, and Bettelm were the 
 names of the biggest, Tnrketul and Tatwin of the middle, and 
 Pega and Bega of the smallest. So says Ingulf, who saw them 
 a few years after pouring down on his own head in streams of 
 melted metal. Outside the minster walls were the cottages of 
 the corodiers, or laboring folk ; and beyond them again the nat- 
 ural park of grass, dotted with mighty oaks and ashes ; and, be- 
 yond all those, cornlands of inexhaustible fertility, broken up by 
 the good Abbot Egelric some hundred years before, from which, 
 in times of dearth, the monks of Crowland fed the people of all 
 the neighboring fens. 
 
 They went into the great court-yard. All men were quiet, yet 
 all men were busy. Baking and brewing, carpentering and tai- 
 loring in the workshops, reading and writing in the cloister, pray- 
 ing and singing in the church, and teaching the children in the 
 school-house. Only the ancient sempects — some near upon a 
 hundred and fifty years old — wandered where they would, or 
 basked against a sunny wall, like autumn flies, with each a young 
 monk to guide him, and listen to his tattle of old days. For, 
 said the laws of Turketul the good, " Nothing disagreeable about 
 the affairs of the monastery shall be mentioned in their presence. 
 No person shall presume in any way to offend them ; but with 
 the greatest peace and tranquillity they shall await their end." 
 
 So, while the world outside raged, and fought, and conquered, 
 and plundered, they within the holy isle kept up some sort of 
 order, and justice, and usefulness, and love to God and man. 
 And about the yards, among the feet of the monks, hopped the 
 sacred ravens, descendants of those who brought back the gloves 
 
192 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 at St. Guthlac's bidding ; and overhead, under all the eaves, buill 
 the sacred swallows, the descendants of those who sat and sang 
 upon St. Guthlac's shoulders ; and when men marvelled thereat, 
 he the holy man replied : " Know that they who live the holy life 
 draw nearer to the birds of the air, even as they do to the angels 
 in heaven." 
 
 And Lady Godiva called for old Abbot Ulfketyl, the good and 
 brave, and fell upon his neck, and told him all her tale ; and 
 Ulfketyl wept upon her neck, for they were old and faithful 
 friends. 
 
 And they passed into the dark, cool church, where in the crypt 
 under the high altar lay the thumb of St. Bartholomew, which 
 old Abbot Turketul used to carry about, that he might cross him- 
 self with it in times of danger, tempest, and lightning ; and some 
 of the hair of St. Mary, Queen of Heaven, in a box; of gold ; 
 and a bone of St. Leodegar of Aquitaine ; and some few remains, 
 too, of the holy bodies of St. Guthlac ; and of St. Bettelm, his 
 servant ; and St. Tatwin, who steered him to Crowland ; and St. 
 Egbert, his confessor ; and St. Cissa the anchorite ; and of the 
 most holy virgin St. Etheldreda ; and many more. But little of 
 them remained since Sigtryg and Bagsac's heathen Danes had 
 heaped them pellmell on the floor, and burned the church over 
 them and the bodies of the slaughtered monks. 
 
 The plunder which was taken from Crowland on that evil day 
 lay, and lies still, with the plunder of Peterborough and many a 
 minster more, at the bottom of the Nene, at Huntingdon Bridge, 
 But it had been more than replaced by the piety of the Danish 
 kings and nobles ; and above the twelve white bearskins which lay 
 at the twelve altars blazed, in the light of many a wax candle, 
 gold and jewels inferior only to those of Peterborough and Cov- 
 entry. 
 
 And there in the nave they buried the lad Godwin, with chant 
 and dirge ; and when the funeral was done Hereward went up 
 toward the high altar, and bade Winter and Gwenoch come with 
 him. And there he knelt, and vowed a vow to God and St. 
 Guthlac and the Lady Torfrida his true love, never to leave 
 fi'om slaying while there was a Frenchman left alive on English 
 ground. 
 
 And Godiva and Ulfketyl heard his vow, and shuddered ; but 
 they dared not stop hira, for they, too, had English hearts. 
 
 And Winter and Gwenoch heard it, and repeated it word for 
 word. 
 
 Then he kissed his mother, and called Winter and Gwenoch, 
 and went forth. He would be back again, he said, on the third 
 flay. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 193 
 
 Then those three went to Peterborough, and asked for Abbol 
 Brand. And the monks let them in ; for the fame of their deed 
 had passed through the forest, and all the French had fled. 
 
 And old Brand lay back in his great arm-chair, his legs all 
 muffled up in furs, for he could get no heat ; and by him stood 
 Herluin the prior, and wondered when he would die, and Thorold 
 take his place, and they should drive out the old Gregorian chants 
 from the choir, and have the new Norman chants of Robert of 
 Fecamp, and bring in French-Roman customs in all things, and 
 rule the English boors with a rod of iron. 
 
 And old Brand knew all that was in his heart, and looked up 
 like a patient ox beneath the butcher's axe, and said, " Have 
 patience with me. Brother Herluin, and I will die as soon as I 
 can, and go where there is neither French nor English, Jew nor 
 Gentile, bond or free, but all are alike in the eyes of Him who 
 made them." 
 
 But when he saw Hereward come in, he cast the mufflers off 
 him, and sprang up from his chair, and was young and strong 
 in a moment, and for a moment. 
 
 And he threw his arms round Hereward, and wept upon his 
 neck, as his mother had done. And Hereward wepf upon his 
 neck, though he had not wept upon his mother's. 
 
 Then Brand held him at arras' length, or thought he held him, 
 for he was leaning on Hereward, and tottering all the while ; and 
 extolled him as the champion, the warrior, the stay of his house, 
 the avenger of his kin, the hero of whom he had always prophe- 
 sied that his kin would need him, and that then he would not fail. 
 
 But Hereward answered him modestly and mildly, — 
 
 " Speak not so to me and of me. Uncle Brand. I am a very 
 foolish, vain, sinful man, who have come through great adven- 
 tures, I know not how, to great and strange happiness, and now 
 again to great and strange sorrows ; and to an adventure greater 
 and stranger than all that has befallen me from my youth up 
 until now. Therefore make me not proud. Uncle Brand, but 
 keep me modest and lowly, as befits all true knigiits and penitent 
 sinners ; for they tell me that God resists the proud, and giveth 
 grace to the humble. And I have that to do which do I cannot, 
 unless 'Grod and his saints give me grace from this day forth." 
 
 Brand looked at him, astonished ; and then turned to Herluin. 
 
 " Did I not tell thee, prior ? This is the lad whom you called 
 graceless and a savage ; and see, since he has been in foreign 
 lands, and seen the ways of knights, he talks as clerkly a^ a 
 Frenchman, and as piously as any monk." 
 
 " The Lord Hereward," said Herluin, " has doubtless learned 
 much from the manners of our nation which he would not have 
 9 M 
 
194 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 learned in England. I rejoice to see him returned so Christian 
 and so courtly a knight." 
 
 " The Lord Hereward, Prior Herluin, has learnt one thing in 
 his travels, — to know somewhat of men and the hearts of men, 
 and to deal with them as they deserve of him. They tell me 
 that one Thorold of Malmesbury, — Thorold of Fecamp, the 
 minstrel, he that made the song of Rowland, — that he desires 
 this abbey." 
 
 " I have so heard, my lord." 
 
 " Then I command, — I, Hereward, Lord of Bourne ! — that 
 this abbey be held against him and all Frenchmen, in the name 
 of Swend Ulfsson, king of England, and of me. And he that 
 admits a Frenchman therein, I will shave his crown for him so 
 well, that he shall never need razor more. This I tell thee ; and 
 this I shall tell your monks before I go. And unless you obey 
 the same, my dream will be fulfilled ; and you will see Golden- 
 bregh in a light low, and burning yourselves in the midst thereof." 
 
 " Swend Ulfsson ? Swend of Denmark ? What words are 
 these?" cried Brand. 
 
 " You will know within six months, uncle." 
 
 " I shall know better things, my boy, before six months are out." 
 
 " Uncle, uncle, do not say that." 
 
 " Why not ? If this mortal life be at best a prison and a grave, 
 what is it worth now to an Englishman ? " 
 
 " More than ever ; for never had an Englishman such a chance 
 of showing English mettle, and winning renown for the English 
 name. Uncle, you must do something for me and my comrades 
 ere we go." 
 
 "Well, boy?" 
 
 " Make us knights." 
 
 " Knights, lad ? I thought you had been a belted knight this 
 dozen years ? " 
 
 " I might have been made a knight by many, after the French 
 fashion, many a year agone. I might have been knight when I 
 slew the white bear. Ladies have prayed me to be knighted 
 again and again since. Something kept me from it. Perhaps " 
 (with a glance at Herluin) " I wanted to show that an Eng- 
 lish squire could be the rival and the leader of French and Flem- 
 ish knights." 
 
 " And thou hast shown it, brave lad ! " said Brand, clapping his 
 great hands. 
 
 " Perhaps I longed to do some mighty deed at last, which 
 would give me a right to go to the bravest knight in all Christen- 
 dom, and say, ' Give me the accolade, then ! Thou only art 
 worthy to knight as good a man as thyself.'" 
 
 ■' Pride and vainglory," said Brand, shaking his head. 
 
HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. l95 
 
 " But now I am of a sounder mind. I see now why I was 
 kept from being knighted, — till I had done a deed worthy of a 
 true knight; till I had mightily avenged the wronged, and 
 mightily succored the oppressed ; till I had purged my soul of 
 my enmity against my own kin, and could go out into the world a 
 new man, with my mother's blessing on my head." 
 
 " But not of the robbery of St. Peter," said Herluin. The 
 French monk wanted not for moral courage, — no French monk 
 did in those days. And he proved it by those words. 
 
 " Do not anger the lad, Prior ; now, too, above all times, when 
 his heart is softened toward the Lord." 
 
 " He has not angered me. The man is right. Here, Lord 
 Abbot and Sir Prior, is a chain of gold, won in the wars. It is 
 worth fifty times the sixteen pence which I stole, and which I 
 repaid double. Let St. Peter take it, for the sins of me and my 
 two comrades, and forgive. And now, Sir Prior, I do to thee 
 what I never did for mortal man. I kneel, and ask thy forgive- 
 ness. Kneel, Winter ! Kneel, Gwenoch ! " And Hereward knelt. 
 
 Herluin was of double mind. He longed to keep Hereward out 
 of St. Peter's grace. He longed to see Hereward dead at his feet ; 
 not because of any personal hatred, but because he foresaw in him 
 a terrible foe to the Norman cause. But he wished, too, to involve 
 Abbot Brand as much as possible in Here ward's "rebellions" and 
 " misdeeds," and above all, in the master-offence of knighting him ; 
 for for that end, he saw, Hereward was come. Moreover, he was 
 touched with the sudden frankness and humility of the famous 
 champion. So he answered mildly, — 
 
 " Verily, thou hast a knightly soul. May God and St. Peter 
 so forgive thee and thy companions as I forgive thee, freely and 
 from my heart." 
 
 " Now," cried Hereward, " a boon ! a boon ! Knight me and 
 these my fellows, Uncle Brand, this day." 
 
 Brand was old and weak, and looked at Herluin. 
 
 " I know," said Hereward, " that the French look on us Eng- 
 lish monk-made knights as spurious and adulterine, unwortliy of 
 the name of knight. But, I hold — and what churchman will 
 gainsay me ? — that it is nobler to receive sword and belt from a 
 man of God than from a man of blood like one's self; the fittest 
 to consecrate the soldier of an earthly king, is the soldier of 
 Christ, the King of kings." * 
 
 " He speaks well," said Herluin. " Abbot, grant him his boon." 
 
 " Who celebrates high mass to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Wilton the priest, the monk of Ely," said Herluin, aloud, 
 " And a very dangerous and stubborn Englishman," added lie to 
 himself. 
 
 * Almost word for word from the " Life of Hereward." 
 
196 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Good. Then this night you shall watch in the church. To« 
 morrow, after the Gospel, the thing shall be done as you will." 
 
 That night two messengers, knights of the Abbot, galloped 
 from Peterborough. One to Ivo Taillebois at Spalding, to tell 
 him that Hereward was at Peterborough, and that he must try to 
 cut him off upon the Egelric's road, the causeway which one of 
 the many Abbots Egehic had made, some thirty years before, 
 through Deeping Fen to Spalding, at an enormous expense of 
 labor and of timber. The other knight rode south, along the 
 Roman road to London, to tell King William of the rising of 
 Kesteven, and all the evil deeds of Hereward and of Brand. 
 
 And old Brand slept quietly in his bed, little thinking on what 
 errands his prior had sent his knights. 
 
 Hereward and his comrades watched that night in St. Peter's 
 church. Oppressed with weariness of body, and awe of mind, 
 they heard the monks drone out their chants through the misty 
 gloom ; they confessed the sins — and they were many — of their 
 past wild lives. They had to summon up within themselves cour- 
 age and strength henceforth to live, not for themselves, but for 
 the fatherland which they hoped to save. They prayed to all the 
 heavenly powers of that Pantheon which then stood between man 
 and God, to help them in the coming struggle ; but ere the morn- 
 ing dawned, they were nodding, unused to any long strain of mind. 
 
 Suddenly Hereward started, and sprang up, with a cry of fire. 
 
 " What ? Where ? " cried his comrades, and the monks who 
 ran up. 
 
 " The minster is ftill of flame. No use ! too late ! you cannot 
 put it out ! It must burn." 
 
 " You have been dreaming," said one. 
 
 " I have not," said Hereward. " Is it Lammas night? " 
 
 " What a question ! It is the vigil of the Nativity of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul." 
 
 '■ Thank heaven ! I thought my old Lammas night's dream was 
 coming true at last." 
 
 Herluin heard, and knew what he meant. 
 
 After which Hereward was silent, filled with many thoughts. 
 
 The next morning, before the high mass, those three brave 
 men walked up to the altar ; laid thereon their belts and swords ; 
 and then knelt humbly at the foot of the steps till the Gospel was 
 finished. 
 
 Then came down from the altar Wilton of Ely, and laid on 
 each man's bare neck the bare blade, and bade him take back 
 his sword in the name of God and of St. Peter and St. Paul, and 
 use it like a true knight, for a terror and punishment to evil-doers, 
 and a defence for women and orphans, and the poor and the op- 
 pressed, and the monks the servants of God. 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 197 
 
 And then the monks girded each man with his belt and sword 
 once more. And after mass was sung, they rose and went forth, 
 each feeling himself — and surely not in vain — a bet*,er man. 
 
 At least this is certain, that Hereward would say to his dying 
 day, how he had often proved that none would fight so well as 
 those who had received their sword from God's knights the monks. 
 And therefore he would have, in after years, almost all liis com- 
 panions knighted by the monks ; and brought into Ely with him 
 that same good custom which he had learnt at Peterborough, and 
 kept it up as long as he held the isle. 
 
 So says the chronicler Leofric, the minstrel and priest. 
 
 It was late when they got back to Crowland. The good Abbot 
 received them with a troubled face. 
 
 " As I feared, my Lord, you have been too hot and hasty. The 
 French have raised the country against you." 
 
 " I have raised it against them, my lord. But we have news 
 that Sir Frederick — " 
 
 " And who may he be ? " 
 
 •' A very terrible Goliath of these French ; old and crafty, a 
 brother of old Earl Warrenne of Norfolk, whom God confound. 
 And he has sworn to have your life, and has gathered knights and 
 men-at-arms at Lynn in Norfolk." 
 
 " Very good ; I will visit him as I go home, Lord Abbot. Not 
 a word of this to any soul." 
 
 " I tremble for thee, thou young David." 
 
 " One cannot live forever, my lord. Farewell." 
 
 A week after, a boatman brought news to Crowland, how Sir 
 Frederick was sitting in his inn at Lynn, when there came in one 
 with a sword, and said : " I am Hereward. I was told that thou 
 didst desire, greatly, to see me ; therefore I am come, being a 
 courteous knight," and therewith smote oif his head. And when 
 the knights and others would have stopped him, he cut his way 
 through them, killing some three or four at each stroke, himself 
 unhurt ; for he was clothed from head to foot in magic armor, 
 and whosoever smote it, their swords melted in their hands. 
 And so, gaining the door, he vanished in a great cloud of sea-fowl, 
 that cried forever, " Hereward is come home again ! " 
 
 And after that, the fen-men said to each other, that all the 
 birds upon the meres cried nothing, save " Hereward is come 
 home again ! " 
 
 And so, already suri-ounded with myth and mystery, Here- 
 ward flashed into the fens and out again, like the lightning brand, 
 destroying as he passed. And the hearts of all the French were 
 turned to water ; and the land had peace from its tyrants for 
 many days. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 HOW rVO TAILLEBOIS MARCHED OUT OF SPALDING TOWN. 
 
 A PROUD man was Ivo Taillebois, as he rode next morning out 
 of Spalding town, with hawk on fist, and hound at heel, and a 
 dozen men-at-arms at his back, who would, on due or undue cause 
 shown, hunt men while he hunted game. 
 
 An adventurer from Anjou, brutal, ignorant, and profligate, — 
 low-born, too (for his own men whispered, behind his back, that 
 he was no more than his name hinted, a wood-cutter's son), he still 
 had his deserts. Valiant he was, cunning, and skilled in war. 
 He and his troop of Angevine ruttiers had fought like tigers by 
 William's side, at Hastings ; and he had been rewarded with 
 many a manor, which had been Earl Algar's, and should now 
 have been Earl Edwin's, or Morcar's, or, it may be, Hereward's 
 own. 
 
 " A fat land and fair," said he to himself; " and, after I have 
 hanged a few more of these barbarians, a peaceful fief enough 
 to hand down to the lawful heirs of my body, if I had one. I 
 must marry. Blessed Virgin ! this it is to serve and honor your 
 gracious majesty, as I have always done according to my poor 
 humility. Who would have thought that Ivo Taillebois would 
 ever rise so high in life as to be looking out for a wife, — and 
 that a lady, too?" 
 
 Then thought he over the peerless beauties of the Lady Lucia, 
 Edwin and Morcar's sister, almost as fair as that hapless aunt of 
 hers, — first married (though that story is now denied) to the 
 wild Griffin, Prince of Snowdon, and then to his conqueror, and 
 (by complicity) murderer, Harold, the hapless king. Eddeva 
 faira, Eddeva pulcra, stands her name in Domesday-book even 
 now, known, even to her Norman conquerors, as the Beauty of 
 her time, as Godiva, her mother, had -been before her. Scarcely 
 less beautiful was Lucia, as Ivo had seen her at William's court, 
 half captive and half guest : and he longed for her ; love her he 
 could not. " I have her father's lands," quoth he ; " what more 
 reasonable than to have the daughter, too ? And have her I will, 
 unless the Mamzer, in his present merciful and politic mood, makea 
 a, Countess of her, and marries her up to some Norman coxcombj 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 199 
 
 with a long pedigree, — invented the year before last. If he 
 does throw away his daughter on that Earl Edwin, in his fancy 
 for petting and patting these savages into good humor, he is 
 not likely to throw away Edwin's sister on a Taillebois. Well, 
 I must put a spoke in Edwin's wheel. It will not be diflScult to 
 make hira, or Morcar, or both of them, traitors. We must have 
 a rebellion in these parts. I will talk about it to Gilbert of 
 Ghent. We must make these savages desperate, and William 
 furious, or he will be soon giving them back their lands, beside 
 asking them to Court : and then, how are valiant knights, like us, 
 ■who' have won England for him, to be paid for their trouble? 
 No, no. We must have a rebellion, and a confiscation, and then, 
 when English lasses are going cheap, perhaps the Lady Lucia 
 may fall to my share." 
 
 And Ivo Taillebois kept his word ; and without difficulty, for 
 he had many to help him. To drive the English to desperation, 
 and get a pretext for seizing their lands, was the game which the 
 Normans played, and but too well. 
 
 As he rode out of Spalding town, a man was being hanged on 
 the- gallows there permanently provided. 
 
 That was so common a sight, that Ivo would not have stopped, 
 had not a priest, who was comforting the criminal, ran forward, 
 and almost thrown himself under the horse's feet. 
 
 " Mercy, good my Lord, in the name of God and all his 
 saints ! " 
 
 Ivo went to ride on. 
 
 " Mercy ! " and he laid hands on Ivo's bridle. " If he took a 
 few pike out of your mere, remember that the mere was his, and 
 his fathers before him ; and do not send a sorely tempted soul 
 out of the world for a paltry pike." 
 
 "And where am I to get fish for Lent, Sir Priest, if every 
 rascal nets my waters, because his father did so before him ? 
 Take your hand off my bridle, or, par le splendeur Dex " (Ivo 
 thought it fine to use King William's favorite oath), " I will hew 
 it off!" 
 
 The priest looked at him, with something of honest English 
 fierceness in his eyes, and dropping the bridle, muttered to him- 
 self in Latin : " The bloodthirsty and deceitful man shall not live 
 out half his days. Nevertheless my trust shall be in Thee, 
 Lord ! " 
 
 "What art muttering, beast? Go home to thy wife" (wife 
 was by no means the word which Ivo used) " and make the most 
 of her, before I rout out thee and thy fellow-canons, and put in 
 good monks from Normandy in the place of your drunken Eng- 
 lish swine. Hang him ! " shouted he, as the by-standers fdl on 
 
200 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 their knees before the tyrant, crouching in terror, every woman 
 for her husband, every man for wife and daughter. "And hearken, 
 you fen-frogs all. Who touches pike or eel, swimming or wading 
 fowl, within these meres of mine, without my leave, I will hang 
 him as I hanged this man, — as I hanged four brothers in a row 
 on Wrokesham bridge but yesterday." 
 
 " Go to Wrokesham bridge and see," shouted a shriU cracked 
 voice from behind the crowd. 
 
 All looked round ; and more than one of Ivo's men set up a 
 yell, the hangman loudest of all. 
 
 " That 's he, the heron, again ! Catch him ! Stop him ! Shoot 
 him ! " 
 
 But that was not so easy. As Ivo pushed his horse through 
 the crowd, careless of whom he crushed, he saw a long lean 
 figure flying through the air seven feet aloft, with his heels higher 
 than his head, on the further side of a deep broad ditch ; and on 
 the nearer side of the same one of his best men lying stark, with 
 a cloven skull. 
 
 " Go to Wrokesham ! " shrieked the lean man, as he rose and 
 showed a ridiculously long nose, neck, and legs, — a type stiU not 
 uncommon in the fens, — a quilted leather coat, a double-bladed 
 axe slung over his bhoulder by a thong, a round shield at his back, 
 and a pole three times as long as himself, which he dragged after 
 him, like an unwieldy tail. 
 
 " The heron ! the heron ! " shouted the English. 
 
 " Follow him, men, heron or hawk ! " shouted Ivo, galloping 
 his horse up to the ditch, and stopping short at fifteen feet of 
 water. 
 
 " Shoot, some one ! Where are the bows gone ? " 
 
 The heron was gone two hundred yards, running, in spite of 
 liis pole, at a wonderful pace, before a bow could be brought to 
 bear. He seemed to expect an arrow ; for he stopped, glanced 
 his eye round, threw himself flat on his face, with his shield, not 
 over his body, but over his bare legs ; sprang up as the shaft 
 stuck in the ground beside him, ran on, planted his pole in the 
 next dike, and flew over it. 
 
 In a few minutes he was beyond pursuit; and Ivo turned, 
 breathless with rage, to ask who he was. 
 
 " Alas, sir ! he is the man who set free the four men at Wrokes- 
 ham Bridge last night." 
 
 ' Set free ! Are they not hanged and dead ? " 
 
 " We — we dare not tell you. But he came upon us — " 
 
 " Single-handed, you cowards ? " 
 
 " Sir, he is not a man, but a witch or *■ devil. He asked us 
 what we did there. One of our men laughed at his long neck 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 201 
 
 and legs, and called him heron. ' Heron I am,' says he, ' and 
 strike like a heron, right at the eyes ' ; and with that he cuts the 
 man over the face with his axe, and laid him dead, and then 
 another, and another. ' 
 
 " Till you all ran away, villains ! " 
 
 " We gave back a step, — no more. And he freed one of those 
 four, and he again the rest ; and then they all set on us, and went 
 to hang us in their own stead." 
 
 " When there were ten of you, I thought ? " 
 
 " Sir, as we told you, he is no mortal man, but a fiend." 
 
 "Beasts, fools! Well, I have hanged this one, at least!" 
 growled Ivo, and then rode sullenly on. 
 
 " Who is this fellow ? " cried he to the trembling English. 
 
 " Wulfric Eaher, Wulfric the Heron, of Wrokesham in Nor- 
 folk." 
 
 "Aha! And I hold a manor of his," said Ivo to himself. 
 " Look you, villains, this fellow is in league with you." 
 
 A burst of abject denial followed. " Since the French, — since 
 Sir Frederick, as they call him, drove him out of his Wrokes- 
 ham lands, he wanders the country, as you see : to-day here, but 
 Heaven only knows where he will be to-morrow." 
 
 " And finds, of course, a friend everywhere. Now march ! " 
 And a string of threats and curses followed. 
 
 It was hard to see why Wulfric should not have found friends ; 
 as he was simply a small holder, or squire, driven out of house 
 and land, and turned adrift on the wide world, for the offence of 
 having fought in Harold's army at the battle of Hastings. But 
 to give him food or shelter was, in Norman eyes, an act of rebel- 
 lion against the rightful King William ; and Ivo rode on, boiling 
 over with righteous indignation, along the narrow drove which 
 led toward Deeping. 
 
 A pretty lass came along the drove, driving a few sheep before 
 her, and spinning as she walked. 
 
 " Whose lass are you ? " shouted Ivo. 
 
 "The Abbot's of Crowland, please your lordship,'' said she, 
 trembling. 
 
 " Much too pretty to belong to monks. Chuck her up behind 
 you, one of you." 
 
 The shrieking and struggling girl was mounted behind a horse- 
 man and bound, and Ivo rode on. 
 
 A woman ran out of a turf-hut on the drove side, attracted by 
 the girl's cries. It was her mother. 
 
 '' My lass ! Give me my lass, for the love of St. Mary and 
 all saints ! " and she clung to Ivo's bridle. 
 
 He struck her down, and rode on over her. 
 9* 
 
202 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 A man cutting sedges in a punt in the lode alongside looked 
 up at the girl's shrieks, and leapt on shore, scythe in hand. 
 
 "Father! father!" cried she. 
 
 " I '11 rid thee, lass, or die for it," said he, as he sprang up the 
 drove-dike and swept right and left at the horses' legs. 
 
 The men recoiled. One horse went down, lamed for life; 
 another staggered backwards into the further lode, and was 
 drowned. But an arrow went through the brave serf's he^rt, _ 
 and Ivo rode on, cursing more bitterly than ever, and comforted 
 himself by flying his hawks at a covey of patridges. 
 
 Soon a group came along the drove which promised fresh sport 
 to the man-hunters : but as the foremost person came up, Ivo 
 stopped in wonder at the shout of, — 
 
 " Ivo ! Ivo Taillebois ! Halt and have a care ! The English 
 are risen, and we are all dead men ! " 
 
 The words were spoken in French ; and in French Ivo an- 
 swered, laughing, — 
 
 " Thou art not a dead man yet it seems. Sir Robert ; art going 
 on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, that thou comest in this fashion ? Or 
 dost mean to return to Anjou as bare as thou earnest out of it ? " 
 
 For Sir Robert had, like Edgar, " reserved himself a blanket, 
 else had we all been shamed." 
 
 But very little more did either he, his lady, and his three chil- 
 dren wear, as they trudged along the drove, in even poorer case 
 than that 
 
 Robert of Coningsby, 
 Who came out of Normandy, 
 With his wife Tiffany, 
 And his maid Manpas, 
 And his dog Hardigras. 
 
 " For the love of heaven and all chivalry, joke me no jokes, 
 Sir Ivo, but give me and mine clothes and food ! The barbarians 
 rose on us last night, — with Azer, the ruffian who owned my 
 lands, at their head, and drove us out into the night as we are, 
 bidding us carry the news to you, for your turn would come next. 
 There are forty or more of them in West Deeping now, and 
 coming eastward, they say, to visit you, and, what is more than 
 all, Hereward is come agafn." 
 
 " Hereward ! " cried Ivo, who knew that name well. 
 
 "Whereon Sir Robert told him the terrible tragedy of Bourne. 
 
 " Mount the lady on a horse, and wrap her in my cloak. Get 
 that dead villain's clothes for Sir Robert as we go back. Put 
 your horses' heads about and ride for Spalding." 
 
 " What shall we do with the lass ? " 
 
 " We cannot be burdened with the jade. She has cost us two 
 good horses already. Leave her in the road, bound as she is, 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 203 
 
 and let us see if St. Guthlac her master will come and untie 
 her." 
 
 So they rode back. Coming from Deeping two hours after, 
 Azer and his men found the gii-l on the road, dead. 
 
 " Another count in the long score," quoth Azer. But when, 
 in two hours more, they came to Spalding town, they found all 
 the folk upon the street, shouting and praising the host of Heaven. 
 There was not a Frenchman left in the town. 
 
 For when Ivo returned home, ere yet Sir Robert and his fam- 
 ily were well clothed and fed, there galloped into Spalding from 
 the north Sir Ascelin, nephew and man of Thorold, would-be 
 Abbot of Peterborough, and one of the garrison of Lincoln, which 
 ■was then held by Hereward's old friend, Gilbert of Ghent. 
 
 " Not bad news, I hope," cried Ivo, as Ascelin clanked into the 
 hall. " We have enough of our own. Here is all Kesteven, as 
 the barbarians call it, risen, and they are murdering us right and 
 left." 
 
 « Worse news than that, Ivo Taillebois," (" Sir," or « Sieur," 
 Ascelin was loath to call him, being himself a man of family and 
 fashion ; and holding the nouveaux venus in deep, contempt,) 
 • — " worse news than that : the North has risen again, and pro- 
 claimed Prince Edgar King." 
 
 " A king of words ! What care I, or you, as long as The Mam- 
 zer, God bless him ! is a king of deeds ? " 
 
 "They have done their deeds, though, too. Gospatrick and 
 Merlesweyn are back out of Scotland. They attacked Robert de 
 Comines * at Durham, and burnt him in his own house. Thei-e 
 was but one of his men got out of Durham to tell the news. And 
 now they have marched on York ; and all the chiefs, they say, 
 have joined them, — Archill the Thane, and Edwin and Morcar, 
 and Waltheof too, the young traitors." 
 
 " Blessed Virgin ! " cried Ivo, " thou art indeed gracious to thy 
 most unworthy knight ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "You will see some day. Now, I will tell you but one word. 
 When fools make hay, wise men can build ricks. This rebellion, 
 — if it had not come of itself, I would have roused it. We 
 wanted it, to cure William of this just and benevolent policy of 
 his, which would have ended in sending us back to Franco as 
 poor as we left it. Novi^, what am I expected to do ? What says 
 Gilbert of Ghent, the wise man of Lie — nic — what the pest do 
 you call that outlandish place, which no civilized lips can pr* 
 nounce ? " 
 
 m 
 • Ancestor of the Comyns of Scotland. 
 
204 HEEEWABD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 ■' Lic-nic-cole ? " replied Ascelin, who, like the rest of the 
 French, never could manage to say Lincoln. 
 
 ■' He says, ' March to me, and with me to join the king at 
 York.' " 
 
 " Then he says well. These fat acres will be none the leaner, 
 if I leave the English slaves to crop them for six months. Men ! 
 arm and horse Sir Robert of Deeping. Then arm and horse 
 yourselves. We march north in half an hour, bag and baggage, 
 scrip and scrippage. You are all bachelors, like me, and travel 
 light. So off with you ! " 
 
 " Sir Ascelin, you wiU eat and drink ? " 
 
 « That will I." 
 
 " Quick, then, butler ! and after that pack up the Englishman's 
 plate-chest, which we inherited by right of flst, — the only plate 
 and the only title-deeds I ever possessed." 
 
 " Now, Sir Ascelin," — as the three knights, the lady, and the 
 poor children ate their fastest, — " listen to me. The art of war 
 lies in this one nutshell, — to put the greatest number of men into 
 one place at one time, and let all other places shift. To strike 
 swiftly, and strike heavily. That is the rule of our liege lord, 
 King William ; and by it he will conquer England, or the world, 
 if he will ; and while he does that, he shall never say that Ivo 
 Taillebois stayed at home to guard his own manors while he could 
 join his king, and win all the manors of England once and for 
 all." 
 
 " Pardieu ! whatever men may say of thy lineage or thy vir- 
 tues, they cannot deny this, — that thou art a most wise and val- 
 iant captain." 
 
 " That am I," quoth Taillebois, too much pleased with the 
 praise to care about being tutoy^ by younger men. " As for my 
 lineage, my lord the king has a fellow-feeling for upstarts ; and 
 the woodman's grandson may very well serve the tanner's. Now, 
 men ! is the litter ready for the lady and children ? I am sorry 
 to rattle you about thus, madame, but war has no courtesies ; and 
 march I must." 
 
 And so the French went out of Spalding town. 
 
 " Don't be in a hurry to thank your saints ! " shouted Ivo to 
 his victims. " I shall be back this day three months ; and then 
 you shall see a row of gibbets all the way from here to Deeping, 
 and an Englishman hanging on every one." 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HOW HEEEWARD SAILED FOB ENGLAND ONCE AND FOB ALL. 
 
 So Hereward fought the Viscount of Pinkney, who had the 
 usual luck which befell those who crossed swords with him, and 
 plotted meanwhile with Gyda and the Countess Judith. Abbot 
 Egelsin sent them news from King Sweyn in Denmark ; soon 
 Judith and Tosti's two sons went themselves to Sweyn, and helped 
 the plot and the fitting out of the armament. News they had 
 from England in plenty, by messengers from Queen Matilda to 
 the sister who was intriguing to dethrone her husband, and by 
 private messengers from Durham and from York. 
 
 Baldwin, the debonnaire marquis, had not lived to see this fruit 
 of his long efforts to please everybody. He had gone to his rest 
 the year before ; and now there ruled in Bruges his son, Baldwin 
 the Good, " Count Palatine," as he styled himself, and his wife 
 Richilda, the Lady of Hainault. 
 
 They probably cared as little for the success of their sister 
 MatUda as they did for that of their sister Judith ; and followed 
 out — Baldwin at least — the great marquis's plan of making 
 Flanders a retreat for the fugitives of all the countries round. 
 
 At least, if (as seems) Sweyn's fleet made the coast of Flan- 
 ders its rendezvous and base of operations against King William, 
 Baldwin offered no resistance. 
 
 So the messengers came, and the plots went on. Great was 
 the delight of Hereward and the ladies when they heard of the 
 taking of Durham and York ; but bitter their surprise and rage 
 when they heard that Gospatrick and the Confederates had pro- 
 claimed Edgar Atheling king. 
 
 " Fools ! they will ruin all ! " cried Gyda. " Do they expect 
 Swend Ulfsson, who never moved a finger yet, unless he saw that 
 it would pay him within the hour, to spend blood and treasure in 
 putting that puppet boy upon the throne instead of himself?" 
 
 " Calm yourself, great Countess," said Hereward, with a smile. 
 " The man who puts him on the throne will find it Very easy to 
 take him off again when he needs." 
 
 " Pish! " said Gyda. " He must put him on the tlirone first. 
 And how will he do that ? Will the men of the Danelagh, mu.ch 
 
206 HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 less the Northumbrians, ever rally round an Atheling of Cerdic'8 
 house ? They are raising a Wessex army in Northumbria ; a 
 southern army in the north. There is no real loyalty there 
 toward the Atheling, not even the tie of kin, as there would be to 
 Swend. The boy is a mere stalking-horse, behind which each of 
 these greedy chiefs expects to get back his own lands ; and if they~ 
 can get them back by any other means, well and good. Mark my 
 words, Sir Hereward, that cunning Frenchman will treat with 
 them one by one, and betray them one by one, till there is none 
 left." 
 
 How far Gyda was right will be seen hereafter. But a less 
 practised diplomat than the great Countess might have speculated 
 reasonably on such an event. 
 
 At least, let this be said, that when historians have complained 
 of the treachery of King Swend Ulfsson and his Danes, they 
 have forgotten certain broad and simple facts. 
 
 Swend sailed for England to take a kingdom which he believed 
 to be his by right ; which he had formerly demanded of William. 
 When he arrived there, he found himself a mere cat's-paw for 
 recovering that kingdom for an incapable boy, whom he believed 
 to have no right to the throne at aU. 
 
 Then came darker news. As Ivo had foreseen, and as Ivo 
 had done his best to bring about, William dashed on York, and 
 drove out the Confederates with terrible slaughter ; profaned the 
 churches, plundered the town, Gospatrick and the earls retreated 
 to Durham ; the Atheling, miore cautious, to Scotland. 
 
 Then came a strange story, worthy of the grown children who, 
 in those old times, bore the hearts of boys with the ferocity and 
 intellect of men. 
 
 A great fog fell on the Frenchmen as they struggled over the 
 Durham moors. The doomed city was close beneath them ; they 
 heard Wear roaring in his wooded gorge. But a darkness, as of 
 Egypt, lay upon them : " neither rose any from his place." 
 
 Then the Frenchmen cried : " This darkness is from St. Cuth- 
 bert himself. We have invaded his holy soil. Who has not 
 heard how none who offend St. Cuthbert ever went unpunished ? 
 how palsy, blindness, madness, fall on those who dare to violate 
 his sanctuary ? " 
 
 And the French turned and fled from before the face of St 
 Cuthbert ; and William went down to Winchester angry and sad, 
 and then went off to Gloucestershire ; and hunted — for, what- 
 ever befell, he still would hunt — in the forest of Dean. 
 
 And still Swend and his Danes had not sailed ; and Here- 
 ward walked to and fro in his house, impatiently, and bided his 
 time. 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 207 
 
 In July, Baldwin died. Arnoul, the boy, was Count of Flan- 
 ders, and Richilda, his sorceress-mother, ruled the land in his 
 name. She began to oppress the Flemings ; not those of French 
 Flanders, round St. Omer, but those of Flemish Flanders, toward 
 the north. They threatened to send for Robert the Frison to 
 right them. 
 
 Hereward was perplexed. He was Robert the Frison's friend, 
 and old soldier. Richilda was Torfrida's friend ; so was, still 
 more, the boy Arnoul ; which party should he take ? Neither, 
 if he could help it. And he longed to be safe out of the land. 
 
 And at last his time came. Martin Lightfoot ran in, breath- 
 less, to tell how the sails of a mighty fleet were visible from the 
 Dunes. 
 
 " Here ? " cried Hereward. " "What are the fools doing down 
 here, wandering into the very jaws of the wolf? How will they 
 land here? They were to have gone straight to the Lincoln- 
 shire coast. God grant this mistake be not the first of dozens ! " 
 
 Hereward went into Torfrida's bower. 
 
 " This is an evil business. The Danes are here, where they 
 have no business, instead of being off Scheldtmouth, as I entreated 
 them. But go we must, or be forever shamed. Now, true wife, 
 are you ready ? Dare you leave home and kin and friends, once 
 and for all, to go, you know not whither, with one who may be a 
 gory corpse by this day week ? " 
 
 " I dare," said she. 
 
 So they went down to Calais by night, with Torfrida's mother, 
 and all their jewels, and all they had in the world. And their 
 housecarles went with them, forty men, tried and trained, who 
 had vowed to follow Hereward round the world. And there 
 were two teng ships ready, and twenty good mariners in each. 
 So when the Danes made the South Foreland the next morning, 
 they were aware of two gallant ships bearing down on them, with 
 a great white bear embroidered on their sails. 
 
 A proud man was Hereward that day, as he sailed into the 
 midst of the Danish fleet, and up to the royal ships, and shouted: 
 " I am Hereward the Berserker, and I come to take service 
 under my rightful lord, Sweyn, king of England." 
 
 " Come on board, then ; we know you well, and right glad we 
 are to have Hereward with us." 
 
 And Hereward laid his ship's bow upon the quarter of the 
 royal ship (to lay alongside was impossible, for fear of breaking 
 oars), and came on board. 
 
 "And thou art Hereward?" asked a tall and noble, warrior. 
 
 " I am. And thou art Swend Ulfsson, the king ? " 
 
 " I am Earl Osbiorn, his brother." 
 
208 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Then, where is the king ? " 
 
 " He is in Denmark, and I command his fleet ; and with mg 
 are Canute and Harold, Sweyn's sons, and earb and bishops 
 enough for all England." 
 
 This was spoken in a somewhat haughty tone, in answer to 
 the look of surprise and disappointment which Hereward had, 
 unawares, allowed to pass over his face. 
 
 " Thou art better than none," said Hereward. " Now, hearken, 
 Osbiorn the Earl. Had Swend been here, I would have put my 
 hand between his, and said in my own name, and that of all the 
 men in Kesteven and the fens, Swend's men we are, to live and 
 die ! But now, as it is, I say, for me and them, thy men we are, 
 to live and die, as long as thou art true to us." 
 
 " True to you I will be," said Osbiorn. 
 
 " Be it so," said Hereward. " True we shall be, whatever 
 betide. Now, whither goes Earl Osbiorn, and all his great 
 meinie ? " 
 
 " We purpose to try Dover." 
 
 " You will not take it. The Frenchman has strengthened it 
 with one of his accursed keeps, and without battering-engines 
 you may sit before it a month." 
 
 '• What if I asked you to go in thither yourself, and try the 
 mettle and the luck which, they say, never failed Hereward yet?" 
 
 " I should say that it was a child's trick to throw away against 
 a paltiy stone wall the life of a man who was ready to raise for 
 you in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, five times as many men 
 as you will lose in taking Dover." 
 
 " Hereward is right," said more than one Earl. " We shall 
 need him in his own country." 
 
 " If you are wise, to that country you yourselves will go. It 
 is ready to receive you. This is ready to oppose you. You are 
 attacking the Frenchman at his strongest point instead of his 
 weakest. Did I not send again and again, entreating you 
 to cross from Scheldtmouth to the Wash, and send me word that 
 I might come and raise the Fen-men for you, and then we would 
 all go north together ? " 
 
 " I have heard, ere now," said Earl Osbiorn, haughtily, " that 
 Hereward, though he be a valiant Viking, is more fond of giving 
 advice than of taking it." 
 
 Hereward was about to answer very fiercely. If he had, no 
 one would have thought any harm, in those plain-spoken times. 
 But he was wise ; and restrained himself, remembering that Tor> 
 frida was there, all but alone, in the midst of a fleet of savage 
 men ; and that beside, he had a great deed to do, and must do it 
 as he could. So he answered, — 
 
HEBEWARD, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 209 
 
 " Osbiom the Earl has not, it seems, heard this of Hereward : 
 that because he is accustomed to command, he is also accustomed 
 to obey. What thou wilt do, do, and bid me do. He that 
 quarrels with his captain cuts his own throat and his fellows' 
 too." 
 
 " Wisely spoken ! " said the earls ; and Hereward went back 
 to his ship. 
 
 "Torfrida," said he, bitterly, "the game is lost before it is 
 begun." 
 
 " God forbid, my beloved ! What words are these ? " 
 
 "Swend — fool that he is with his over-caution, — always the 
 same ! — has let the prize slip from between his fingers. He has 
 sent Osbiorn instead of himself." 
 
 " But why is that so terrible a mistake ? " 
 
 " We do not want a fleet of Vikings in England, to plunder 
 the French and English alike. We want a king, a king, a king ! " 
 and Hereward stamped with rage. " And instead of a king, we 
 have this Osbiom, — all men know him, greedy and false and 
 weak-headed. Here he is going to be beaten off at Dover ; and 
 then, I suppose, at the next port ; and so forth, till the whole 
 season is wasted, and the ships and men lost by driblets. Pray 
 for us to God and his saints, Torfrida, you who are nearer to 
 Heaven than I ; for we never needed it more." 
 
 And Osbiorn went in ; tried to take Dover ; and was beaten 
 off with heavy loss. 
 
 Thetx, the earls bade him take Hereward's advice. But be 
 would not. 
 
 So he went round the Foreland, and tried Sandwich, — as if, 
 landing there, he would have been safe in marching on London, 
 in the teeth of the elite of Normandy. 
 
 But he was beaten off there, with more loss. Then, too late, 
 he took Hereward's advice, — or, rather, half of it, — and sailed 
 north ; but only to commit more follies. 
 
 He dared not enter the Thames. He would not go on to the 
 Wash ; but he went into the Orwell, and attacked Ipswichj 
 plundering right and left, instead of proclaiming King Sweyn, 
 and calling the Danish folk around him. The Danish folk of 
 Suffolk rose, and, like valiant men, beat him off; while Here- 
 ward lay outside the river mouth, his soul within him black with 
 disappointment, rage, and shame. He would not go in. He 
 would not fight against his own countrymen. He would not 
 help to turn the whole plan into a marauding raid. And. he told 
 Earl Osbiorn so so fiercely, that his life would have been in 
 danger, had not the force of his arm been as much feared as the 
 force of his name was needed. 
 
 N 
 
210 HEBEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 At last they came to Yarmoutl). Osbiom would needs land 
 there, and try Norwich. 
 
 Hereward was nigh desperate : but he hit upon a plan. Let 
 Osbiorn do so, if he would. He himself would sail round to the 
 Wash, raise the Fen-men, and march eastward at their head 
 through Norfolk to meet him. Osbiom himself could not refuse 
 6C rational a proposal. All the earls and bishops approved 
 loudly ; and away Hereward went to the Wash, his heart well- 
 nigh broken, foreseeing nothing but evil. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 HOW HEEEWARD GATHERED AN ARMY. 
 
 The voyage round the Norfolk coast was rough and wild. 
 Torfrida was ill, the little girl was ill ; the poor old mother was 
 Bo ill that she could not even say her prayers. Packed uncom- 
 fortably under the awning on the poop, Torfrida looked on from 
 beneath it upon the rolling water-waste, with a heart full of 
 gloomy forebodings, and a brain whirling with wild ftincies. The 
 wreaths of cloud were gray witches, hurrying on with the ship to 
 work her woe ; the low red storm-dawn was streaked with blood ; 
 the water which gurgled all night under the lee was aJive with 
 hoarse voices ; and again and again she started from fitful slum- 
 ber to clasp the child closer to her, or look up for comfort to the 
 sturdy figure of her husband, as he stood, like a tower of strength, 
 steering and commanding, the long night through. 
 
 Yes ; on him she could depend. On his courage, on his skill. 
 And as for his love, had she not that utterly ? And what more 
 did woman need ? 
 
 But she was going, she scarce knew whither ; and she scarce 
 knew for what. At lea^t, on a fearful adventure, which might 
 have a fearful end. She looked at the fair child, and reproached 
 herself for a moment ; at the poor old mother, whining and mum- 
 bling, her soft southern heart quite bioken by the wild chill 
 northern sea-breeze ; and reproached herself still more. But 
 was it not her duty ? Him she loved, and his she was ; and him 
 she must follow, over sea and land, till death ; and if possible, 
 beyond death again forever. For his sake she would slave. 
 For his sake she would be strong. If ever there rose in her a 
 homesickness, a regret for leaving Flanders, and much more for 
 that sunnier South where she was born, he at least should never 
 be saddened or weakened by one hint of her sadness and weak- 
 ne-is. And so it befell that, by the time they made the coast, she 
 had (as the old chronicler says) '-altogether conquered all wom- 
 anly .-oftness." 
 
 And yet she shuddered at the dreary mud-creek into which 
 they ran their ships, at the dreary flats on which they landed 
 shivering, swept over by the keen northeast wind. A lonely land; 
 
212 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 and within, she knew not what of danger, it might be of hideous 
 death. 
 
 But she would be strong. And when they were all landed, 
 men, arms, baggage, and had pitched the tents which the wise 
 Hereward had brought with tliem, she rose up like a queen, and 
 took her little one by the hand, and went among the men, and 
 spoke : — 
 
 " Housecarles and mariners ! you are following a great captain, 
 upon a great adventure. How great he is, you know as well as 
 I. I have given him myself, my wealth, and all I have, and 
 have followed him I know not whither, because I trust him 
 utterly. Men, trust him as I trust him, and follow him to the 
 death." 
 
 " That will we ! " 
 
 " And, men, I am here among you, a weak woman, trying to be 
 brave for his sake — and for yours. Be true to me, too, as I 
 have been true to you. For your sake have I worked hard day and 
 night, for many a year. For you I have baked and brewed and 
 cooked, like any poor churl's wife. Is there a garment on your 
 backs which my hands have not mended ? Is there a wound on 
 your limbs which my hands have not salved ? 0, if Torfrida 
 has been true to you, promise me this day that you will be true 
 men to her and hers ; that if — which Heaven forbid ! — aught 
 should befall him and me, you will protect this my poor old mother, 
 and this ray child, who has grown up among you all, — a lamb 
 brought up within the lions' den. Look at her, men, and promise 
 me, on the faith of valiant soldiers, that you will be lions on her 
 behalf, if she shall ever need you. Promise me, that if you 
 have but one more stroke left to strike on earth, you will strike 
 it to defend the daughter of Hereward and Torfrida from cruelty 
 and sharae " 
 
 The men answered by a shout which rolled along the fen, and 
 startled the wild-fowl up from far-off pools. They crowded round 
 their lady ; they kissed her hands ; they bent down and kissed 
 their little playmate, and swore — one by Grod and his apostles, 
 and the next by Odin and Thor — that she should be a daughter 
 to each and every one of them, as long as they could grip steel 
 in hand. 
 
 Then (says the chronicler) Hereward sent on spies, to see 
 whether the Frenchmen were in the land, and how folks fared at 
 Holbeach, Spalding, and Bourne. 
 
 The two young Siwards, as knowing the country and the folk, 
 pushed forward, and with them Martin Lightfoot, to bring back 
 news. 
 
 Martin ran back all the way from Holbeach, the very fii-st day, 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 213 
 
 with right good news. There was not a Frenchman in the town. 
 Neither was there, they said, in Spalding. Ivo Taillebois was 
 Btill away at the wars, and long might he stay. 
 
 So forward they marched, and everywhere the landsfolk were 
 tilling the ground in peace ; and when they saw that stout array, 
 they hurried out to meet the troops, and burdened them with food, 
 and ale, and all they needed. 
 
 And at Holbeach, and at Spalding, Hereward split up the war- 
 arrow, and sent it through Kesteven, and south into the Cam- 
 bridge fens, calling on all men to arm and come to him at Bourne, 
 in the name of Waltheof and Morcar the earls. 
 
 And at every farm and town he blew the war-horn, and sum- 
 moned every man who could bear arms to be ready, against the 
 coming of the Danish host from Norwich. And so through all 
 the fens came true what the wild-fowl said upon the meres, that 
 Hereward was come again. 
 
 And when he came to Bourne, all men were tilling in peace. 
 The terror of Hereward had fallen on the Frenchmen, and no 
 man had dared to enter on his inheritance, or to set a French 
 foot over the threshold of that ghastly hall, over the gable where- 
 of still grinned the fourteen heads ; on the floor whereof still 
 spread the dark stains of blood. 
 
 Only Geri dwelt in a corner of the house, and with him Leofrie 
 the Unlucky, once a roistering housecarle of Hereward's youth, 
 now a monk of Crowland, and a deacon, whom Lady Godiva had 
 sent thither that he might take care of her poor. And there Geri 
 and Leofrie had kept house, and told sagas to each other over the 
 beech-log fire night after night ; for all Leofric's study was, says 
 the chronicler, " to gather together for the edification of his hear- 
 ers all the acts of giants and warriors out of the fables of the 
 ancients or from faitliful report, and commit them to writing, that 
 he might keep England in mind thereof." Which Leofrie was 
 afterwards ordained priest, probably in Ely, by Bishop Egalwin 
 of Durham ; and was Hereward's chaplain for many a year. 
 
 Then Hereward, as he had promised, set fire to the three farms 
 close to the Bruneswold ; and all his outlawed friends, lurking in 
 the forest, knew by that signal that Hereward was come again. 
 
 So they cleansed out the old house : though they did not take 
 down the heads from off the gable ; and Torfrida went about it, 
 and about it, and confessed that England was, after all, a pleasant 
 place enough. And they were as happy, it may be, for a week 
 or two, as ever' they had been in their lives. 
 
 " And now," said Torfrida, " while you see to your army, I 
 must be doing ; for I am a lady now, and mistress of great es- 
 tates. So I must be seeing to the poor." 
 
214 HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " But you cannot speak their tongue." 
 
 " Can I not ? Do you think that in the face of comiug to Eng- 
 land and fighting here, and plotting here, and being, may be, an 
 earl's countess, I have not made Martin Lightfoot teach me your 
 English tongue, till I can speak it as well as you ? I kept that 
 hidden as a surprise for you, that you might find out, when you 
 most needed, how Torfrida loved you." 
 
 " As if I had not found out already ! O woman ! woman ! I 
 verily believe that God made you alone, and left the Devil to 
 make us butchers of men." 
 
 Meanwhile went round through all the fens, and north into the 
 Bruneswold, and away again to Lincoln and merry Sherwood, 
 that Hereward was come again. And Gilbert of Ghent, keeping 
 Lincoln Ca?tle for the Conqueror, was perplexed in mind, and 
 looked well to gates and bars and sentinels ; for Hereward sent 
 him at once a message, that forasmuch as he had forgotten his 
 warning in Bruges street, and put a rascal cook into his mother's 
 manors, he should ride Odin's horse on the highest ash in the 
 Bruneswold. 
 
 On which Gilbert of Ghent, inquiring what Odin's horse might 
 be, and finding it to signify the ash-tree whereon, as sacred to 
 Odin, thieves were hanged by Danes and Norse, made answer, — 
 
 That he Gilbert had not put his cook into Bourne, nor other- 
 wise harmed Hereward or his. That Bourne had been seized by 
 the king himself, together with Earl Morcar's lands in those parts, 
 as all men knew. That the said cook so pleased the king with a 
 dish of stewed eel-pout, which he served up to him at Cambridge, 
 and which the king had never eaten before, that the king begged 
 the said cook of him Gilbert and took him away ; and that after, 
 so he heard, the said cook had begged the said manors of Bourne 
 of the king, without the knowledge or consent of him Gilbert. 
 Tliat he therefore knew naught of the matter. That if Here- 
 ward meant to keep the king's peace, he might live in Bourne till 
 Doomsday, for aught he Gilbert cared. But that if he and his 
 men meant to break the king's peace, and attack Lincoln city, he 
 Gilbert would nail their skins to the door of Lincoln Cathedral, 
 as they used to do by the heathen Danes in old time. And that, 
 therefore, they now understood each other. 
 
 At which Hereward laughed, and said that they had done that 
 for many a year. 
 
 And now poured into Bourne from every side brave men and 
 true, — -.some great holders dispossessed of their land; some the 
 sons of holders who were not yet dispossessed ; some Morcar's 
 men, some Edwin's, who had been turned out by the ki^g. 
 
 To him came " Guenoch and Alutus Grogan, foremost in all 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 215 
 
 valor and fortitude, tall and large, and ready for work,'' and with 
 them their three nephews, Godwin Gille, " so called because he 
 was not inferior to that Godwin Guthlacsson who is preached 
 much in the fables of the ancients," and Donti and Outi,* the 
 twins, alike in face and manners ; and Godrie, the knight of 
 Corby, nephew of the Count of Warwick ; and Tosti of Dave- 
 nesse, his kinsman ; and Azer Vass, whose father had possessed 
 Lincoln Tower ; and Leofwin Moue,t — that is, the scythe, so 
 called, " because when he was mowing all alone, and twenty 
 country folk set on him with pitchforks and javelins, he slew 
 and wounded almost every one, sweeping his scythe among them 
 as one that moweth " ; and Wluncus the Black-face, so called 
 because he once blackened his face with coal, and came unknown 
 among the enemy, and slew ten of them with one lance ; and 
 " Turbertin, a great-nephew (surely a mistake) of Earl Edwin " ; 
 and Leofwin Prat (perhaps the ancestor of the ancient and hon- 
 orable house of Pratt of Ryston), so called from his " Prat" or 
 craft, because he had oft escaped cunningly when taken by the 
 enemy, having more than once killed his keepers ; and the stew- 
 ard of Drayton ; and Thurkill the outlaw, Hereward's cook ; and 
 Oger, Hereward's kinsman ; and " Winter and Linach," two very 
 famous ones ; and Ranald, the butler of Ramsay Abbey, — " he 
 was the standard-bearer " ; and Wulfric the Black and Wulfric 
 the White ; and Hugh the Norman, a priest ; and Wulfard, his 
 brother ; and Tosti and Godwin of Rothwell ; and Alsin ; and 
 Hekill ; and Hugh the Breton, who was Hereward's chaplain, 
 and Whishaw, his brother, " a magnificent " knight, vvrhich two 
 came with him from Flanders ; and so forth ; — names merely 
 of whom naught is known, save, in a few cases, from Domesday- 
 book, the manors which they held. Bnt honor to their very 
 names. Honor to the last heroes of the old English race. 
 
 These vahant gentlemen, with the liousecarles whom, more or 
 fewer, they would bring with them, constituted a formidable force, 
 as after years proved well. But having got his men, Hereward's 
 first care was, doubtless, to teach them that art of war of which 
 they, hke true Englishmen, knew nothing. 
 
 "The art of war has changed little, if at all, by the introduction 
 of gunpowder. The campaigns of Hannibal and Csesar succeeded 
 by the same tactics as those of Frederic or Wellington ; and so, 
 as far as we can judge, did those of the master-general of his age, 
 William of Normandy. 
 
 But of those tactics the English knew nothing. Their armies 
 were little more than tumultuous levies, in which men marched 
 
 • Named in Domesday-book ( ?). 
 
 t Probably the Leofwin who had lands in Bourne. 
 
216 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 anil fought under local leaders, often divided by local jealousies 
 The commissariats of the armies seem to have been so worthless, 
 that they had to plunder friends as well as foes as they went 
 along ; and with plunder came every sort of excess : as when the 
 -northern men marching down to meet Harold Godwinsson, and 
 demand young Edwin as their earl, laid waste, seemingly out of 
 mere brute wantonness, the country round Northampton, which 
 must have been in Edwin's earldom, or at least in that of his 
 brother Morcar. And even the local leaders were not over-well 
 obeyed. The reckless spirit of personal independence, especially 
 among the Anglo-Danes, prevented anything like discipline, or 
 organized movement of masses, and made every battle degenerate 
 into a confusion of single combats. 
 
 But Hereward had learned that art of war, which enabled the 
 Norman to crush, piecemeal, with inferior numbers, the vast but 
 straggling levies of the English. His men, mostly outlaws and 
 homeless, kept together by'the pressure from without, and free 
 from local jealousies, resembled rather an army of professional 
 soldiers than a country posse comitatus. And to the discipline 
 which he instilled into them ; to his ability in marching and ma- 
 ncBuvring troops ; to his care for their food and for their trans- 
 port, possibly, also, to his training them in that art of fighting on 
 horseback in which the men of Wessex, if not the Anglo-I^nes 
 of the East, are said to have been quite unskilled, — in short, to 
 all that he had learned, as a mercenary, under Robert the Frison, 
 and among the highly civilized warriors of Flanders and Nor- 
 mandy, must be attributed the fact, that he and his little army 
 defied, for years, the utmost efforts of the Normans, appearing 
 and disappearing with such strange swiftness, and eonquering 
 against such strange odds, as enshrouded the guerilla captsiin in 
 an atmo.-phere of myth and wonder, only to be accounted for, in 
 the mind of Normans as well as English, by the supernatural 
 counsels of his sorceress wife. 
 
 But Hereward grew anxious and more anxious, as days and 
 weeks went on, and yet there was no news of Osbiorn and his 
 Danes at Norwich. Time was precious. He had to march his 
 little army to the Wash, and then transport it by boats — no 
 easy matter — to Lynn in Norfolk, as his nearest point of attack. 
 And as the time went on, Earl Warren and Ralph de Guader 
 would have gathered their forces between him and the Danes, 
 and a landing at Lynn might become impossible. Meanwhile 
 there were bruits of great doings in the north of Lincolnshire. 
 Young Earl Waltheof was said to be there, and Edgar the 
 Atheling with him; but what it portended, no man knew. 
 Morcar was said to have raised the centre of Mercia, and to be 
 
HEEEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 217 
 
 near Stafford ; Edwin to have raised the Welsh, and to be at 
 Chester with Alfgiva, his sister, Harold Godwinsson's widow. 
 And Hereward sent spies along the Roman Watling Street — 
 the only road, then, toward the northwest of England — and 
 spies northward along the Roman road to Lincoln. But the 
 former met the French in force near Stafford, and came back 
 much faster than they went. And the latter stumbled on Gil- 
 bert of Ghent, riding out of Lincoln to Sleaford, and had to 
 flee into the fens, and came back much slower than they went. 
 
 At last news came. For into Bourne stalked Walfric the 
 Heron, with axe and bow, and leaping-pole on shoulder, and an 
 evil tale he brought. 
 
 The Danes had been beaten utterly at Norwich. Ralph de 
 Guader and his Frenchmen had fought like lions. They had 
 killed many Danes in the assault on the castle. They had 
 sallied out on them as they recoiled, and driven them into the 
 river, drowning many more. The Danes had gone down the 
 Tare again, and out to sea northward, no man knew whither. 
 He, the Heron, prowling about the fenlands of Norfolk to pick 
 off straggling Frenchmen and looking out for the Danes, had 
 heard all the news from the landsfolk. He had watched the 
 Danish fleet along the shore as far as Blakeney. But when 
 they came to the isle, they stood out to sea, right northwest. 
 He, the Heron, believed that they were gone for Humber 
 Mouth. 
 
 After a while, he had heard how Hereward was come again 
 and sent round the war-arrow, and thought that a landless man 
 could be in no better company; wherefore he had taken boat, 
 and come across the deep fen. And there he was, if they had 
 need of him. 
 
 " Need of you ? " said Hereward, who had heard of the deed 
 at Wrokesham Bridge. "Need of a hundred like you. But 
 this is bitter news." 
 
 And he went in to ask counsel of Torfrida, ready to weep 
 with rage. He had disappointed, deceived his men. He had 
 drawn them into a snare. He had promised that the Danes 
 should come. Plow should he look them in the face? 
 
 " Look them in the face ? Do that at once — now — without 
 losing a moment. Call them together and tell them all. If 
 their hearts are stanch, you may do great things without the 
 traitor earl. If their hearts fail them, you would have done 
 nothing with them worthy of yourself, had you had Norway as 
 well as Denmark at your back. At least, be true with them, as 
 your only chance of keeping them true to you." 
 
 '' Wise, wise wife," said Hereward, and went out and called 
 10 
 
213 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 his band together, and told them every word, and all that had 
 passed since he left Calais Straits. 
 
 "And now I have deceived you, and entrapped you, and I 
 have no right to be your captain more. He that will depart in 
 peace, let him depart, before the Frenchmen close in on us on 
 every side and swallow us up at one mouthful." 
 
 Not a man answered. 
 
 " I say it again : He that will depart, let him depart." 
 
 They stood thoughtful. 
 
 Ranald, the Monk of Ramsay, drove the White-Bear banner 
 firm into the earth, tucked up his monk's frock, and threw his 
 long axe over his shoulder, as if preparing for action. 
 
 Winter spoke at last. 
 
 " If all go, there are two men here who stay, and fight by 
 Hereward's side as long as there is a Frenchman left on Eng- 
 lish soil ; for they have sworn an oath to Heaven and to St. 
 Peter, and that oath will they keep. What say you, Gwenoch, 
 knighted with us at Peterborougt?" 
 
 Gwenoch stepped to Hereward's side. 
 
 " None shall go ! " shouted a dozen voices. " With Hereward 
 we will live and die. Let him lead us to Lincoln, to Stafford, 
 where he will. We can save England for ourselves without the 
 help of Danes." 
 
 " It is well for one at least of you, gentlemen, that you are in 
 this pleasant mind," quoth Ranald the monk. 
 
 " Well for all of us, thou valiant purveyor of beef and beer." 
 
 ■' Well for one. For the first man that had turned to go, I 
 would have brained him with this axe." 
 
 " And now, gallant gentlemen," said Hereward, " we must 
 take new counsel, as our old has failed. Whither shall we go? 
 For stay here, eating up the country, we must not do." 
 
 " They say that Waltheof is in Lindsay, raising the landsfolk. 
 Let us go and join him." 
 
 " We can, at least, find what he means to do. There can be 
 no better counsel. Let us march. Only we must keep clear of 
 Lincoln as yet. I hear that Gilbert has a strong garrison there, 
 and we are not strong enough yet to force it." 
 
 So they rode north, and up the Roman road toward Lincoln, 
 sending out spies as they went ; and soon they had news of Wal- 
 theof, — news, too, that he was between them and Lincoln. 
 
 " Then the sooner we are with him, the better, for he will find 
 himself in ti-ouble erelong, if old Gilbert gets news of him. So 
 run your best, footmen, for forward we must get." 
 
 And as they came up the Roman road, they were aware of a 
 great press of men in front of them, and hard fighting toward. 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 219 
 
 Some of the English would have spurred forward at once. 
 But Hereward held them back with loud reproaches. 
 
 " Will you forget all I have told you in the first skirmish, like 
 BO many dogs when they see a bull ? Keep together for five 
 minutes more, the pot will not be cool before we get our sup of it. 
 I verily believe that it is Waltheof, and that Gilbert has caught 
 him already." 
 
 As he spoke, one part of the combatants broke up, and fled 
 right and left ; and a knight in full armor galloped furiously down 
 the road right at them, followed by two or three more. 
 
 " Here comes some one very valiant, or very much afeared," 
 said Hereward, as the horseman rode right upon him, shouting, — 
 
 " I am the King ! " 
 
 "The King?" roared Hereward, and dropping his lance, 
 spurred his horse forward, kicking his feet clear of the stirrups. 
 He caught the knight round the neck,- dragged him over his 
 horse's tail, and fell with him to the ground. 
 
 The armor clashed ; the sparks flew from the old gray Roman 
 flints ; and Hereward, rolling over once, rose, and knelt upon his 
 prisoner. 
 
 " William of Normandy, yield or die ! " 
 
 The knight lay still and stark. 
 
 " Ride on ! " roared Hereward from the ground. " Ride at 
 them, and strike hard ! You will soon find out which is which. 
 This booty I must pick for myself. What are you at ? " roared 
 he, after his knights. " Spread off the road, and keep your line, 
 as I told you, and don't override each other ! Curse the hot- 
 headed fools ! The Normans will scatter them like sparrows. 
 Run on, men-at-arms, to stop the French if we are broken. And 
 don't forget Guisnes field and the horses' legs. Now, King, are 
 you come to life yet?" 
 
 " You have killed him,'' quoth Leofric the deacon, whom Here- 
 ward had beckoned to stop with him. 
 
 " I hope not. Lend me a knife. He is a much slighter man 
 than I fancied," said Hereward, as they got his helmet off. 
 
 And when it w^as ofi^, both started and stared. For they had 
 uncovered, not the beetling brow, Roman nose, and firm curved 
 lip of the Ulysses of the middle age, but the face of a fair lad, with 
 long straw-colored hair, and soft blue eyes staring into vacancy. 
 
 " Who are you ? " shouted Hereward, saying very bad words, 
 " who come here aping the name of king ? " 
 
 "Mother! Christina! Margaret! Waltheof Earl !" moaned tho 
 lad, raising his head and letting it fall again. 
 
 " It is the Atheling ! " cried Leofric. 
 
 Hereward rose, and stooa over the boy. 
 
220 HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Ah ! what was I doing to handle him so tenderly ? I took 
 him for the Mamzer, and thought of a king's ransom." 
 
 " Do you call that tenderly ? You have nigh pulled the boy's 
 head off." 
 
 " Would that I had ! Ah," went on Hereward, apostrophiz- 
 ing the unconscious Athehng, — "ah, that I had broken that white 
 neck once and for all ! To have sent thee feet foremost to 
 Winchester, to lie by thy grandfathers and great-grandfathers, 
 and then to tell Norman William that he must fight it out hence- 
 forth, not with a straw malkin like thee, which the very crowg 
 are not afraid to perch on, but with a cock of a very different 
 hackle, — Sweyn Ulfsson, King of Denmark." 
 
 And Hereward drew Brain-biter. 
 
 " For mercy's sake ! you will not harm the lad ? " 
 
 " If I were a wise man now, and hard-hearted as wise men 
 should be, I should — I should — " and he played the point 
 of the sword backwards and forwards, nearer and nearer to the 
 lad's throat. 
 
 " Master ! master ! " cried Leofric, clinging to his knees ; " by 
 all the saints ! What would the Blessed Virgin say to such a 
 deed ! " 
 
 " Well, I suppose you are right. And I fear what my lady at 
 home might say ; and we must not do anything to vex her, yon 
 know. Well, let us do it haiidsomely, if we must do it. Get 
 water somewhere, in his helmet. No, you need not linger. I 
 will not cut his throat before you come back." 
 
 Leofric went off in search of water, and Hereward knelt with 
 the Atheling's head on his knee, and on his lip a sneer at all 
 things in heaven and earth. To have that lad stand between 
 him iind ail his projects, and to be forced, for honor's sake, to let 
 him stand ! 
 
 But soon his men returned, seemingly in high glee, and other 
 knights with them. 
 
 " Hey, lads ! " said he, " I aimed at the falcon and shot the 
 goose. Here is Edgar Atheling prisoner. Shall we put him to 
 ransom ? " 
 
 " He has no money, and Malcolm of Scotland is much too 
 wise to lend him any," said some one. And some more rough 
 jokes passed. 
 
 " Do you know, sirs, that he who lies there is your king ? " 
 asked a very tall and noble-looking knight. 
 
 " That do we not," said Hereward, sharply. " There is no 
 king in England this day, as far as I know. And there will be 
 none north of the Watling Street, till he be chosen in full bust- 
 ing, and anointed at York, as w(ill as Winchester or London. 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 221 
 
 We have had one king made for us in the last forty years, and 
 we intend to make the next ourselves." 
 
 " And who art thou, who talkest so bold of king-making ? " 
 
 " And who art thou, who askest so bold who I am ? " 
 
 " I am Waltheof Siwaitisson, the Earl, and yon is my army 
 behind me." 
 
 " And I am Hereward Leofricsson, the outlaw, and yon is my 
 army behind me." 
 
 If the two champions had flown at each other's throats, and 
 their armies had followed their example, simply as dogs fly at 
 each other, they know not why, no one would have been aston- 
 ished in those unhappy times. 
 
 But it fell not out upon that wise ; for Waltheof, leaping from 
 his horse, pulled off his helmet, and seizing Hereward by both 
 hands, cried, — 
 
 " Blessed is the day which sees again in England Hereward, 
 who has upheld throughout all lands and seas the honor of Eng- 
 lish chivalry ! " 
 
 " And blessed is the day in which Hereward meets the head of 
 the house of Siward where he should be, at the head of his own 
 men, in his own earldom. When I saw my friend, thy brother 
 Osbiorn, brought into the camp at Dunsinane with all his wounds 
 in front, I wept a young man's tears, and said, ' There ends the 
 glory of the White-Bear's house ! ' But this day I say, the 
 White-Bear's blood is risen from the grave in Waltheof Siwards- 
 son, who with his single axe kept the gate of York against all the 
 army of the French ; and who shall keep against them all Eng- 
 land, if he will be as wise as he is brave." 
 
 Was Hereward honest in his words ? Hardly so. He wished 
 to be honest. As he looked upon that magnificent young man, he 
 hoped and trusted that his words were true. But he gave a 
 second look at the face, and whispered to himself: " Weak, weak.- 
 He will be led by priests ; perhaps by William himself. I must 
 be courteous ; but confide I must not." 
 
 The men stood round, and looked with admiration on the two 
 most splendid Englishmen then alive. Hereward had taken off 
 his helmet likewise, and the contrast between the two was as 
 striking as the completeness of each of them in his own style of 
 beauty. It was the contrast between the slow-hound and the 
 deer-hound ; each alike high bred ; but the former, short, sturdy, 
 cheerful, and sagacious ; the latter tall, stately, melancholy, and 
 not over wise withal. 
 
 Waltheof was a full head'and shoulders taller than Hereward, 
 — one of the tallest men of his generation, and of a strength 
 which would have beer, gigantic, but for the too great length of 
 
222 HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 neck and limb, which made him loose and slow in body, as hfl 
 was somewhat loose and slow in mind. An old man's child, al- 
 though that old man was as one of the old giants, there was a 
 vein of weakness in him, which showed in the arched eyebrow, 
 the sleepy pale blue eye, the small soft mouth, the lazy voice, the 
 narrow and lofty brain over a shallow brow. His face was not 
 that of a warrior, but of a saint in a painted window ; and to his 
 own place he went, and became a saint, in his due time. But 
 that he could outgeneral William, that he could even manage 
 Gospatrick and his intrigues Herewai-d expected as little as that 
 his own nephews Edwin and Morcar could do it. 
 
 " I have to thank you, noble sir," said Waltheof, languidly, "for 
 sending your knights to our rescue when we were really hard 
 bestead,. — I fear much by our own fault. Had they told me 
 whose men they were, I should not have spoken to you so rough- 
 ly as I fear I did." 
 
 " There is no offence. Let Englishmen speak their minds, as 
 long as English land is above sea. But how did you get into 
 trouble, and with whom ? " 
 
 Waltheof told him how he was going round the country, rais- 
 ing forces in the name of the Atheling, when, as they were strag- 
 gling along the Roman road, Gilbert of Ghent had dashed out on 
 them from a wood, cut their line in two, driven Waltheof one 
 way. and the Atheling another, and that the Atheling had only 
 escaped by riding, as they saw, for his life. 
 
 '• Well done, old Gilbert ! " laughed Hereward. " You must 
 beware, my Lord Earl, how you venture within reach of that old 
 bear's paw ? " 
 
 " Bear ? By the by, Sir Hereward," asked Waltheof, whose 
 thoughts ran loosely right and left, " why is it that you carry the 
 white bear on your banner? " 
 
 '* Do you not know ? Your house ought to have a blood-feud 
 against me. I slew your great-uncle, or cousin, or some other 
 kinsman, at Gilbert's house in Scotland long ago ; and since then 
 1 sleep on his skin every night, and carry his picture in my ban- 
 ner all day." 
 
 " Blood-feuds are solemn things," said Waltheof, frowning. 
 " Karl killed my grandfather Aldred at the battle of Settrington, 
 and his four sons are with the army at York now — " 
 
 " For the love of ail saints and of England, do not think of 
 avenging that ! Every man must now put away old grudges, 
 and remember that he has but one foe, — William and his French- 
 men." 
 
 "Very nobly spoken. But those sons of Karl — and I think- 
 you said you had killed a kinsman of mine ? " 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 223 
 
 " It was a bear, Lord Earl, a great white bear. Cannot you 
 understand a jest? Or are you going to take up the quarrels of 
 all white bears that are slain between here and Iceland ? You 
 will end by burning Crowland minster then, for there are twelve 
 of your kinsmen's skins there, which Canute gave forty years 
 ago." 
 
 "Burn Crowland minster? St. Guthlacand all saints forbid!" 
 said Waltheof, cross-ing himself devoutly. 
 
 " Are you a monk-monger into the bargain, as well as a dolt ? 
 A bad prospect for us, if you are," said Hereward to himself. 
 
 " Ah, my dear Lord King ! " said "Waltheof, " and you are 
 recovering ? " 
 
 " Somewhat," said the lad, sitting up, " under the care of this 
 kind knight." 
 
 " He is a monk, Sir Atheling, and not a knight," said Here- 
 ward. " Our fenmen can wear a mail-shirt as easily as a frock, 
 and handle a twybill as neatly as a breviary." 
 
 Waltheof shook his head. " It is contrary to the canons of 
 Holy Church." 
 
 " So are many things that are done in England just now. 
 Need has no master. Now, Sir Earl and Sir Athehng, what 
 are you going to do ? " 
 
 Neither of them, it seemed, very well knew. They would go 
 to York if they could get there, and join Gospatrick and Merles- 
 weyn. And certainly it was the most reasonable thing to be 
 done. 
 
 " But if you mean to get to York, you must march after 
 another fashion than this," said Hereward. " See, Sir Earl, why 
 you were broken by Gilbert ; and why you will be broken again, 
 if this order holds. If you march your men along one of these 
 old Roman streets — By St. Mary ! these Romans had more 
 wits than we ; for we have spoilt the roads they left us, and 
 never made a new one of our own — " 
 
 "They were heathens and enchanters," — and Waltheof crossed 
 himself. 
 
 " And conquered the world. Well, — if you march along one 
 of these streets, you must ride as I rode, when I came up to you. 
 You must not let your knights go first, and your men-at-arms 
 straggle after in a tail a mile long, like a scratch pack of hounds, 
 all sizes but except each others'. You must keep your footmen 
 on the high street, and make your knights ride in two bodies, 
 right and left, upon the wold, to protect their flanks and baggage.'' 
 
 '■ But the knights won't. As gentlemen, they have a right to 
 the best ground." 
 
 " Then they may go to — whither they will go, if the French 
 
224 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 come upon them. If they are on the flanks, and you are attacked 
 then they can charge in right and left on the enemy's flank, while 
 the footmen make a stand to cover the wagons." 
 
 " Yes, — that is very good ; I believe that is your French 
 fashion ? " 
 
 " It is the fashion of common-sense, like all things which 
 succeed." 
 
 "But, you see, the knights would not submit to ride in "the 
 mire." 
 
 " Then you must make them. What else have they horses 
 for, while honester men than they trudge on foot ? " 
 
 " Make them ? " said Waltheof, with a shrug and a smile. 
 " They are all free gentlemen, like ourselves." 
 
 " And, like ourselves, will come to utter ruin, because every 
 one of them must needs go his own way." 
 
 "I am glad," said Waltheof, as they rode along, "that you 
 called this my earldom. I hold it to be mine of course, in right 
 of my father; but the landsfolks, you know, gave it to your 
 nephew Morcar." 
 
 " I care not to whom it is given. I care for the man who is 
 on it, to raise these landsfolk and make them fight. You are 
 here : therefore you are earl." 
 
 " Yes, the powers that be are ordained by God." 
 
 " You must not strain that text too far. Lord Earl ; for the 
 only power that is, whom I see in England — worse luck for it !— 
 is William the Marazer." 
 
 " So I have often thought." 
 
 " You have ? As I feared ! " (To himself: ) « The pike will 
 have you next, gudgeon ! " 
 
 " He has with him the Holy Father at Rome, and therefore 
 the blessed Apostle St. Peter of course. And is a man right, in 
 the sight of Heaven, who resists them ? I only say it. But where 
 n man looks to the salvation of his own soul, he must needs think 
 thereof seriously, at least." 
 
 "0, are you at that?" thought Hereward. " Tout est perdu. 
 The question is. Earl," said he aloud, " simply this : How many 
 men can you raise off this shire ?" 
 
 " I have raised — not so many as I could wish. Harold and 
 Edith's men have joined me fairly well ; but your nephew, Mor- 
 car's — " 
 
 •' I can command them. I have half of them here already." 
 
 " Then, — then we may raise the rest ? " 
 
 "That depends, my Lord Earl, for whom we fight!" 
 
 " For whom ? — I do not understand." 
 
 " Whether we fight for that lad. Child Edgar, or for Sweyn of 
 Denmark, the rightful king of England." 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 225 
 
 " Sweyn of Denmark ! Who should be the rightful king but 
 the heir of the blessed St. Edward ? " 
 
 " Blessed old fool ! He has done harm to us enough on earth, 
 without leaving his second-cousins' aunts' malkins to harm us 
 after he is in Heaven." 
 
 " Sir Hereward, Sir Hereward, I fear thou art not as good a 
 Christian as so good a knight should be." 
 
 " Christian or not, I am as good a one as my neighbors. I am 
 Leofric's son. Leofric put Harthacanute on the throne, and your 
 father, who was a man, helped him. You know what has be- 
 fallen England since we Danes left the Danish stock at Godwin's 
 bidding, and put our necks under the yoke of Wessex monks and 
 monk-mongers. You may follow your father's track or not, as 
 you like. I shall follow my father's, and fight for Sweyn Ulfs- 
 son, and no man else." 
 
 " And I," said Waltheof, " shall follow the anointed of the 
 Lord." 
 
 " The anointed of Gospatrick and two or three boys ! " said 
 Hereward. " Knights ! Turn your horses' heads. Right about 
 face, all ! We are going back to the Bruneswold, to live and die 
 free Danes." 
 
 And to Waltheof's astonishment, who had never before seen 
 disci pUne, the knights wheeled round ; the men-at-arms followed 
 them ; and Waltheof and the Atheling were left to themselves on 
 Lincoln Heath. 
 
 10* 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HOW ARCHBISHOP ALDRED DIED OF SORROW. 
 
 In the tragedies of the next few months Hereward took no 
 part ; but they must be looked at near, in order to understand 
 somewhat of the men who were afterwards mixed up with him for 
 weal or woe. 
 
 "When William went back to the South, the confederates, Child 
 Edgar the Atheling, Gospatrick, and their friends, had come 
 south again from Durham. It was undignified ; a confession of 
 weakness. If a Norman had likened them to mice coming out 
 when the cat went away, none could blame him. But so they 
 did ; and Osbiorn and his Danes, landing in Humber-mouth, 
 " were met " (says the Anglo-Saxon chronicle) " by Child Edgar 
 and Earl Waltheof and Merlesweyn, and Earl Gospatrick with 
 the men of Northumberland, riding and marching joyfully with 
 an immense army " ; not having the spirit of prophecy, or fore- 
 seeing those things which were coming on the earth. 
 
 To them repaired Edwin and Morcar, the two young Earls, 
 Arkill and Karl, " the great Thanes," or at least the four sons of 
 Karl, — for accounts differ, — and what few else of the northern 
 nobility Tosti had left unmurdered. 
 
 The men of Northumberland received the Danes with open 
 arms. They would besiege York. They would storm the new 
 Norman Keep. They would proclaim Edgar king at York. 
 
 In that Keep sat two men, one of whom knew his own mind, 
 the other did not. One was William Malet, knight, one of the 
 heroes of Hastings, a noble Norman, and chatelain of York Castle. 
 The other was Archbishop Aldred. 
 
 Aldred seems to have been a man like too many more, — pious 
 and virtuous and harmless enough, and not without worldly pru- 
 dence ; but his prudence was of that sort which will surely swim 
 with the stream, and " honor the powers that be," if they be but 
 prosperous enough. For after all, if success be not God, it is like 
 enough to Him in some men's eyes to do instead. So Archbishop 
 Aldred had crowned Harold Godwinsson, when Harold's star was 
 in the ascendant. And who but Archbishop Aldred should crown 
 William, when his star had cast Harold's down from heaven? 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 227 
 
 He would have crowned Satanas himself, had he only proved 
 himself king de facto — as he asserts himself to be dejure — of 
 this wicked world. 
 
 So Aldred, who had not only crowned "William, but supported 
 his power north of Humber by all means lawful, sat in York 
 Keep, and looked at William Malet, wondering what he would do. 
 
 Malet would hold it to the last. As for the new Keep, it was 
 surely impregnable. The old walls — the Eoman walls on which 
 had floated the flag of Constantine the Great — were surely strong 
 enough to keep out men without battering-rams, balistas, or artil- 
 lery of any kind. What mattered Osbiorn's two hundred and 
 forty ships, and their crews of some ten or fifteen thousand men ? 
 What mattered the tens of thousands of Northern men, with Gos- 
 patrick at their head ? Let them rage and rob round the walls. 
 A messenger had galloped in from William in the Forest of Dean, 
 to tell Malet»to hold out to the last. He had galloped out again, 
 bearing for answer, that the Normans could hold York for a year. 
 
 But the Archbishop's heart misgave him, as from north and 
 south at once came up the dark masses of two mighty armies, 
 broke up into columns, and surged against every gate of the city 
 at the same time. They had no battering-train to breach the 
 ancient walls ; but they had — and none knew it better than Al- 
 dred — hundreds of friends inside, who would throw open to 
 them the gates. 
 
 One gate he could command from the Castle tower. His face 
 turned pale as he saw a mob of armed townsmen rushing down 
 the street towards it ; a furious scuffle with the French guards ; 
 and then, through the gateway, the open champaign beyond, and 
 a gleaming wave of axes, helms, and spears, pouring in, and up 
 the street. 
 
 " The traitors ! " he almost shrieked, as he turned and ran 
 down the ladder to tell Malet below. 
 
 Malet was firm, but pale as Aldred. 
 
 " We must fight to the last," said he, as he hurried down, com- 
 manding his men to sally at once en masse and clear the city. 
 
 The mistake was fatal. The French were entangled in the 
 narrow streets. The houses, shut to them, were opened to the 
 English and Danes ; and, overwhelmed from above, as well as in 
 front, the greater part of the Norman garrison perished in the 
 first fight. The remnant were shut up in the Castle. The 
 Danes and English seized the houses round, and shot from the 
 windows at every loophole and embrasure where a Norman 
 showed himself. 
 
 " Shoot fire upon the houses ! " said Malet. 
 
 " You will not burn York ? God ! is it come to this ? " 
 
228 HKREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " And why not York town, or York minster, or Rome itself, 
 with the Pope inside it, rather than yield to barbarians ? " 
 
 Archbishop Aldred went into his room, and lay down on his 
 bed. Outside was the roar of the battle ; and soon, louder and 
 louder, the roar of flame. This was the end of his time-serving 
 and king-making. And he said many prayers, and beat his 
 breast ; and then called to his chaplain for blankets, for he was 
 very cold. " I have slain my own sheep ! " he moaned, " slain 
 my own sheep ! " 
 
 His chaplain hapt him up in bed, and looked out of the win- 
 dow at the fight. There was no lull, neither was there any great 
 advantage on either side. Only from the southward he could see 
 fresh bodies of Danes coming across the plain. 
 
 " The carcass is here, and the eagles are gathered together. 
 Fetch me the holy sacrament, Chaplain, and God be merciful to 
 an unfaithful shepherd." 
 
 The chaplain went. 
 
 " I have slain my own sheep ! " moaned the archbishop. " I 
 have given them up to the wolves, — given my own minster, and 
 all the treasures of the saints ; and — and — I am very cold." 
 
 When the chaplain came back with the blessed sacrament, 
 Archbishop Aldred was more than cold ; for he was already dead 
 and stiff. 
 
 But William Malet would not yield. He and his Normans 
 fought, day after day, with the energy of despair. They asked 
 leave to put forth the body of the archbishop ; and young Wal- 
 theof, who was a pious man, insisted that leave should be given. 
 
 So the archbishop's coffin was thrust forth of the castle-gate, 
 and the monks from the abbey came and bore it away, and buried 
 it in the Cathedral church. 
 
 And then the fight went on, day after day, and more and more 
 houses burned, till York was all aflame. On the eighth day the 
 minster was in a light low over Archbishop Aldred's new-made 
 grave. All was burnt, — minster, churches, old Koman palaces, 
 and all the glories of Constantine the Great and the mythic past. 
 
 The besiegers, hewing and hammering gate after gate, had 
 now won all but the Keep itself. Then Malet's heart failed him. 
 A wife he had, and children ; and for their sake he turned cow- 
 ard and fled by night, with a few men-at-arms, across the burning 
 ruins. 
 
 Then into what once was York the confederate Earls and 
 Thanes marched in triumph, and proclaimed Edgar king, — a 
 king of dust and ashes. 
 
 And where were Edwin and Morcar the meanwhile? It is 
 not told. Were they struggling against William at Stafford, or 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 2529 
 
 helping Edric the Wild and his "Welshmen to besiege Chester ? 
 Probably they were aiding the insurrection, — if not at these two 
 points, still at some other of their great earldoms of Mercia and 
 Chester. They seemed to triumph for a while : during the 
 autumn of 1069 the greater part of England seemed lost to Wil- 
 liam. Many Normans packed up their plunder and went back 
 to France ; and those whose hearts were too stout to return 
 showed no mercy to the English, even as William showed none. 
 To crush the heart of the people by massacres and mutilations 
 and devastations was the only hope of the invader ; and thor- 
 oughly he did his work whenever he had a chance. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HOW HEEEWAED FOUND A WISER MAN IN ENGLAND THAN 
 HIMSELF. 
 
 There have been certain men so great, that he who describej 
 them in words, much more pretends to analyze their inmost fee^ 
 ings, must be a very great man himself, or incur the accusation 
 of presumption. And such a great man was William of Nor- 
 mandy, — one of those unfathomable master-personages who must 
 not be rashly dragged on any stage. The genius of a Bulwer, 
 in attempting to draw him, took care, with a wise modesty, not 
 to draw him in too much detail, — to confess always that there 
 was much beneath and behind in William's character which none, 
 even of his contemporaries, could guess. And still more modest 
 than Bulwer is this chronicler bound to be. 
 
 But one may fancy, for once in a way, what William's 
 thoughts were, when they brought him the evil news of York. 
 For we know what his acts were ; and he acted up to his 
 thoughts. 
 
 Hunting he was, they say, in the forest of Dean, when first he 
 heard that all England, north of the Watling Street, had broken 
 loose, and that he was king of only half the isle. 
 
 Did he — as when, hunting in the forest of Rouen, he got the 
 news of Harold's coronation — play with his bow, stringing and 
 unstringing it nervously, till he had made up his mighty mind? 
 Then did he go home to his lodge, and there spread on the rough 
 oak board a parchment map of England, which no child would 
 deign to learn from now, but was then good enough to guide 
 armies to victory, because the eyes of a great general looked 
 upon it? 
 
 As he pored over the map, by the light of bog-deal torch or 
 rush candle, what would he see upon it? 
 
 Three separate blazes of insurrection, from northwest to east, 
 along the Watling Street. 
 
 At Chester, Edric, " the wild Thane," who, according to 
 Domesday-book, had lost vast lands in Shropshire; Algitha, 
 Harold's widow, and Blethwallon and all his Welsh, — " the 
 white mantles," swarming along Chester streets, not as usually,. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 231 
 
 to tear and ravage like I4ie wild-cats of their own rocks, but fast 
 friends by blood of Algitha, once their queen on Penmaenmawr.* 
 Edwin, the young Earl, Algitha's brother, Hereward's nephew, 
 ■^ he must be with them too, if he were a man. 
 
 Eastward, round Stafford, and the centre of Mercia, another 
 blaze of furious English valor. Morcar, Edwin's brother, must 
 be there, as their Earl, if he too was a man. 
 
 Then in the fens and Kesteven. What meant this news, that 
 Here ward of St. Omer was come again, and an army with him ? 
 That he was levying war on all Frenchmen, in the name of 
 Sweyn, King of Denmark and of England ? He is an outlaw, 
 a desperado, a boastful swash-buckler, thought William, it may 
 be, to himself. He found out, in after years, that he had mis- 
 taken his man. 
 
 And north, at York, in the rear of those three in? ui-rections lay 
 Gospatrick, Waltheof, and Merlesweyn, with the Northumbrian 
 host. Durham was lost, and Cotnyn burnt therein. But York, 
 so boasted William Malet, could hold out for a year. He should 
 not need to hold out for so long. 
 
 And last, and worst of all, hung on the eastern coast the mighty 
 fleet of Sweyn, who claimed England as his of right. The foe 
 whom he had part feared ever since he set foot on English soil, a 
 collision with whom had been inevitable all along, was come at 
 last ; but where would he strike his blow ? 
 
 William knew, it may be, that the Danes had been defeated at 
 Norwich ; he knew, doubt it not (for his spies told him every- 
 thing), that they had purposed entering the Wash. To prevent 
 a junction between them and Hereward was impossible. He 
 must prevent a junction between them and Edwin and Morcar's 
 men. 
 
 He determined, it seems — for he did it — to cut the English 
 line in two, and marched upon Stafford as its centre. 
 
 So it seems ; for all records of these campaigns are fragmen- 
 tary, confused, contradictory. The Normans fought, and had no 
 time to write histoiy. The English, beaten and crushed, died 
 and left no sign. The only chroniclers of the time are monks. 
 And little could Ordericus Vitalis, or Florence of Worcester, or 
 he of Peterborough, faithful as he was, who filled up the sad 
 pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, — little could they see or 
 understand of the masterly strategy which was conquering all 
 England for Norman monks, in order that they, following the 
 army like black ravens, might feast themselves upon the prey 
 which others won for them. To them, the death of an abbot, the 
 
 # See the admirable description of the tragedy of Penmaenmawr, in Bnl*ar'B 
 'Harold." 
 
232 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 squabbles of a monastery, the journey of a prelate to Rome, are 
 more important than the manoeuvres which decided the life and 
 freedom of tens of thousands. 
 
 So all we know is, that William fell upon Morcar's men at 
 Stafford, and smote them with a great destruction; rolling the 
 fugitives west and east, toward Edwin, perhaps, at Chester, 
 certainly toward Hereward ia the fens. 
 
 At Stafford met him the fugitives from York, Malet, his wife, 
 and children, with the dreadful news that the Danes had joined 
 Gtospatrick, and that York was lost. 
 
 William burst into fiendish fury. He accused the wretched 
 men of treason. He cut off their hands, thrust out their eyes, 
 threw Malet into prison, and stormed on north. 
 
 He lay at Pontefract for three weeks. The bridges over the 
 Aire were broken down. But at last he crossed and marched on 
 York. 
 
 No man opposed him. The Danes were gone down to the 
 Humber. Gospatrick and Waltheof's hearts had failed them, 
 and they had retired before the great captain. 
 
 Florence, of Worcester, says that William bought Earl Osbiorn 
 off, giving him much money, and leave to forage for his fleet 
 along the coast, and that Osbiorn was outlawed on his return to 
 Denmark. 
 
 Doubtless William would have so done if he could. Doubtless 
 the angry and disappointed English raised such accusations 
 against the earl, believing them to be true. But is not the sim- 
 pler cause of Osbiorn's conduct to be found in this plain fact? 
 He had sailed from Denmark to put Sweyn, his brother, on the 
 throne. He found, on his arrival, that Gospatrick and Waltheof 
 had seized it in the name of Edgar Atheling. What had he to 
 do more in England, save what he did ? — go out into the Humber, 
 and winter safely there, waiting till Sweyn should come with re- 
 inforcements in the spring? 
 
 Then William had his revenge. He destroyed, in the lan- 
 guage of Scripture, "the life of the land." Far and wide the 
 farms were burnt over their owners' heads, the growing crops up- 
 on the ground ; the horses were houghed, the cattle driven off; 
 while of human death and misery there was no end. Yorkshire, 
 and much of the neighboring counties, lay waste, for the next 
 nine years. It did not recover itself fully till several generations 
 after. 
 
 The Danes had boasted that they would keep their Yule at 
 York. William kept his Yule there instead. He sent to Win- 
 chester for the regalia of the Confessor ; and in the midst of the 
 blackened ruins, while the English, for miles around, wandered 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 233 
 
 starving in the snows, feeding on carrion, on rats and mice, and, 
 at last, upon each other's corpses, he sat in his royal robes, and 
 gave away the lands of Edwin and Morcar to his liegemen. And 
 thus, like the Romans, from whom he derived both his strategy 
 and his civilization, he " made a solitude and called it peace." 
 
 He did not give away Waltheof 's lands ; and only part of 
 Gospatrick's. He wanted Gospatrick ; he loved Waltheof, and 
 wanted him likewise. 
 
 Therefore, through the desert which he himself had made, he 
 forced his way up to the Tees a second time, over snow-covered 
 moors ; and this time St. Cuthbert had sent no fog, being satis- 
 fied, presumably, with William's orthodox attachment to St. 
 Peter and Rome ; so the Conqueror treated quietly with Wal- 
 theof and Gospatrick, who lay at Durham. 
 
 Gospatrick got back his ancestral earldom from Tees to Tyne ; 
 and paid down for it much hard money and treasure ; bought it, 
 in fact, he said. 
 
 Waltheof got back his earldom,, and much of Morcar's. From 
 the fens to the Tees was to be his province. 
 
 And then, to the astonishment alike of Normans and English, 
 and it may be, of himself, he married Judith, the Conqueror's 
 niece ; and became, once more, William's loved and trusted friend 
 — or slave. 
 
 It seems inexplicable at first sight. Inexplicable, save as an 
 instance of that fascination which the strong sometimes exercise 
 over the weak. 
 
 Then William turned southwest. Edwin, wild Edric the dis- 
 possessed Thane of Shropshire, and the wilder Blethwallon and 
 his Welshmen, were still harrying and slaying. They had just 
 attacked Shrewsbury. WilUam would come upon them by a way 
 they thought not of. 
 
 So over the backbone of England, by way, probably, of 
 Halifax, or Huddersfield, through pathless moors and bogs, 
 down towards the plains of Lancashire and Cheshire, he pushed 
 over and on. His soldiers from the plains of sunny France 
 could not face the cold, the rain, the bogs, the hideous gorges, 
 the valiant peasants, — still the finest and shrewdest race of men 
 in all England, — who set upon them in wooded glens, or rolled 
 stones on them from the limestone crags. They prayed to be 
 dismissed, to go home. 
 
 " Cowards might go back," said William ; " he should go on." 
 If he could not ride, he would walk. Whoever lagged, he 
 would be foremost. And, cheered by his example, the army 
 at last debouched upon the Cheshire flats. 
 
 Then he fell upon Edwin, as he had fallen upon Morcar. He 
 
234 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 drove the wild Welsh through the pass of Mold, and up into their 
 native hills. He laid all waste with fire and sword for many a 
 mile, as Domesday-book testifies to this day. He strengthened 
 the walls of Chester, and trampled out the last embers of rebel- 
 lion ; he went down south to Salisbury, King of England once 
 again. 
 
 Why did he not push on at once agaRist the one rebellion left 
 alight, — that of Hereward and his fenmen ? 
 
 It may be that he understood him and them. It may be that 
 he meant to treat with Sweyn, as he had done, if the story be 
 true, with Osbiorn. It is more likely that he could do no more ; 
 that his army, after so swift and long a campaign, required rest. 
 It may be that the time of service of many of his mercenaries', 
 was expired. Be that as it may, he mustered them at Old 
 Sarum, — the Roman British burgh which still stands on the 
 down side, and rewarded them, according to their deserts, from 
 the lands of the conquered English. 
 
 How soon Hereward knew all this, or how he passed the 
 winter of 1070-71, we cannot tell. But to him it must have 
 been a winter of bitter perplexity. 
 
 It was impossible to get information from Edwin ; and news 
 from York was almost as impossible to get, for Gilbert of Ghent 
 stood between him and it. 
 
 He felt himself now pent in, all but trapped. Since he had 
 set foot last in England «gly things had risen up, on which he 
 had calculated too little, — namely, Norman castles. A whole ring 
 of them in Norfolk and Suffolk cut him off from the south. A 
 castle at Cambridge closed the south end of the fens ; another at 
 Bedford, the western end ; while Lincoln Castle to the north, 
 cut him off from York. 
 
 His men did not see the difficulty; and wanted him to 
 march towards York, and clear all Lindsay and right up to 
 the Humber. 
 
 Gladly would he have done so, when he heard that the Danes 
 were wintering in the Humber. 
 
 " But how can we take Lincoln Castle without artillery, or 
 even a battering-ram ? " , 
 
 " Let us march past, it then, and leave it behind." 
 
 " Ah, my sons'' said Hereward, laughing sadly, " do you sup- 
 pose that the Mamzer spends his time — and Englishmen's life 
 and labor — in heaping up those great stone mountains, that you 
 and I may walk past them ? They are put there just to prevent 
 our walking past, unless we choose to have the garrison sallying 
 out to attack our rear, and cut us off from home, and carry off 
 our women into the bargain, when our backs are turned." 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 235 
 
 The English swore, and declared that they had never thought 
 of that. 
 
 " No. We drink too much ale this side of the Channel, to think 
 of that, — or of anything beside." 
 
 " But," said Leofwin Prat, " if we have no artillery, we can 
 make some." 
 
 " Spoken like yourself, good comrade. If we only knew 
 how." 
 
 " I know," said Torfrida. " I have read of such things in 
 books of the ancients, and I have watched them making continu- 
 ally, — I little knew why, or that I should ever turn engineer." 
 
 " What is there that you do not know ? " cried they all at once. 
 And Torfrida actually showed herself a fair practical engineer. 
 
 Bat where was iron to come from ? Iron for catapult springs, 
 iron for ram heads, iron for bolts and bars ? 
 
 " Torfrida," said Here ward, " you are wise. Can you use the 
 divining-rod ? 
 , "Why, my knight?" 
 
 " Because there might be iron ore In the wolds ; and if you 
 could find it by the rod, we might get it up and smelt it." 
 
 Torfrida said humbly that she would try ; and walked with the 
 divining-rod between her pretty fingers for many a mile in wood 
 and wold, wherever the ground looked red and rusty. But she 
 never found any iron. 
 
 " We must take the tires off the cart-wheels," said Leofwin 
 Prat. 
 
 " But how will the carts do without? For we shall want them 
 if we march." 
 
 " In Provence, where I was born, the wheels of the carts are 
 made out of one round piece of wood. Could we not cut out 
 wheels like them ? " asked, Torfrida. 
 
 " You are the wise woman, as usual," said Hereward. 
 
 Torfrida burst into a violent flood of tears, no one knew 
 why. 
 
 There came over her a vision' of the creaking carts, and the 
 little sleek oxen, dove-colored and dove-eyed, with their canvas 
 mantles tied neatly on to keep off heat afid flies, lounging on with 
 ttieir light load of vine and olive twigs beneath the blazing south- 
 ern sun. When should she see the sun once more? She looked 
 up at the brown branches overhead, howling in the December 
 gale, and down at the brown fen below, dying into mist and dark- 
 ness as the low December sun died down ; and it seemed as if 
 her life was dying down with it. There would be no more sun, 
 and no more summers, for her upon this earth. 
 
 None certainly for her poor old mother. Her southern blood 
 
236 HERE\\'AED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 was chilling more and more beneath the bitter sky of Kesteven, 
 The fall of the leaf had brought with it rheumatism, ague, and 
 many miseries. Cunning old leech-wives treated the French lady 
 with tonics, mugwort, and bogbean, and good wine enow. But, 
 like David of old, she got no heat ; and before Yule-tide came, 
 she had prayed herself safely out of this world, and into the world 
 to come. And Torfrida's heart was the more light when she saw 
 her go. 
 
 She was absorbed utterly in Hereward and his plots. She 
 lived for notliing else ; and clung to them all the more fiercely, 
 the more desperate they seemed. 
 
 So that small band of gallant men labored on, waiting for the ■ 
 Danes, and trying to make artillery and take Lincoln Keep. And 
 all the while — so unequal is fortune when God so wills — 
 throughout the Southern Weald, from Hastings to Hind-head, 
 every copse glared with charcoal-heaps, every glen was burrowed 
 with iron diggings, every hammer-pond stamped and gurgled 
 night and day, smelting and forging English iron, wherewith the 
 Frenchmen might slay Englishmen. 
 
 William — though perhaps he knew it not himself — had, in 
 securing Sussex and Surrey, secured the then great iron-fleld of 
 England, and an unlimited supply of weapons ; and to that cir- 
 cumstance, it may be, as much as to any other, the success of his 
 campaigns may be due. 
 
 It must have been in one of these December days that a hand- 
 ful of knights came through the Bruneswold, mud and blood be- 
 spattered, urging on tired horses, as men desperate and foredone. 
 And the foremost of them all, when he saw Hereward at the gate 
 of Bourne, leaped down, and threw his arms round his neck and 
 burst into bitter weeping. 
 
 " Hereward, I know you, though you know me not. I am 
 you nephew, Morcar Algarsson ; and all is lost." 
 
 » • * • » 
 
 As the winter ran on, other fugitives came in, mostly of rank 
 and family. At last Edwin himself came, young and fair, like 
 Morcar ; he who should have been the Conqueror's son-in-law; 
 for whom his true-love pined, as he pined, in vain. Where were 
 Sweyn and his Danes? Whither should they go till he came? 
 
 " To Ely," answered Hereward. 
 
 Whether or not it was his wit which first seized on the military 
 capabilities of Ely is not told. Leofric the deacon, who is likely 
 to know best, says that there were men there already holding 
 theirs out against William, and that they sent for Hereward. But 
 it is not clear from his words whether they were fugitives, or 
 merely bold Abbot Thurstan and liis monks. 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 237 
 
 It is but probable, nevertheless, that Hereward, as the only man 
 among the fugitives who ever showed any ability whatsoever, and 
 who was, also, the only leader (save Morcar) connected with the 
 fen, conceived the famous " Camp of Eefuge," and made it a for- 
 midable fact. Be that as it may, Edwin and Morcar went to 
 Ely ; and there joined them a Count Tosti (according to Leofric), 
 unknown to history ; a Siward Barn, or " the boy," who had been 
 dispossessed of lands in Lincolnshire ; and other valiant and noble 
 gentlemen, — the last wrecks of the English aristocracy. And 
 there they sat in Abbot Thurstan's hall, and waited for Sweyn 
 and the Danes. 
 
 But the worst Job's messenger who, during that evil winter and 
 spring, came into the fen, was Bishop Egelwin of Durham. He 
 it was, most probably, who brought the news of Yorkshire laid, 
 waste with fire and sword. He it was, most certainly, who 
 brought the worse news still, that Gospatrick and Waltheof were 
 gone over to the king. He was at Durham, seemingly, when he 
 saw that ; and fled for his life ere evil overtook him : for to yield 
 to William that brave bishop had no mind. 
 
 But when Hereward heard that Waltheof was married to the 
 Conqueroi''s niece, he smote his hands together, and cursed him, 
 and the mother who bore him to Siward the Stout. 
 
 " Could thy father rise from his grave, he would split thy cra- 
 ven head in the very lap of the Frenchwoman." 
 
 " A hard lap will he find it, Hereward," said Torfrida. " I 
 know her, — wanton, false, and vain. Heaven grant he do not 
 rue the day he ever saw her ! " 
 
 " Heaven grant he may rue it ! Would that her bosom were 
 knives and fish-hooks, like that of the statue in the fairy-tale. See 
 what he has done for us ! He is Earl not only of his own lands, 
 but he has taken poor Morcar's too, and half his earldom. He is 
 Earl of Huntingdon, of Cambridge, they say, — of this ground on 
 which we stand. What right have I here now ? How can I call 
 on a single man to arm, as I could in Morcar's name ? I aril an 
 outlaw here and a robber ; and so is every man with me. And 
 do you think that WiUiara did not know that? He saw well 
 enough what he was doing when he set up that great brainless 
 idol as Earl again. He wanted to split up the Danish folk, and 
 he has doffe it. The Northumbrians will stick to Waltheof. 
 They think him a mighty hero, because he held York-gate alone 
 with his own axe against all the French." 
 
 " Well, that was a gallant deed.'" 
 
 " Pish ! we are all gallant men, we English. It is not courage 
 that we want, it is brains. So the Yorkshire and Lindsay men, 
 and the Nottingham men too, will go with Waltheof. And round 
 
238 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 here, and all through the fens, every coward, every prudent man 
 even, — every man who hkes to be within the law, and feel his 
 head safe on his shoulders, — no blame to him, — will draw each 
 from me for fear of this new Earl, and leave us to end as a handful 
 of outlaws. I see it all. As William sees it all. He is wise 
 enough, the Mamzer, and so is his father Behal, to whom he will 
 go home some day. Yes, Torfrida," he went on after a pause, 
 more gently, but in a tone of exquisite sadness, " yon were right, 
 as you always are. I am no match for that man. I see it now." 
 
 " I never said that. Only — " 
 
 " Only you told me again and again that he was the wisest 
 man on earth." 
 
 " And 'yet, for that very reason, I bade you win glory without , 
 end, by defying the wisest man on earth." 
 
 " And do you bid me do it still ? " 
 
 " God knows what I bid," said Torfrida, bursting into tears. 
 " Let me go pray, for I never needed it more." 
 
 Hereward watched her kneeling, as he sat moody, all but des- 
 perate. Then he glided to her side, and said gently, — 
 
 " Teach me how to pray, Torfrida. I can say a pater or an 
 ave. But that does not comfort a man's heart, as far as I could 
 ever find. Teach me to pray, as you and my mother do." 
 
 And she put her arms round the wild man's neck, and tried ta 
 teach him, like a little child. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 HOW HEREWAED FULFILLED HIS WORDS TO THE IRIOE OF 
 THE GOLDEN BOROUGH. 
 
 In the course of that winter died good Abbot Brand. Here- 
 ward went over to see him, and found him mumbhng to himself 
 texts of Isaiah, and confessing the sins of his people. 
 
 " ' Woe to the vineyard that bringeth forth wild, grapes. ' "Woe 
 to those that join house to house, and field to field,' — like us, and 
 the Godwinssons, and every man that could, till we ' stood alone 
 in the land.' ' Many houses, great and fair, shall be without in- 
 habitants.' It is all foretold in Holy Writ, Hereward, my son. 
 ' Woe to those who rise early to fill themselves with strong drink, 
 and the tabret and harp are in their feasts ; but they regard not 
 the works of the Lord.' ' Therefore my people are gone into 
 captivity, because they have no knowledge.' Ah, those French- 
 men have knowledge, and too much of it ; while we have brains 
 filled with ale instead of justice. ' Therefore hell hath enlarged 
 herself, and opened her mouth without measure'; and all go 
 down into it, one by one. . And dost thou think thou shalt escape, 
 Hereward, thou stout-hearted ? " 
 
 " I neither know nor care ; but tliis I know, that whithersoever 
 1 go, I shall go sword in hand." 
 
 " ' They that take the sword shall perish by the sword,' " said 
 Brand, and blessed Hereward, and died. 
 
 A week after came news that Thorold of Malmesbury was 
 coming to take the Abbey of Peterborough, and had got as far 
 as Stamford, with a right royal train. 
 
 Then Hereward sent Abbot Thorold word, that if he or his 
 Frenchmen put foot into Peterborough, he, Hereward, would 
 burn it over their heads. And that if he rode a mile beyond 
 Stamford town, he should walk back into it barefoot in his shirt. 
 
 Whereon Thorold abode at Stamford, and kept up his spirits 
 by singing the songs of Roland, — which some say he himself 
 composed. 
 
 A week after that, and the Danes were come. 
 
 A mighty fleet, with Sweyn Ulfsson at their head, went up the 
 Ouse toward Ely. Another, with Osbiorn at their head, having 
 
240 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 joined them off the mouth of the Humber, sailed (it seems) up 
 the Nene. All the chivalry of Denmark and Ireland was come. 
 'And with it, all the chivalry and the unchivalry of the Baltic 
 shores. Vikings from Jomsburg and Arkona, Gottlanders from 
 Wisby ; and with them savages from Esthonia, Finns from Aland, 
 Letts who still offered in the forests of Rugen human victims to 
 the four-headed Swantowit ; foul hordes in sheep-skins and pri- 
 meval filth, who might have been scented from Hunstanton Cliff 
 ever since their ships had rounded the Skaw. 
 
 Hereward hurried to them "with all his men. He was anxious, 
 of course, to prevent their plundering the landsfolk as they went, 
 — and that the savages from the Baltic shore would certainly do, 
 if they could, however reasonable the Danes, Orkneymen, and 
 Irish Ostmen might be. 
 
 Food, of course, they must take where they could find it ; but 
 outrages were not a necessary, though a too common, adjunct to 
 the process of emptying a farmer's granaries. 
 
 He found the Danes in a dangerous mood, sulky, and disgusted, 
 as they had good right to be. They had gone to the Humber, 
 and found nothing but ruin ; the land waste ; the French holding 
 both the shorfes of the Humber ; and Osbiorn cowering in Hum- 
 ber-mouth, hardly able to feed his men. They had come to 
 conquer England, and nothing was left for thera to conquer, but 
 a few peat-bogs. Then they would have what there was in them. 
 Every one knew that gold grew up in England out of the grmmd, 
 wherever a monk put his foot. And they would plunder Crow- 
 land. Their forefathers had done it, and had fared none the 
 worse. English gold they would have, if they could not get 
 fat English manors. 
 
 " No ! not Crowland ! " said Hereward ; " any place but Crow- 
 land, endowed and honored by Canute the Great, — Crowland, 
 whose abbot was a Danish nobleman, whose monks were Danes 
 to a man, of their own flesh and blood. Canute's soul would rise 
 up in Valhalla and curse them, if they took the value of a penny 
 from St. Guthlac. St. Guthlac was their good friend. He would 
 send them bread, meat, ale, all they needed. But woe to the 
 man who set foot upon his ground." 
 
 Hereward sent off messengers to Crowland, warning all to be 
 ready to escape into the fens ; and entreating Ulfketyl to empty 
 his storehouses into his barges, and send food to the Danes,, ere a 
 day was past. And Ulfketyl worked hard and well, till a string 
 of barges wound its way through the fens, laden with beeves and 
 bread, and ale-barrels in plenty, and with monks too, who wel- 
 comed the Danes as their brethren, talked to them in their own 
 tongue, blessed them in St. Guthlac's name as the saviors of 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 24l 
 
 England, and went home again, chanting so sweetly their thanka 
 to Heaven for their safety, that the wild Vikings were awed, and 
 agreed that St. Guthlac's men were wise folk and open-hearted, 
 and that it was a shame to do them harm. 
 
 But plunder they must have. 
 
 " And plunder you shall have ! " said Hereward, as a sudden 
 thought struck him. " I will show you the way to the Golden 
 Borough, — the richest minster in England ; and all the treasures 
 of the Golden Borough shall be yours, if you will treat English- 
 men as friends, and spare the people of the fens." 
 
 It was a great crime in the eyes of men of that time. A great 
 crime, taken simply, in Hereward's own eyes. But necessity 
 knows no law. Something the Danes must have, and ought to 
 have ; and St. Peter's gold was better in their purses than in 
 that of Thorold and his French monks. 
 
 So he led them across the fens and side rivers, till they came 
 into the old Nene, which men call Catwater and Muscal now. 
 
 As he passed Nomanslandhirne, and the mouth of the Crow- 
 land river, he trembled, and trusted that the Danes did not know 
 that they were within three miles of St. Guthlac's sanctuary. 
 But they went on ignorant, and up the Muscal till they saw St. 
 Peter's towers on the wooded rise, and behind them the great 
 forest which now is Milton Park. 
 
 There were two parties in Peterborough minster : a smaller 
 faction of stout- ^earted English, a larger one who favored William 
 and the French justoms, with Prior Herluin at their head. Her- 
 luin wanted not for foresight, and he knew that evil was coming 
 on him. He knew that the Danes were in the fen. He knew 
 that Hereward was with them. He knew that they had come to 
 Crowland. Hereward could never mean to let them sack it. 
 Peterborough must be their point. And Herluin set his teeth, 
 like a bold man determined to abide the worst, and barred and 
 barricaded every gate and door. 
 
 That night a hapless churchwarden, Ywar was his name, might 
 have been seen galloping through Milton and Castor Hanglands, 
 and on by Barnack quarries over Southorpe heath, with saddle- 
 bags of huge size stuffed with ' gospels, mass-robes, cassocks, and 
 other garments, and such other small things as he could carry 
 away.' And he came before day to Stamford, where Abbot 
 Thorold lay at his ease in his inn with his hommes d'armea 
 asleep in the hall. 
 
 And the churchwarden knocked them up, and drew Abbot 
 Thorold's curtains with a face such as his who 
 
 " drew Priam's curtains in the dead of night, 
 And would have told him, half his Troy was burned"; 
 11 P 
 
242- HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 and told Abbot Thorold that the monks of Peterborough had 
 sent him ; and that unless he saddled and rode his best that 
 niglit, with his meinie of men-at-arms, his Golden Borough would 
 be even as Troy town by morning light. 
 
 " A moi hommes d'armes ! " shouted Thorold, as he used to 
 shout whenever he wanted to scourge his wretched English 
 monks at Malmesbury into some French fashion. 
 
 The men leaped up, and poured in, growling. 
 
 " Take me this monk, and kick him into the street for waking 
 me with such news." 
 
 " But, gracious lord, the outlaws will surely burn Peterborough; 
 and folks said that you were a mighty man of war " 
 
 " So I am ; but if I were Roland, Oliver, and Turpin rolled 
 into one, how am I to fight Hereward and the Danes with forty 
 men-at-arms? Answer me that, thou dunder-headed - English 
 porker. Kick him out" 
 
 And Ywar was kicked into the cold, while Thorold raged up 
 and down his chamber in mantle and slippers, wringing his hands 
 over the treasure of the Golden Borough, snatched from his fin- 
 gers just as he was closing them upon it. 
 
 That night the monks of Peterborough prayed in the minster 
 till the long hours passed into the short. The poor corrodiers, 
 and other servants of the monastery, fled from the town outside 
 into the Milton woods. The monks prayed on inside till an hour 
 after matin. When the first flush of the summer's dawn began 
 to show in the northeastern sky, they heard mingling with their 
 own chant another chant, which Peterborough had not heard 
 since it was Medehampstead, three hundred years ago, — the ter- 
 rible Yuch-hey-saa-saa-saa, — the war-song of the Vikings of the 
 north. 
 
 Their chant stopped of itself. With blanched faces and trem- 
 bling knees they fled, regardless of all discipline, up into the 
 minster tower, and from the leads looked out northeastward on 
 the fen. 
 
 The first rays of the summer sun were just streaming over 
 the vast sheet of emerald, and glittering upon the winding river; 
 and on a winding line, too, seemingly endless, of scarlet coats and 
 shields, black hulls, gilded poops and vanes and beak-heads, and 
 the flash and foam of innumerable oars. 
 
 And nearer and louder came the oar-roll,, like thunder work- 
 ing up from the northeast; and mingled with it that grim yet 
 laughing Heysaa, which bespoke in its very note the revelry of 
 slaughter. 
 
 The ships had all their sails on deck. But as they came 
 nearer, the monks could see the banners of the two foremost 
 vessels. 
 
HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 243 
 
 The one was the red and white of the terrible Dannebrog. 
 The other, the scarcely less terrible white bear of Hereward. 
 
 " He wiU burn the minster ! He has vowed to do it. As a 
 child he vowed, and he must do it. In this very minster the 
 fiend entered into him and possessed him ; and to this minster 
 has the fiend brought him back to do his will. Satan, my breth- 
 ren, having a special spite (as must needs be) against St. Peter, 
 rock and pillar of the Holy Church, chose out and inspired this 
 man, even from his mother's womb, that he might be the foe and 
 robber of St. Peter, and the hater of all who, like my humility, 
 honor him, and strive to bring this English land into due obedi- 
 ence to that blessed apostle. Briilg forth the rehcs, my brethren. 
 Bring forth, above all things, those filings of St, Peter's own 
 chains, — the special glory of our monastery, and perhaps its 
 safeguard this day." 
 
 Some such bombast would any monk of those days have talked 
 in like case. And yet, so strange a thing is man, he might have 
 been withal, like Herluin, a shrewd and valiant man. 
 
 They brought out all the relics. They brought out the filings 
 themselves, in a box of gold. They held them out over the walls 
 at the ships, and called on all the saints to whom they belonged. 
 But they stopped that line of scarlet, black, and gold as much as 
 their spiritual descendants stop the lava-stream of Vesuvius, when 
 they hold out similar matters at them, with a hope unchanged 
 by the experience of eight hundred years. - The Heysaa rose 
 louder and nearer. The Danes were coming. And they came. 
 
 And all the while a thousand skylarks rose from off the fen, and 
 chanted their own chant aloft, as if appealing to Heaven against 
 that which man's greed and man's rage and man's superstition 
 had made of this fair earth of God. 
 
 The relics had been brought out. But, as they would not 
 work, the only thing to be done was to put them back again and 
 hide them _safe, lest they should bow down hke Bel and stoop like 
 Nebo, and be carried, like them, into captivity themselves, being 
 worth a very large sum of money in the eyes of the more Chris- 
 tian part of the Danish host. 
 
 Then to hide the treasures as well as they could; which 
 (says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) they hid somewhere in the 
 steeple. 
 
 The Danes were landing now. The shout which they gave, 
 as they leaped on shore, made the hearts of the poor monks sink 
 low. "Would they be murdered, as well as robbed? Perhaps 
 not, — probably not. Hereward would see to that. And some 
 wanted to capitulate. 
 
 Herluin would not hear of it. They were safe enough. St. 
 
244 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Peter's relic might not have worked a miracle on the spot ; but it 
 must have done something. St. Peter had been appealed to on 
 his honor, and on his honor he must surely take the matter up. 
 At all events, the walls and gates were strong, and the Danes had 
 no artillery. Let them howl and rage round the holy place, till 
 Abbot Thorold and the Frenchmen of the country rose and drove 
 them to their ships. 
 
 In that last thought the cunning Norman was not so far wrong. 
 The Danes pushed up through the little town, and to the minster 
 gates : but entrance was impossible ; and they prowled round and 
 round like raging wolves about a winter steading ; but found no 
 crack of entry. 
 
 Prior Herluin grew bold ; and coming to the leads of the gate- 
 way tower, looked over cautiously, and holding up a certain most 
 sacred emblem, — not to be profaned in these pages, — .cursed 
 them in the name of his whole Pantheon. 
 
 " Aha, Herluin ! Are you there ? " asked a short, square man 
 in gay armor. " Have you forgotten the peat-stack outside Boll- 
 dyke Gate, and how you bade light it under me thirty years 
 since ? " 
 
 "Thou art Winter?" and the Prior uttered what would be 
 considered, from any but a churchman's lips, a blasphemous and 
 bloodthirsty curse ; but which was, as their writings suflSciently 
 testify, merely one of the lawful weapons or " arts " of those 
 Christians who were "forbidden to fight," — the other weapon or 
 art being that of lying. 
 
 " Aha ! That goes like rain off a duck's back to one who has 
 been a minster scholar in his time. You ! Danes ! Ostraen ! 
 down ! If you shoot at that man I '11 cut your heads off. He is 
 the oldest foe I have in the world, and the only one who ever 
 hit me without my hitting him again ; and nobody shall touch 
 him but me. So down bows, I say." 
 
 The Danes — humorous all of them — saw that there was a 
 jest toward, and perhaps some earnest too, and joined in jeering 
 the Prior. 
 
 Herluin had ducked his head behind the parapet; not from 
 cowardice, but simply because he had on no mail, and might be 
 shot any moment. But when he heard Winter forbid them to 
 touch him, he lifted up his head, and gave his old pupil as good 
 as he brought. 
 
 With his sharp, swift Norman priest's tongue he sneered, he 
 jeered, he scolded, he argued ; and then threatened, suddenly 
 changing his tone, in words of real eloquence. He appealed t<) 
 the superstitions of his hearers. He threatened them with 
 supernatural vengeance. 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 245 
 
 Some of them began to slink away frightened. St. Peter was 
 an ill man to have a blood feud with. 
 
 Winter stood, laughing and jeering again, for fall ten minutes. 
 At last : " I asked, and you have not answered : have you for- 
 gotten the peat-stack outside Bolldyke Gate ? For if you have, 
 Hereward has not. He has piled it against the gate, and it 
 should be burnt tfirough by this time. Go and see." 
 
 Herluin disappeared with a curse. 
 
 ' " Now, you sea-cocks," said Winter, springing up. " We 'II to 
 the Bolldyke Gate, and all start fair." 
 
 The Bolldyke Gate was on fire; and more, so were the 
 suburbs. There was no time to save them, as Hereward would 
 gladly have done, for the sake of the poor corrodiers. They 
 must go, — on to the Bolldyke Gate. Who cared to put out 
 flames behind him, with all the treasures of Golden Borough 
 before him ? In a few minutes all the town was alight. In a 
 few minutes more, the monastery likewise. 
 
 A fire is detestable enough at all times, but most detestable by 
 day. At night it is customary, a work of darkness which lights 
 up the dark, picturesque, magnificent, with a fitness Tartarean 
 and diabolic. But under a glaring sun, amid green fields and 
 blue skies, all its wickedness is revealed without its beauty. 
 You see its works, and little more. The flame is hardly noticed. 
 All that is seen is a canker eating up God's works, cracking .the 
 bones of its prey, — for that horrible cracking is uglier than all 
 stage-scene glares, — cruelly and shamelessly under the very eye 
 of the great, honest, kindly sun. 
 
 And that felt Hereward, as he saw Peterborough burn. He 
 could not put his thoughts into words, as men of this day can : so 
 much the better for him, perhaps. But he felt all the more 
 intensely — as did men of his day — the things he could not 
 speak. All he said was aside to Winter, — 
 
 "It is a dark job. I wish it had been done in the dark." 
 And Winter knew what he meant. 
 
 Then the men rushed into the Bolldyke Gate, while Here- 
 ward and Winter stood and looked with their men, whom they 
 kept close together, waiting their commands. The Danes and 
 their allies cared not for the great glowing heap of peat. They 
 cared not for each other, hardly for themselves. They rushed 
 into the gap ; they thrust the glowing heap inward through the 
 gateway with their lances ; they thrust each other down into it, 
 and trampled over them to fall themselves, rising scorched and 
 withered, and yet struggling on toward the gold of the Golden 
 Borough. One savage Lett caught another round the waist, and- 
 hurled him bodily into the fire, crying in his wild tongue : — 
 
246 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " You will make a good stepping-stone for me." 
 
 " That is not fair," quoth Hereward, and clove him to the 
 chine. 
 
 It was wild work. But the Golden BoroUgh was won. 
 
 " "We must in now and save the monks," said Hereward, and 
 dashed over the embers. 
 
 He was only just in time. In the midst of the great court 
 were all the monks, huddled together like a flock of sheep, some 
 kneeling, most weeping bitterly, after the fashion of monks. 
 
 Only Herluin stood in front of them, at bay, a lofty crucifix 
 in his hand. He had no mind to weep. But with a face 
 of calm and bitter wrath, he preferred words of peace and 
 entreaty. They were what the time -needed. Therefore they 
 should be given. To-morrow he would write to Bisbop Egel- 
 sine, to excommunicate with bell, book, and candle, to the low- 
 est pit of Tartarus, all who had done the deed. 
 
 But to-day he spoke them fair. However, his fair speeches 
 profited little, not being understood by a horde of Letts and 
 Finns, who howled and bayed at him, and tried to tear the 
 crucifix from his hands ; but feared " the white Christ." 
 
 They were already gaining courage from their own yells ; in a 
 moment more blood would have been shed, and then a general 
 massacre must have ensued. 
 
 Hereward saw it, and shouting, " After me, Hereward's men ! 
 a bear ! a bear ! " swung Letts and Finns right and left like 
 corn-sheaves, and stood face to face with Herluin. 
 
 An angry Finn smote him on the hind-head full with a stone 
 axe. He staggered, and then looked round and laughed. 
 
 " Fool ! hast thou not heard that Hereward's armor was 
 forged by dwarfs in the mountain-bowels? Off, and hunt for 
 gold, or it will be all gone." 
 
 The Finn, who was astonished at getting no more from his 
 blow than a few sparks, and expected instant death in return, 
 took the hint and vanished jabbering, as did his fellows. 
 
 " Now, Herluin, the Frenchman ! " said Hereward. 
 
 " Now, Hereward, the robber of saints ! " said Herluin. 
 
 It was a fine sight. The soldier and the churchman, the Eng- 
 lishman and the Frenchman, the man of the then world, and the 
 mm of the then Church, pitted fairly, face to face. 
 
 Hereward tried, for one moment, to stare down Herluin. Bat 
 those terrible eye-glances, before which Vikings had quailed, 
 turned off harmless from the more terrible glance of the man who 
 believed himself backed by the Maker of the universe, and all the 
 hierarchy of heaven. 
 
 A sharp, unlovely face it was : though, like many a great 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 247 
 
 churchman's face of those days, it was neither thin nor haggard ; 
 but rather round, sleek, of a puffy and unwholesome paleness. 
 But there was a thin lip. above a broad square jaw, which sliowed 
 that Herluin was neither fool nor coward. 
 
 " A robber and a child of Belial thou hast been from thy cra- 
 dle ; and a robber and a child of Belial thou art now. Dare thy 
 last iniquity, and slay the servants of St. Peter on St. Peter's 
 altar, with thy worthy comrades, the heathen Saracens,* and set 
 up Mahound with them in the holy place." 
 
 Hereward laughed so jolly a laugh, that the Prior was taken 
 aback. 
 
 " Slay St. Peter's rats ? I kill men, not monks. There shall 
 not a hair of your head be touched. Here ! Hereward's men ' 
 march these traitors and their French Prior safe out of the walls, 
 and into Milton Woods, to look after their poor corrodiers, and 
 comfort their souls, after they have ruined their bodies by their 
 treason ! " 
 
 " Out of this place I stir not. Here I am, and here I will live 
 or die, as St. Peter shall send aid." 
 
 But as he spoke, he was precipitated rudely forward, and hur- 
 ried almost into Hereward's arras. The whole body of monks, 
 when they heard Hereward's words, cared to hear no more, bu*; 
 desperate between fear and joy, rushed forward, bearing away 
 tlieir Prior in the midst. 
 
 " So go the rats out of Peterborough, and so is my dream ful- 
 filled. Now for the treasure, and then to Ely." 
 
 But Herluin burst himself clear of the frantic mob of monks, 
 and turned back on Hereward. 
 
 " Thou wast dubbed knight in that church ! " 
 
 "I know it, man ^ and that church and the relics of the saints 
 in it are safe, therefore. Hereward gives his word." 
 
 " That, — but not that only, if thou art a true knight, as thou 
 boldest. Englishman." 
 
 Hereward growled savagely, and made an ugly step toward 
 Herluin. That was a point which he would not have questioned. 
 
 " Then behave as a knight, and save, save," — as the monks 
 dragged him away, — " save the hospice ! There are women, — 
 ladies there ! " shouted he, as he was borne off. 
 
 They never met again on earth ; but both comforted them- 
 selves in after years, that two old enemies' last deed in common 
 had been one of mercy. 
 
 Hereward uttered a cry of horror. If the wild Letts, even 
 
 * The Danes were continually mistaken, by Norman churchmen, for Sara- 
 cens, and the Saracens considered to be idolaters. A maumeet, or idol, m laaa 
 a Mahomet. 
 
248 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 the Jomsburgers, had got in, all was lost. He rushed to the 
 door. It was not yet burst : but a bench, swung by strong arms, 
 was battering it in fast. 
 
 " Winter ! Geri ! Siwards ! To me, Hereward's men ! Stand 
 back, fellows. Here are friends here inside. If you do not, I '11 
 cut you down." 
 
 But in vain. The door was burst, and in poured the savage 
 mob. Herevvard, unable to stop them, headed them, or pre- 
 tended to do so, with five or six of his own men round him, arid 
 went into the hall. 
 
 On the rushes lay some half-dozen grooms. They were butch- 
 ered instantly, simply because they were there. Hereward saw, 
 but could not prevent. He ran as hard as he could to the foot of 
 the wooden stair which led to the upper floor. 
 
 " Guard the stair-foot. Winter ! " and he ran up. 
 
 Two women cowered upon the floor, shrieking and praying 
 with hands clasped over their heads. He saw that the arms of 
 one of them were of the most exquisite whiteness, and judging 
 her to be the lady, bent over her. " Lady ! you are safe. I will 
 protect you. I am Hereward." 
 
 She sprang up, and threw herself with a scream into his 
 arms. 
 
 " Hereward ! Hereward ! Save me. I am — " 
 
 " Alftruda ! " said Hereward. 
 
 It was Alftruda ; if possible more beautiful than ever. 
 
 " I have got you ! " she cried. " I am safe now. Take me 
 away, — out of this horrible place ! Take me into the woods, — 
 anywhere. Only do not let me be burnt here, — stifled Uke a 
 rat Give me air ! Give me water ! " And she clung to him 
 so madly, that Hereward, as he held her in his arms, and gazed 
 on her extraordinary beauty, forgot Torfrida for the second time. 
 
 But there was no time to indulge in evil thoughts, even had 
 any crossed his mind. He caught her in his arms, and command- 
 ing the maid to follow, hurried down the stair. 
 
 Winter and the Siwards were defending the foot with swinging 
 blades. The savages were howling round like curs about a bull ; 
 and when Hereward appeared above with the women, there was 
 a loud yell of rage and envy. 
 
 He should not have the women to himself, — they would share 
 the plunder equally, — was shouted in half a dozen barbarous 
 dialects. 
 
 " Have you left any valuables in the chamber ? " whispered he 
 to Alftruda. 
 
 " Yes, jewels, — robes. Let them have all, only save me ! " 
 
 " Let me pass ! " roared Hereward. " There is rich boolyiJH 
 
HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 249 
 
 the room above,, and you may have it as these ladies' ransom. 
 Them you do not touch. Back, I say, let me pass I " 
 
 And he rushed forward. Winter and the housecarles formed 
 , round him and the women, and hurried down the hall, while the 
 [savages hurried up the ladder, to quarrel over their spoil. 
 
 They were out in the court-yard, and safe for the moment. 
 But whither should he take her? 
 
 " To Earl Osbiorn," said one of the Siwards. But how to find 
 him? 
 
 " There is Bishop Christiern ! '" And the Bishop was caught 
 and stopped. 
 
 " This is an evil day's work, Sir Hereward." 
 
 " Then help to mend it by taking care of these ladies, like a 
 man of God." And he explained the case. 
 
 " You may come safely with me, my poor lambs," said the 
 Bishop. " I am glad to find something to do fit for a churchman. 
 To me, my housecarles." 
 
 But they were all off plundering. 
 
 " We will stand by you and the ladies, and see you safe down 
 to the ships," said Winter, and so they went ofi". 
 - . Hereward would gladly have gone with them, as Alftruda 
 piteously entreated him. But he heard his name called on every 
 side in angry tones. 
 
 " Who wants Hereward ? " 
 
 " Earl Osbiorn, — here he is." 
 
 " Those scoundrel monks have hidden all the altar furniture. 
 If you wish to save them from being tortured to death, you had 
 best find it." 
 
 Hereward ran with him into the Cathedral. It was a hideous 
 sight ; torn books and vestments, broken tabernacle work ; foul 
 savages swarming in and out of every dark aisle and cloister, like 
 wolves in search of prey ; five or six ruffians aloft upon the rood 
 screen ; one tearing the golden crown from the head of the cruci- 
 fix, another the golden footstool from its feet.* 
 
 As Hereward came up, crucifix and man fell together, crashing 
 upon the pavement, amid shouts of brutal laughter. 
 
 He hurried past them, shuddering, into the choir. The altar 
 was bare, the golden pallium which covered it, gone. 
 
 " It may be in the crypt below. I suppose the monks keep 
 their relics there," said Osbiorn. 
 
 " No ! Not there. Do not touch the relics ! Would you have 
 the curse of all the saints? Stay! I know an old hiding-place. 
 It may be there. Up into the steeple with me." 
 
 * The crucifix was probably of the Greek pattern, in which the figure stood 
 upon a flat slab, projecting from the cross. 
 11* 
 
250 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 And in a chamber in the steeple they found the golden pall, 
 and treasures countless and wonderful. 
 
 "We had better keep the knowledge of this to ourselves 
 awhile," said Earl Osbiorn, looking with greedy eyes on a heap, 
 of wealth such as he had never beheld before. 
 
 " Not we ! Hereward is a man of his word, and we will share 
 and share alike." And he turned and went down the narrow 
 winding stair. 
 
 Earl Oobiorn gave one look at his turned back ; an evil spirit 
 of covetousness came over him ; and he smote Hereward fuU and 
 strong upon the hind-head. • 
 
 The sword turned upon the magic helm, and the sparks flashed 
 out bright and wide. 
 
 Earl Osbiorn shrunk back, appalled and trembling. 
 
 " Aha ! " said Hereward without looking round. " I never 
 thought there would be loose stones in the roof. Here! Up 
 here. Vikings, Berserker, and sea-cocks all ! Here, Jutlanders, 
 Jomsburgers, Letts, Finns, witches' sons and devils' sons all! 
 Here ! " cried he, while Osbiorn profited by that moment to 
 thrust an especially brilliant jewel into his boot. " Here is gold, 
 here is the dwarf's work ! Come up and take your Polotaswarf ! 
 You would not get a richer out of the Kaiser's treasury. Here, 
 wolves and ravens, eat gold, drink gold, roll in gold, and know 
 that Hereward is a man of his word, and pays his soldiers' wages 
 royally ! " 
 
 They rushed up the narrow stair, trampling each other to death, 
 and thrust Hereward and the Earl, choking, into a corner. The 
 room was so fall for a few moments, that some died in it. Here- 
 ward and Osbiorn, protected by their strong armor, forced their 
 way to the narrow window, and breathed through it, looking out 
 upon the sea of flame below. 
 
 " That was an unlucky blow," said Hereward, " that fell upon 
 my head." 
 
 " Very unlucky. I saw it coming, but had no time to warn 
 you. Why do you hold my wrist ? " 
 
 " Men's daggers are apt to get loose at such times as these." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " and Earl Osbiorn went from him, and 
 into the now thinning press. Soon only a few remained, to 
 search, by the glare of the flames, for what their fellows might 
 have overlooked. 
 
 " Now the play is played out," said Hereward, " we may as 
 well go down, and to our ships." 
 
 Some drunken ruffians would have burnt the church for mere 
 mischief. But Osbiorn, as well as Hereward, stopped that. And 
 gradually they got the jnen down to the ships ; some drunk, some 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLlSJl. 251 
 
 struggling under plunder ; some cursing and quarrelling because 
 nothing had fallen to their lot. It was a hideous scene ; but one 
 to which Hereward, as well as Osbiorn, was too well accustomed 
 to see aught in it save an hour's inevitable trouble in getting the 
 men on board. 
 
 The monks had all fled. Only Leofwin the long was left, and 
 he lay sick in the infirmary. Whether he was burned therein, or 
 saved by Hereward's men, is not told. 
 
 And so was the Golden Borough sacked and burnt. Now 
 then, whither ? 
 
 The Danes were to go to Ely, and join the army there. Here- 
 ward would march on to Stamford ; secure that town if he could ; 
 then to Huntingdon, to secure it likewise ; and on to Ely afterwards. 
 
 " You will not leave me among these savages ? " said Alftruda. 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! You shall come with me as far as Stamford, 
 and then I will set you on your way." 
 
 " My way ? " said Alftruda, in a bitter and hopeless tone. 
 
 Hereward mounted her on a good horse, and rode beside her, 
 looking — and he well knew it — a very perfect knight. Soon 
 they began to talk. What had brought Alftruda to Peterborough, 
 of all places on earth ? 
 
 " A woman's fortune. Because I am rich, — and some say 
 fair, — I am a puppet, and a slave, a prey. I was going back to 
 my, — to Dolfin." 
 
 " Have you been away from him, then ? " 
 
 « What ! Do you not know ? " 
 
 " How should I know, lady ? " 
 
 " Yes. most true. How should Hereward know anything about 
 Alftruda ? But I will tell you. Maybe you may not care to 
 hear ? " 
 
 " About you ? Anything. I have often longed to know how, 
 — what you were doing." 
 
 " Is it possible ? Is there one human being left on earth who 
 cares to hear about Alftruda ? Then listen. You know when 
 Grospatrick fled to Scotland his sons went with him. Young 
 Gospatrick, Waltheof,* and he, — Dolfin. Ethelreda, his girl, 
 went too, — and she is to marry, they say, Duncan, Malcolm's 
 eldest son by Ingebiorg. So Gospatrick will find himself, some 
 day, father-in-law of the King of Scots." 
 
 "I will warrant him to find his nest well lined, wherever he be. 
 But of yourself? " 
 
 * This Waltheof Gospatricksson must not be confounded with Waltheof Si- 
 wardsson, the young Earl. He became a wild border chieftain, then Baron of 
 Atterdale, and then gave Atterdale to his sister Queen Ethelreda, and turned 
 monk, and at last Abbot, of Crowland: crawling home, poor fellow, like many 
 another, to die iu peace iu the sanctuary of the Daues. 
 
252 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " I refijsed to go. I could not face again that bleak black 
 North. Beside — but that is no concern of Hereward's — " 
 
 Hereward was on the point of saying, " Can anything concern 
 you, and not be interesting to me ? " 
 
 But she went on, — 
 
 " I refused, and — " 
 
 " And he misused you ? " asked he, fiercely. 
 
 " Better if he had. Better if he had tied me to his stirrup, 
 and scourged me along into Scotland, than have left me to new 
 dangers and to old temptations." 
 
 " What temptations ? " 
 
 Alftruda did not answer ; but went on, — 
 
 " He told me, in his lofty Scots' fashion, that I was free to do 
 what I list. That he had long since seen that I cared not for 
 him ; and that he would find many a fairer lady in his own land." 
 
 " There he lied. So you did not care for him ? He is a noble 
 knight." 
 
 " What is that to me ? Women's hearts are not to be bought 
 and sold with their bodies, as I was sold. Care for him ? I care 
 for no creature upon earth. Once I cared for Hereward, like a 
 silly child. Now I care not even for him." 
 
 Hereward was sorry to hear that. Men are vainer than women, 
 just as peacocks are vainer than peahens ; and Hereward was — 
 alas for him ! — a specially vain man. Of course, for him to fall 
 in love with Alftruda would have been a shameful sin, — he would 
 not have committed it for all the treasures of Constantinople; 
 but it was a not unpleasant thought that Alftruda should fall in 
 love with him. But he only said, tenderly and courteously, — 
 
 " Alas, poor lady ! " 
 
 " Poor lady. Too true, that last. For whither am I going 
 now ? Back to that man once more." 
 
 "To Dolfin?" 
 
 " To my master, like a runaway slave. I went down South to 
 Queen Matilda. I knew her well, and she was kind to me, as 
 she is to all things that breathe. But now that Gospatrick is 
 come into the king's grace again, and has bought the earldom 
 of Northumbria, from Tweed to Tyne — " 
 
 " Bought the earldom ? " 
 
 " That has he ; and paid for it right heavily." 
 
 " Traitor and fool ! He will not keep it seven years. The 
 Frenchman will pick a quarrel with him, and cheat him out of 
 earldom and money too." 
 
 The which William did, within three years. 
 
 " May it be so ! But when he came into the king's grace, he 
 must needs demand me back in his son's name." 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 253 
 
 " "What does Dolfin want with you ? " 
 
 " His father wants my money, and stipulated for it with the 
 king. And beside, I suppose I am a pretty plaything enough 
 still." 
 
 " You ? You are divine, perfect. Dolfin is right. How could 
 a man who had once enjoyed you live without you ? " 
 
 Alftruda laughed, — a laugh full of meaning; but what that 
 meaning was, Hereward could not divine. 
 
 " So now," she said, " what Hereward has to do, as a true and 
 courteous knight, is to give Alftruda safe conduct, and, if he can, 
 a guard ; and to deliver her up loyally and knightly to his old 
 friend and fellow-warrior, Dolfin Gospatricksson, earl of what- 
 ever he can lay hold of for the current month." 
 
 " Are you in earnest ? " 
 
 Alftruda laughed one of her strange laughs, looking straight 
 before her. Indeed, she had never looked Hereward in the face 
 iuring the whole ride. 
 
 " What are those open holes ? Graves ? " 
 
 " They are Barnack stone-quarries, which Alfgar my brother 
 gave to Crowland." 
 
 " So ? That is pity. I thought they had been graves ; and then . 
 you might have covered me up in one of them, and left me to 
 sleep in peace." , 
 
 " What can I do for you, Alftruda, my old play-fellow : Alf- 
 truda, whom I saved from the bear ? " 
 
 " If she had foreseen the second monster into whose jaws she 
 was to fall, she would have prayed you to hold that terrible hand 
 of yours, which never since, men say, has struck without victory 
 and renown. You won your first honor for my sake. But who 
 am I now, that you should turn out of your glorious path for 
 me?" 
 
 " I will do anything, — anything. But why miscall this noble 
 prince a monster ? " 
 
 " If he were fiiirer than St. John, more wise than Solomon, and 
 more valiant than King William, he is to me a monster ; fo^ I 
 loathe him, and I know not why. But do your duty as a knight, 
 sir. Convey the lawful wife to her lawful spouse." 
 
 " What cares an outlaw for law, in a land where law is dead 
 and gone ? I will do what I — what you like. Come with me 
 to Torfrida at Bourne ; and let me see the man who dares try to 
 take you out of my hand." 
 
 Alftruda laughed again. 
 
 " No, no. I should interrupt the little doves in their nest. 
 Beside, the billing and cooing might make me envious. And 
 I, alas ! who carry misery with me round the land, might make 
 your Torfrida jealous." 
 
254 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Hereward was of the same opinion, and rode silent and thought' 
 ful through the great woods which are now the noble park of 
 Burghley. 
 
 " I have found it ! " said he at last. " Why not go to Gilbert 
 of Ghent, at Lincoln ? " 
 
 I " Gilbert ? "Why should he befriend me ? " 
 
 " He will do that, or anything else, which is for his own 
 profit." 
 
 " Profit ? All the world seems determined to make profit out 
 of me. I presume you would, if I had come with you to 
 Bourne." 
 
 " I do not doubt it. This is a very wild sea to swim in ; and a 
 man must be forgiven, if he catches at every bit of drift-timber." 
 
 " Selfishness, selfishness everywhere ; — and I suppose you ex- 
 pect to gain by sending me to Gilbert of Ghent ? " 
 
 " I shall gain nothing, Alftruda, save the thought that you are 
 not so far from me — from us — but that we can hear of you, — 
 eend succor to you if you need." 
 
 Alftruda was silent. At last — 
 
 " And you think that Gilbert would not be afraid of angering 
 the king ? " 
 
 " He would not anger the king. Gilbert's friendship is more 
 important to William, at this moment, than that of a dozen GoS' 
 Patricks. He holds Lincoln town, and with it the key of Wal- 
 theof 's earldom : and things may happen, Alftruda — I tell you ; 
 but if you tell Gilbert, may Hereward's curse be on you ! " 
 
 "Not that! Any man's curse save yours!" said she in so 
 passionate a voice that a thrill of fire ran through Hereward. 
 And he recollected her scoff at Bruges, — " So he could not wait 
 for me ? " And a storm of evil thoughts swept through him. 
 " Would to heaven ! " said he to himself, crushing them gallantly 
 down, " I had never thought of Lincoln. But there is no other 
 plan." 
 
 But he did not tell Alftruda, as he meant to do, that she might 
 see him soon in Lincoln Castle as its conqueror and lord. He 
 half hoped that when that day came, Alftruda might be some- 
 where else. .; 
 
 " Gilbert can say," he went on, steadying himself again, " that 
 you feared to go north on account of the disturbed state of the 
 country ; and that, as you had given yourself up to him of your 
 own accord, he thought it wisest to detain you, as a hostage for 
 Dolfin's allegiance." 
 
 •' He shall say so. I will make him say so." 
 
 " So be it. Now, here we are at Stamford town ; and I must 
 to my trade. Do you like to see fighting, Alftruda, — the man's 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 255 
 
 game, the royal game, the only game worth a thought on earth ? 
 For you are like to see a little in the next ten minutes." 
 
 " I should like to see you fight. Tliey tell me none is so swift 
 and terrible in the battle as Hereward. How can you be other- 
 wise, who slew the bear, — when we were two happy cliildren to- 
 gether ? But shall I be safe ? " 
 
 " Safe ? of course," said Hereward, who longed, peacock-like, 
 lO show off his prowess before a lady who was — there was no 
 denying it — far more beautiful than even Torfrida. 
 
 But he had no opportunity to show off his prowess. For as 
 he galloped in over Stamford Bridge, Abbot Thorold galloped 
 out at the opposite end of the town through Casterton, and up the 
 Roman road to Grantham. 
 
 After whom Hereward sent Alftruda (for he heard that Thor- 
 old was going to Gilbert at Lincoln) with a guard of knights, bid- 
 ding them do him no harm, but say that Hereward knew hira 
 to be a preztx chevalier and lover of fair ladies ; that he had sent 
 him a right fair one to bear him company to Lincoln, and hoped 
 that he would sing to her on the way the song of Roland. 
 
 And Alftruda, who knew Thorold, went willingly, since it could 
 no better be. 
 
 After which, according to Gaimar, Hereward tarried three 
 days at Stamford, laying a heavy tribute on the burgesses for har- 
 boring Thorold and his Normans ; ^nd also surprised at a drink- 
 ing-bout a certain special enemy of his, and chased him from room 
 to room sword in hand, till he took refuge shamefully in an out- 
 house, and begged his life. 
 
 And when his knights came back from Grantham, he marched 
 to Bourne. 
 
 " The next night," says Leofric the deacon, or rather the monk 
 who paraphrased his saga in Latin prose, — "Hereward saw in 
 his dreams a man standing by him of inestimable beauty, old of 
 years, terrible of countenance, in all the raiment of his body more 
 splendid than all things which he had ever seen, or conceived in 
 his mind ; who threatened him with a great club which he carried 
 in his hand, and with a fearful doom, that he, should take back to 
 his church all that had been carried off the night before, and 
 have them restored utterly, each in its place, if he wished to pro- 
 vide for the salvation of his soul, and escape on the spot a pitiable 
 death. But when awakened, he was seized with a divine terror, 
 and restored in the same hour all that he took away, and so de- 
 parted, going onward with all his men." 
 
 So says Leofric, wishing, as may be well believed, to advance 
 the glory of St. Peter, and purge his master's name from the 
 staio of sacrilege. Beside, the monks of Peterborough no doubt 
 
256 HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 had no wish that the world should spy out their nakedness, and 
 become aware that the Golden Borough was stript of all its gold. 
 
 Nevertheless, truth will out. Golden Borough was Golden 
 Borough no more. The treasures were never restored ; they 
 went to sea with the Danes, and were scattered far and wide, — , 
 to Norway, to Ireland, to Denmark ; " all the spoils," says the 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, " which reached the latter country, being 
 the pallium and some of the shrines and crosses ; and many of 
 the other treasures they brought to one of the king's towns, and 
 laid them up in the church. But one night, through their care- 
 lessness and drunkenness, the church was burned, with all tliat 
 was therein. Thus was the minster of Peterborough burned 
 and pillaged. May Almighty God have pity on it in His great 
 mercy." 
 
 Hereward, when blamed for the deed, said always that he did 
 it "because of his allegiance to the monastery." Rather than 
 that the treasures gathered by Danish monks should fall into the 
 hands of the French robbers, let them be given to their own 
 Danish kinsmen, in payment for their help to English liberty. 
 
 But some of the treasure, at least, he must have surely given 
 back, it so appeased the angry shade of St. Peter. For on that 
 night, when marching past Stamford, they lost their way. " To 
 whom, when they had lost their way, a certain wonder happened, 
 and a miracle, if it can be said that such would be worked in 
 favor of men of blood. For while in the wild night and dark 
 tliey wandered in the wood, a huge wolf met them, wagging his 
 tail like a tame dog, and went before them on a path. And they, 
 taking the gray beast in the darkness for a white dog, cheered on 
 each other to follow him to his farm, which ought to be hard by. 
 And in the silence of the midnight, that they might see their 
 way, suddenly candles appeared, burning, and clinging to the 
 lances of all the knights, — not very bright, however ; but lilte 
 those which the folk call candelee nympharum, — wills of the wisp. 
 But none could pull them off, or altogether extinguish them, or 
 throw them from their hands. And thus they saw their way, and 
 went on, although astonished out of mind, with the wolf leading 
 them, until day dawned^ and they saw, to their great astonish- 
 ment, that he was a wolf. And as they questioned among them- 
 selves about what had befallen, the wolf and the candles disap- 
 peared, and they came whither they had been minded, — beyond 
 Stamford town, — thanking God, and wondering at what had 
 happened." 
 
 After which Hereward took Torfrida, and his child, and all he 
 had, and took ship at Bardeney, and went for Ely. Which 
 when Earl Warrenne heard, he laid wait for him, seemingly near 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 257 
 
 Soathery : but got nothing thereby, according to Leofric, but 
 the pleasure of giving and taking a great deal of bad language ; 
 and (after his men had refused, reasonablj' enough, to swim the 
 Ouse and attack Hereward) an arrow, which lierewai'd, " modi- 
 cum se inclinans" stooping forward, says Leofric, — who proba- 
 bly saw the deed, — shot at him across the Ouse, as the Earl 
 stood cursing on the top of the dike. Which arrow flew so stout 
 and strong, that though it sprang back from Earl Warrenne's 
 hauberk, it knocked him almost senseless off his horse, and forced 
 him to defer his purpose of avenging Sir Frederic his brother. 
 
 After which Hereward threw himself into Ely, and assumed, 
 by consent of all, the command of the English who were therein. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 HOW THEY HELD A GREAT MEETING IN THE HALL OF ELT 
 
 There sat round the hall of Ely all the magnates of the East 
 land and East sea. The Abbot on his high seat ; and on a seat 
 higher than his, prepared specially, Sweyn Ulfsson, King of 
 Denmark and England. By them sat the Bishops, Egelwin the 
 Englishman and Christiern the Dane, Osbiorn, the young Earls 
 Edwin and Morcar, and Sweyn's two sons ; and, it may be, the 
 sons of Tosti Godwinsson, and Arkill the great Thane, and 
 Hereward himself. Below them were knights, vikings, captains, 
 great holders from Denmark, and the Prior and inferior officers 
 of Ely minster. And at the bottom of the misty hall, on the 
 other side of the column of blue vapor which went trembling up 
 from the great heap of burning turf amidst, were housecarles, 
 monks, wild men from the Baltic shores, crowded together to 
 hear what was done in that parliament of their betters. 
 
 They spoke like free Danes ; the betters from the upper end 
 of the hall, but eveiy man as he chose. They were in full 
 Thing ; in parliament, as their forefathers had been wont to be 
 for countless ages. Their House of Lords and their House of 
 Commons were not yet defined from each other : but they knew 
 the rules of the house, the courtesies of debate ; and, by practice 
 of free speech, had educated themselves to bear and forbear, like 
 gentlemen. 
 
 But the speaking was loud and earnest, often angry, that day. 
 " What was to be done ? " was the question before the house. 
 
 " That depended," said Sweyn, the wise and prudent king, 
 "on what could be done by the English to co-operate with 
 them." And what that was has been already told. 
 
 " When Tosti Godwinsson, ye Bishops, Earls, Knights, and 
 Holders, came to me five years ago, and bade me come and 
 take the kingdom of England, I answered him, that I had not 
 wit enough to do the deeds which Canute my uncle did ; and so 
 sat still in peace. I little thought that I should have lost in five 
 years so much of those small wits' which I confessed to, that I 
 should come after all to take England, and find two kings in it 
 already, both more to the English mind than me. While Wil- 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 259 
 
 liam the Frenchman is king by the sword, and Edgar the Eng- 
 lishman king by proclamation of Danish Earls and Thanes, 
 there seems no room here for Sweyn Ulfsson." 
 
 " We will make room for you ! We will make a rid road 
 from here to Winchester ! " shouted the holders and knights. 
 
 " It is too late. What say you, Hereward Leofricsson, who 
 go for a wise man among men ? " 
 
 Hereward rose, and spoke gracefully, earnestly, eloquently; 
 but he could not deny Sweyn's plain words. 
 
 " Sir Hereward beats about the bush," said Earl Osbiorn, 
 rising when Hereward sat down. " None knows better than he 
 that all is over. Earl Edwin and Earl Morcar, who should 
 have helped us along Watling Street, are here fugitives. Earl 
 Gospatrick and Earl Waltheof are William's men now, soon to 
 raise the landsfolk against us. We had better go home, before 
 we have eaten up the monks of Ely." 
 
 Then Hereward rose again, and without an openly insulting 
 word, p«ured forth his scorn and rage upon Osbiorn. Why liad 
 he not kept to the agreement which he and Countess Gyda had 
 made with him through Tosti's sons ? Why had he wasted time 
 and men from Dover to Norwich, instead of coming straight into 
 the fens, and marching inland to succor Morcar and Edwin? 
 Osbiorn had ruined the plan, and he only, if it was ruined. 
 
 " And who was I, to obey Hereward ? " asked Osbiorn, fiercely. 
 
 " And who wert thou, to disobey me ? " asked Sweyn, in a ter- 
 rible voice. " Hereward is right. We shall see what thou say- 
 est to all this, in full Thing at liome in Denmark." 
 
 Then Edwin rose, entreating peace. " They were beaten. 
 The hand of God was against them. Why should they strug- 
 gle any more ? Or, if they struggled on, wliy should they in- 
 volve the Danes in their own ruin?" 
 
 Then holder after holder rose, and spoke rough Danish com- 
 mon sense. - They had come hither to win England. They had 
 found it won ah-eady. Let them take what they had got from 
 Peterborough, and go. 
 
 Then Winter sprang up. " Take the pay, and sail off with it, 
 without having done the work? That would be a noble tale to 
 carry home to your fair wives in Jutland. I shall not eall you 
 niddering, being a man of peace, as all know." Whereat all 
 laughed ; for the doughty little man had not a hand's breadth on 
 head or arm without its scar. '' But if your ladies call you so, 
 you must have a shrewd answer to give, beside knocking them 
 down." 
 
 Sweyn spoke without rising : " The good knight forgets that 
 this expedition has cost Denmark already nigh as much as Har- 
 
260 ' HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 old Hardraade's cost Norway. It is hard upon the Danes, if 
 they are to go away empty-handed as well as disappointed." 
 
 " The King has right ! " cried Hereward. " Let them take 
 the plunder of Peterborough as pay for what they have done, 
 and what beside they would have done if Osbiorn the Earl — 
 Nay, men of England, let us be just ! — what they would have 
 done if there had been heart and wit, one mind and one purpose, 
 in England. The Danes have done their best. They have 
 shown themselves what they are, our blood and kin. I know 
 that some talk of treason, of bribes. Let us have no more such 
 vain and foul suspicions. They came as our friends ; and as our 
 friends let them go, and leave us to fight out our own quarrel to 
 the last drop of blood." 
 
 " Would God ! " said Sweyn, " thou wouldest go too, thou 
 good knight. Here, earls and gentlemen of England! Sweya 
 Ulfsson offers to every one of you, who will come to Denmark 
 with him, shelter and hospitality till better times shall come." 
 
 Then arose a mixed cry. Some would go, some would not 
 Some of the Danes took the proposal cordially; some feared 
 bringing among themselves men who would needs want land, 
 of which there was none to give. If the English came, they 
 must go up the Baltic, and conquer fresh lands for themselves 
 from heathen Letts and Finns. 
 
 Then Hereward rose again, and spoke so nobly and so well, 
 that all ears were charmed. 
 
 They were Englishmen ; and they would rather die in their 
 own merry England than conquer new kingdoms in the cold 
 northeast. They were sworn, the leaders of them, to die or 
 conquer, fighting the accursed Frenchman. They were bound 
 to St. Peter, and to St. Guthlac, and to St. Felix of Ramsay, 
 and St. Etheldreda the holy virgin, beneath whose roof they 
 stood, to defend against Frenchmen the saints of England whom 
 they despised and blasphemed, whose servants they cast out, 
 thrust into prison, and murdered, that they might bring in 
 Frenchmen from Normandy, ItaHans from the Pope of Rome. 
 Sweyn Ulfsson spoke as became him, as a prudent and a gener- 
 ous prince ; the man who alone of all kings defied and fought 
 (he great Hkrdraade till neither could fight more ; the true 
 nephew of Canute the- king .of kings: and they thanked him: 
 but they would live and die fiiiglisTlmen. 
 
 And every Englishman shouted, " Hereward has right ! We 
 will live and die fighting the French ! " 
 
 And Sweyn Ulfsson rose again, and -said with a great oalh, 
 " That if there had been three such men as Hereward iu Eng- 
 land, all would have gone well," 
 
HEEEWAUD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 261 
 
 Hereward laughed. " Thou art wrong for once, wise king 
 We have failed, just, because there were a dozen men in England 
 as good as me, every man wanting his own way ; and too many 
 cooks have spoiled the broth. What we wanted is, not a dozen 
 men like me, but one like thee, to take us all by the back of the 
 neck and shake us soundly, and say, ' Do that, or die ! ' " 
 
 And so, after much talk, the meeting broke up. And when it 
 broke up, there came to Hereward in the hall a noble-looking 
 man of his own age, and put his hand within his, and said, — 
 
 " Do you not know me, Hereward Leofricsson ? " 
 
 " I know thee not, good knight, more pity ; but by thy dress 
 and carriage, thou shouldest be a true Vikingsson." 
 
 " I am Sigtryg Ranaldsson, now King of Watertbrd. And 
 my wife said to me, ' If there be treachery or faint-heartedness, 
 remember this, — that Hereward Leofricsson slew the Ogre, and 
 Hannibal of Gweek likewise, and brought me safe to thee. And, 
 therefore, if thou provest false to him, niddering thou art ; and 
 110 niddering is spouse of mine.' " 
 
 " Thou art Sigtryg Eanaldsson ? " cried Hereward, clasping 
 him in his arms, as the scenes of his wild youth rushed across 
 his mind. " Better is old wine than new, and old friends like- 
 wise." 
 
 " And I, and my five ships, are thine to death. Let who will 
 go back." 
 
 " They must go," said Hereward, half-peevishly. " Sweyn has 
 right, and Osbiorn too. The game is played out. Sweep the 
 chessmen off the board, as Earl Ulf did by Canute the king." 
 
 "And lost his life thereby. I shall stand by, and see thep 
 play the last pawn." 
 
 " And lose thy life equally." 
 
 " What matter ? I heard thee sing, — 
 
 ' A bed-death, a priest death, 
 A straw death, a cow death, 
 Such death Hkes not me ! ' 
 
 Nor likes it me either, Hereward Leofricsson." 
 
 So the Danes sailed away: but Sigtryg Eanaldsson and his 
 five ships remained. 
 
 Hereward went to the minster tower, and watched the Ouse 
 flashing with countless oars northward toward Southrey Fen. 
 And when they were all out of sight, he went back, and lay 
 down on his bed and wept, — once and for all. Then he arose, 
 and went down into the hall to abbots and monks, and earls 
 and knights, and was the boldest, cheeriest, wittiest of them 
 all. 
 
 " They say," quoth he to Torfrida that night, " that some men 
 
262 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 have gray heads on green shoulders. I have a gray heart in a 
 green body." 
 
 " And my heart is growing very gray, too," said Torfrida. 
 
 " Certainly not thy head." And he played with her ravea 
 locks. 
 
 " That may come, too ; and too soon." 
 
 For, indeed, they were in very evil case. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 HOW THEY FOUGHT AT ALDEETH. 
 
 When "William heard that the Danes were gone, he marched 
 on Ely, as on an easy prey. 
 
 Ivo Taillebois came with him, hungry after those Spalding 
 lands, the rents whereof Hereward had been taking for his men 
 for now twelve months. William de Warrenne was there, vowed 
 to revenge the death of Sir Frederic, his brother. Ralph Gua- 
 der was there, flushed with his success at Norwich. And with 
 them all the Frenchmen of the east, who had been either ex- 
 pelled from their lands, or were in fear of expulsion. 
 
 With them, too, was a great army of mercenaries, ruffians from 
 all France and Flanders, hired to fight for a certain term, on the 
 chance of plunder or of fiefs in land. Their brains were all 
 aflame with the tales of inestimable riches hidden in Ely. There 
 were there the jewels of all the monasteries round ; there were 
 the treasures of all the fugitive English nobles ; there were there 
 — what was there not ? And they grumbled, when William 
 halted them and hutted them at Cambridge, and began to feel 
 cautiously the strength of the place, — which must be strong, or 
 Hereward and the English would not have made it their camp 
 of refuge. 
 
 Perhaps he rode up to Madingley windmill, and saw fifteen 
 miles away, clear against the sky, the long line of what seemed 
 naught but a low upland park, with the minster tower among the 
 trees ; and between him and them, a rich champaign of grass, 
 over which it was easy enough to march all the armies of Eu- 
 rope ; and thought Ely an easy place to take. But men told 
 him that between him and those trees lay a black abyss of mud 
 and peat and reeds, Haddenham fen and Smithy fen, with the 
 deep sullen West water or "Ald-reche" of the Ouse winding 
 through them. The old Roman road was sunk and gone long 
 since under the bog, whether by English neglect, or whether (as 
 some think) by actual and bodily sinking of the whole land. 
 The narrowest space between dry land and dry land was a full 
 half-mile ; and how to cross that half-mile, no man knew. 
 
 What were the approaches on the west ? There were none. 
 
264 HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Beyond Earith, where now run the great washes of the Bedford 
 Level, was a howling wilderness of meres, seas, reed-ronds, and 
 floating alder-beds, through which only the fen-men wandered, 
 with leaping-pole and log canoe. 
 
 What in the east ? The dry land neared the island on that 
 side. And it may be that William rowed round by Burwell to 
 Fordham and Soham, and thought of attempting the island by. 
 way of Barraway, and saw beneath him a labyrinth of islands, 
 meres, fens, with the Ouse, now increased by the volume of the 
 Cam, lying deep and broad between Barraway and Thetford-jn- 
 the-Isle ; and saw, too, that a disaster in that labyrinth might be 
 a destruction. 
 
 So he determined on the near and straight path, through Long 
 Stratton and Willingham, down the old bridle-way from Willing- 
 ham ploughed field, — every village there, and in the isle like- 
 wise, had and has still its " field," or ancient clearing of ploughed 
 land, — and then to try that terrible half-mile, with the courage 
 and wit of a general to whom human lives were as those of the 
 gnats under the hedge. 
 
 So all his host camped themselves in Willingham field, by the 
 old earthwork which men now call Belsar's Hills ; and down the 
 bridle-way poured countless men, bearing timber and fagots cut 
 from all the hills, that they might bridge the black half-mile. 
 
 They made a narrow, firm path through the reeds, and down 
 to the brink of the Ouse, if brink it could, be called, where the 
 water, rising and falling a foot or two each tide, covered the float- 
 ing peat for many yards before it sunk into a brown .depth of 
 bottomless slime. They would make a bottom for themselves by 
 driving piles. 
 
 The piles would not hold ; and they began to make a flpating 
 bridge with long beams, says Leofric, and blown-up cattle-hides 
 to float them. 
 
 Soon they made a floating sow, and thrust it on before them as 
 they worked across the stream ; for they were getting under shot 
 from the island. 
 
 Meanwhile the besieged had not been idle. They had thrown 
 up, says Leofric, a turf rampart on the island shore, and " ante- 
 muralia et propugnacula," — doubtless overhanging " hoardings," 
 or scaffolds, through the floor of which they could shower down 
 missiles, And so they awaited the attack, contenting themselves 
 with gliding in and out of the reeds in their canoes, and annoying 
 the builders with arrows and cross-bow bolts. 
 
 At last the bridge v^as finished, and the so'w safe across tlie 
 West water, and thrust in, as far as it would float, among the 
 reeds pn the high tide. They in the fort could touch it with 
 a p(^le. " ■■> ■ - - 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 265 
 
 The English would have destroyed it if they could. But 
 Hereward bade them leave it alone. He had watched all their 
 work, and made up his mind to the event. 
 
 " The rats have set a trap for themselves," he said to his men, 
 " and we shall be fools to break it up till the rats' are safe inside.' 
 
 So there the huge sow lay, black and silent, showing nothing 
 to the enemy but a side of strong plank, covered with hide tc 
 prevent its being burned. It lay there for three hours, and Here- 
 ward let it lie. 
 
 He had never been so cheerful, so confident. " Play the man 
 this day, every one of you, and ere nightfall you will have taught 
 the Norman once more the lesson of York. He seems to have 
 forgotten that. It is me to remind him of it." 
 
 And he looked to his bow and to his arrows, and prepared to 
 play the man himself, — as was the fashion in those old days, 
 when a general proved his worth by hitting harder and moro 
 Burely than any of his men. 
 
 At last the army was in motion, and Willingham field opposite 
 was like a crawling ants' nest. Brigade after brigade moved 
 down to the reed beds, and the assault began. 
 
 And now advanced along the causeway and along the bridge 
 a dark column of men, surmounted by glittering steel. Knights 
 in complete mail, footmen in leather coats and quilted jerkins ; 
 at first orderly enough, each under the banner of his lord ; but 
 more and more mingled and crowded as they hurried forward, 
 each eager for his selfish share of the inestimable treasures of 
 Ely. They pushed along the bridge. The mass became more 
 and more crowded ; men stumbled over each other, and fell off 
 into the mire and the water, calling vainly for help, while their 
 comrades hurried on unheeding, in the mad thirst for spoil. 
 
 On they came in thousands ; and fresh thousands streamed out 
 of the fields, as if the whole army intended to pour itself jto the 
 isle at once. 
 
 " They are numberless," said Torfrida, in a seriou'- and aston- 
 ished voice, as she stood by Hereward's side. 
 
 " Wotld they were ' " said Hereward. ' I-et them come on, 
 thick and threefold. The more their numbeis the fatter will the 
 fish below be before to-morrow morning. Look there, already ! " 
 
 And already the bridge was swaying, and sinking beneath 
 their weight. The men in places were ankle deep in water. 
 They rushed on all the more eagerly, and filled the sow, and 
 Bwarmed up to its roof. 
 
 Then, what with its own weight, what with the weight of the 
 laden bridge, — which dragged upon it from behind, — the huge 
 sow began to tilt backwards, and slide down the slimy bank. 
 12 
 
266 HEREWARD, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 
 
 The men on the top tried vainly to keep their footing, to hurl 
 grapnels into the rampart, to shoot off their quarrels and arrows. 
 
 " You must be quick, Frenchmen," shouted Hereward in de- 
 rision, " if you mean to come on board here." 
 
 The Normans- knew that well ; and as Hereward spoke two 
 panels in the front of the sow creaked on their hinges, and 
 dropped landward, forming two draw-bridges, over which reeled 
 to the attack a close body of knights, mingled with soldiers bear- 
 ing scaling ladders. 
 
 They recoiled. Between the ends of the draw-bridges and the 
 foot of the rampart was some two fathoms' depth of black ooze. 
 The catastrophe which Hereward had foreseen was come, and a 
 shout of derision arose from the unseen defenders above. 
 
 " Come on, — leap it like men ! Send back for your horses, 
 knights, and ride them at it like bold huntsmen ! " 
 
 The front rank could not but rush on : for the pressure behind 
 forced them forward, whether they would or not. In a moment 
 they were wallowing waist deep, trampled on, and disappearing 
 under their struggling comrades, who disappeared in their turn. 
 
 " Look, Torfrida ! If they plant their scaling ladders, it will 
 be on a foundation of their comrades' corpses." Torfrida gave 
 one glance through the openings of the hoarding, upon the writh- 
 ing mass below, and turned away in horror. The men were 
 not so merciful. Down between the hoarding-beams rained 
 stones, javelins, arrows, increasing the agony and death. The 
 scaling ladders would not stand in the mire. If they had stood 
 a moment, the struggles of the dying would have thrown them 
 down ; and still fresli victims pressed on from behind, shouting 
 " Dex Ale ! On to the gold of Ely ! " And still the sow, under 
 the weight, slipped further and further back into the stream, and 
 the foul gulf widened between besiegers and besieged. 
 
 At last one scaling ladder was planted upon the bodies of the 
 dead, and hooked firmly on the gunwale of the hoarding. Ere 
 it could be hurled off again by the English, it was so crowded 
 with men that even Hereward's strength was insufficient to lift it 
 off. He stood at the top, ready to hew down the first 'comer ; 
 and he hewed him down. 
 
 But the Normans were not to be daunted. Man after man 
 dropped dead from the ladder top, — man after man took his 
 place ; sometimes two at a time ; sometimes scrambling over 
 each other's backs. 
 
 The English, even in the insolence of victory, cheered them 
 with honest admiration. " You are fellows worth fighting, you 
 French!" 
 
 " So we are," shouted a knight, the first and last who crossed 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 267 
 
 that parapet ; for, thrusting Hereward back with a blow of his 
 sword-hilt, he staggered past him over the hoarding, and fell on 
 his knees. ' 
 
 A dozen men were upon him ; but he was up again and shout- 
 ing. — 
 
 " To me, men-at-arms ! A Dade ! a Dade I " But no man an- 
 swered. 
 
 " Yield ! " quoth Hereward. 
 
 Sir Dade answered by a blow on Hereward's helmet, which 
 felled the chief to his knees, and broke the sword into twenty 
 BpUnters. 
 
 " Well hit," said Hereward, as he rose. " Don't touch him, 
 men ! this is my quarrel now. Yield, sir ! you have done enough 
 for your honor. It is madness to throw away your hfe." 
 
 The knight looked round on the fierce ring of faces, in the 
 midst of which he stood alone. 
 
 " To none but Hereward." 
 
 " Hereward am I." 
 
 " Ah," said the knight, " had I but hit a httle harder ! " 
 
 " You would have broke your sword into more splinters. My 
 armor is enchanted. So yield like a reasonable and valiant man." 
 
 " Wliat care I ? " said the knight, stepping on to the earthwork, 
 and sitting down quietly. " I vowed to St. Mary and King Wil- 
 liam that into Ely I would get this day ; and in Ely I am ; so I 
 have done my work." 
 
 " And now you shall taste — as such a gallant knight deserves 
 
 — the hospitality of Ely." 
 
 It was Torfrida who spoke. 
 
 " My husband's prisoners are mine ; and I, when I find them 
 such prvdhommes as you are, have no lighter chains for them 
 than that which a lady's bower can afford." 
 
 Sir Dade was going to make an equally courteous answer, 
 when over and above the shouts and curses of the combatants 
 rose a yell so keen, so dreadful, as made all hurry forward to the 
 rampart. 
 
 That which Hereward had foreseen was come at last. The 
 bridge, strained more and more by its living burden, and by the 
 falling tide, had parted, — not at the Ely end, where the sliding 
 of the sow took off the pressure, — but at the end nearest the 
 camp. One sideway roll it gave, and then, turning over, engulfed 
 in that foul stream the flower of Norman chivalry; leaving a line 
 
 — a full quarter of a mile in length — of wretches drowning in 
 the dark water, or, more hideous still, in the bottomless slime of 
 peat and mud. 
 
 Thousands are said to have perished. Their armor and weap- 
 
268 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 ons were found at times, by delvers and dikers, for centuriea 
 after ; are found at times unto this day, beneath the rich drained 
 cornfields which now fill up that black half-mile, or in the bed of 
 the narrow brook to which the Westwater, robbed of its streams 
 by the Bedford Level, has dwindled down at last. 
 
 William, they say, struck his tents and departed forthwith, 
 groaning from deep grief of heart ; and so ended the first battle 
 of Aldreth. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 HOW SIR DADE BROUGHT NEWS FROM ELY. 
 
 A MONTH after the flght, there came into the camp at Cara- 
 bridge, riding on a good horse, himself fat and well-liking, none 
 other than Sir Dade. 
 
 Boisterously he was received, as one alive from the dead ; and 
 questioned as to his adventures and suiferings. 
 
 " Adventures I have had, and strange ones ; but for sufferings, 
 instead of fetter-galls, I bring back, as you see, a new suit of 
 clothes ; instead of an empty and starved stomach, a surfeit from 
 good victuals and good liquor ; and whereas I went into Ely on 
 foot, I came out on a fast hackney." 
 
 So into William's tent he went ; and there he told his tale. 
 
 " So, Dade, my friend ? " quoth the Duke, in high good humor, for 
 he loved Dade, " you seem to have been in good company ? " 
 
 " Never in better. Sire, save in your presence. Of the earls 
 and knights in Ely, all I can say is, God's pity that they are 
 rebels, for more gallant and courteous knights or more perfect 
 warriors never saw I, neither in Normandy nor at Constantino- 
 ple, among the Varangers themselves." 
 
 " Eh ! and what are the names of these gallants ; for you have 
 used your eyes and ears, of course ? " 
 
 " Edwin and Morcar, the earls, — two fine young lads." 
 
 " I know it. Go on " ; and a shade passed over William's 
 brow, as he thought of his own falsehood, and his fair Constance, 
 weeping in vain for the fair bridegroom whom he had promised 
 to her. 
 
 " Siward Barn, as they call him, the boy Orgar, and Thurkill 
 Barn. Those are the knights. Egelwin, bishop of Durham, is 
 there too ; and besides them all, and above them all, Hereward. 
 The like of that knight I may have seen. His better saw I 
 never." 
 
 " Sir fool ! " said Earl Warrenne, who had not yet — small 
 blame to him — forgotten his brother's death. " They have 
 soused thy brains with their muddy ale, till thou knowest not 
 friend from foe. What hast thou to come hither praising up to 
 the King's Majesty such an outlawed villain as that, with whom 
 no honest knight would keep company ? " 
 
270 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " If you, Earl Warrenne, ever found Dade drunk or lying, it is 
 more than the King here has done." 
 
 " Let him speak, Earl," said William. " I have not an lion- 
 ester man in my camp ; and he speaks for my information, not 
 for yours." 
 
 " Then for yours will I speak, Sir King. These men treated 
 me knightly, and sent me away without ransom." 
 
 " They had an eye to their own profit, it seems," grumbled the 
 Earl. 
 
 " But force me they did to swear on the holy Gospels that I 
 should tell your Majesty the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 but the truth. And I keep my oath," quoth Dade. 
 
 " Go on, then, without fear or favor. Are there any other 
 men of note in the island ! " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Are they in want of provisions ? " 
 
 " Look how they have fattened me." 
 
 " What do they complain of? " 
 
 " I will tell you, Sir King. The monks, like many more, took 
 fright at the coming over of our French men of God to set right 
 all their filthy, barbarous ways ; and that is why they threw Ely 
 open to the rebels." 
 
 " I will be even with the sots," quoth William. 
 
 " However, they think that danger blown over just now ; for 
 they have a story among them, which, as my Lord the King never 
 heard before, he may as well hear now." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 " How your Majesty should have sent across the sea a whole 
 shipload of French monks." 
 
 " That have I, and will more, till I reduce these swine into 
 something like obedience to his Holiness of Rome." 
 
 " Ah, but your Majesty has not heard how one Bruman, a 
 valiant English knight, was sailing on the sea and caught those 
 monks. Whereon he tied a great sack to the ship's head, and cut 
 the bottom out, and made every one of those monks get into that 
 sack and so fall through into the sea ; whereby he rid the monks 
 of Ely of their rivals." 
 
 " Pish ! why tell me such an 'old-wives' fable, knight ? " 
 
 " Because the monks believe that old-wives' fable, and are 
 stout-hearted and stiflT-necked accordingly." 
 
 " The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church," said Wil- 
 liam's chaplain, a pupil and friend of Lanfranc ; " and if these 
 men of Belial drowned every man of God in Normandy, ten 
 would spring up in their places to convert this benighted and be- 
 sotted land of Simonites and Balaamites, whose priests, like the 
 
HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 271 
 
 Brutes which perish, scruple not to defile themselves and the ser- 
 vice of the altar with things which they impudently call their 
 wives." 
 
 " We know that, good chaplain,'' quoth William, impatiently. 
 He had enough of that language from Lanfranc himself; and, 
 moreover, was thinking more of the Isle of Ely than of the celi- 
 bacy of the clergy. 
 
 "Well, Sir Dade?" 
 
 " So they have got together all their kin ; for among these 
 monks every one is kin to a Thane, or Knight, or even an Earl. 
 And there they are, brother by brother, cousin by cousin, knee 
 to knee, and back to back, like a pack of wolves, and that in a 
 hold which you will not enter yet awhile." 
 
 " Does my friend Dade doubt his Duke's skill at last ? " 
 
 " Sir Duke, — Sir King I mean now, for King you are and 
 deserve to be, — I know what you can do. I remember how we 
 took England at one blow on Senlac field ; but see you here, Sir 
 King. How will you take an island where four kings such as 
 you (if the world would hold four such, at once) could not stop 
 one churl from ploughing the land, or one bird-catcher from set- 
 ting lime-twigs ? " 
 
 " And what if I cannot stop the bird-catchers ? Do they ex- 
 pect to lime Frenchmen as easily as sparrows ? " 
 
 " Sparrows ! It is not sparrows that I have been fattening on 
 this last month. I tell you, Sire, I have seen wild-fowl alone in 
 that island enough to feed them all the year round. I was there 
 in the moulting-time, and saw them take, — one day one hun- 
 dred, one two hundred ; and once, as I am a belted knight, a 
 thousand duck out of one single mere. There is a wood there, 
 with herons sprawling about the tree-tops, — I did not think there 
 were so many in the world, — and fish for Lent and Fridays in 
 every puddle and leat, pike and perch, tench and eels, on every 
 old-wife's table ; while the knights think scorn of anything worse 
 than smelts and burbot." 
 
 " Splendeur Dex ! " quoth William, who. Normanlike, did not 
 dislike a good dinner. " I must keep Lent in Ely before I die." 
 
 " Then you had best make peace with the burbot-eating 
 knights, my lord." 
 
 " But have they flesh-meat? " 
 
 " The isle is half of it a garden, — richer land,- they say, is 
 none in these realms, and I believe it : but, besides that, there is 
 a deer-park there with a thousand head in it, red and fallow ; 
 and plenty of swine in woods, and sheep, and cattle ; and if they 
 fail, there are plenty more to be got, they know where." 
 
 " They know where ? Do you, Sir Knight ? " asked William, 
 keenly. 
 
'272 EEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Out of every little island in their fens, for forty miles on end 
 There are the herds fattening themselves on the richest pastures 
 in the land, and no man needing to herd them, for they are all 
 safe among dikes and meres." 
 
 " I will make my boats sweep their fens clear of every 
 head—" 
 
 " Take care, my Lord King, lest never a boat come back from 
 that errand. With their narrow flat-bottomed punts, cut out of a 
 single log, and their leaping-poles, wherewith they fly over dikes 
 of thirty feet in width, — they can ambuscade in those reed-beda 
 and alder-beds, kill whom they will, and then flee away through 
 the marsh like so many horse-flies. And if not, one trick have 
 they left, which they never try save when driven into a comer: 
 but from that, may all saints save us ! " 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " Firing the reeds." 
 
 " And destroying their own cover ? " 
 
 " True : therefore they wiU only do it in despair." 
 
 " Then to despair will I drive them, and try their worst. So 
 these monks are as stout rebels as the earls ? " 
 
 " I only say what I saw. At the hall-table there dined each 
 day maybe some fifty belted knights, with every one a monk next 
 to him ; and at the high table the abbot, and the three earls, and 
 Hereward and his lady, and Thurkill Barn. And behind each 
 knight, and each monk likewise, hung against the wall lance and 
 shield, helmet and hauberk, sword and axe." 
 
 " To monk as well as knight ? " 
 
 "As I am a knight myself; and were as well used, too, for 
 aught I saw. The monks took turns with the knights as sentries, 
 and as foragers, too ; and the knights themselves told me openly, 
 the monks were as good men as they." 
 
 " As wicked, you mean," groaned the chaplain. " O, accursed 
 and bloodthirsty race, why does not the earth open and swallow 
 you, with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram ? " 
 
 " They would not mind," quoth Dade. " They are born and 
 bred in the bottomless pit already. They would jump over, or 
 flounder out, as they do to their own bogs every day." 
 
 " You speak irreverently, my friend," quoth William. 
 
 "Ask those who are in camp, and not me. As for whither they 
 went, or how, the English were not likely to tell me. All I know 
 is, that I saw fresh cattle come every few days, and fresh farms 
 burnt, too, on the Norfolk side. There were farms burning last 
 night only, between here and Cambridge. Ask your sentinels on 
 ftie Eech-dike how that came about ? " 
 
 " I can answer that," quoth a voice fr<»n tie other end of the 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 273 
 
 tent. " I was on the Rech-dike last night, close down to the fen, 
 — worse luck and shame for me." 
 
 " Answer, then ! " quoth William, with one of his horrible 
 oaths, glad to have some one on whom he could turn hia rage 
 and disappointment. 
 
 " There came seven men in a boat up from Ely yestereven, 
 and five of them were monks ; they came up from Burwell fen, 
 and plundered and burnt Burwell town." 
 
 " And where were all you mighty men of war ? " 
 
 " Ten of us ran down to stop them, with Richard, Earl Os- 
 hern's nephew, at their head. The villains got to the top of the 
 Rech-dike, and made a stand, and before we could get to 
 them — " 
 
 " Thy men had run, of course." 
 
 " They were every one dead or wounded, save Richard ; and 
 he was fighting single-handed with an Englishman, while the 
 other six stood around, and looked on." 
 
 " Then they fought fairly ? " said William. 
 
 " As fairly, to do them justice, as if they had been Frenchmen, 
 and not English churls. As we came down along the dike, a 
 little man of them steps between the two, and strikes down their 
 swords as if they had been two reeds. ' Come ! ' cries he, 
 ' enough of this. You are two prudhommes well matched, and 
 you can fight out this any other day ' ; and away he and his men 
 go down the dike-end to the water." 
 
 " Leaving Richard safe ? " 
 
 " Wounded a little, — but safe enough." 
 
 « And then ? " 
 
 " We followed them to the boat as hard as we could ; killed 
 one with a javelin, and caught another." 
 
 " Knightly done ! " and William swore an awful oath, " and 
 worthy of valiant Frenchmen. These English set you the ex- 
 ample of chivalry by letting your comrade fight his own battle 
 fairly, instead of setting on him all together ; and you repay them 
 by hunting them down with darts, because you dare not go within 
 sword's-stroke of better men than yourselves. Go. I am ashamed 
 of you^ No, stay. Where is your prisoner ? For, Splendeur 
 Dex ! I will send him back safe and sound in return for Dade, to 
 tell the knights of Ely that if they know so well the courte- 
 sies of war, William of Rouen does too." 
 
 "The prisoner, Sire," quoth the knight, trembling, "is^ 
 
 U— " 
 
 " You have not murdered him ? " 
 
 " Heaven forliid ! but — " 
 
 " He broke his bonds and escaped ? " 
 
 12* B 
 
274 HEKEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Gnawed them ttrough, Sire, as we suppose, ai>d escaped 
 through the mire in the dark, after the fashion of tho'se ac- 
 cursed frogs of Girvians." 
 
 " But did he tell you naught ere he bade you good morning ? " 
 
 " He told us the names of all the seven. He that beat down 
 the swords was Hereward himself." 
 
 " I thought as much. When shall I have that fellow at my 
 Bide ? " 
 
 " He that fought Eichard was one Wenoch." 
 
 • I have heard of him." 
 
 ' He that we slew was Siward, a monk." 
 
 " More shame to you." 
 
 " He that we took was Ayer the Hardy, a monk of Nicole — 
 Licole," — the Normans could never say Lincoln. 
 
 " And the rest were Thurstan the Younger ; Leofric the 
 Deacon, Hereward's minstrel ; and Boter, the traitor monk 
 of St. Edmund's." 
 
 " And if I catch them," quoth William, " I will make an abbot 
 of every one of them." 
 
 " Sire ? " quoth the chaplain, in a deprecating tone. 
 
CHAPTER XXX, 
 
 HOW HEEEWAKD PLAYED THE POTTER ; AND HOW HE 
 CHEATED THE KING. 
 
 Thet of Ely were now much straitened, being shut in both by 
 land and water ; and what was to be done, either by themselves 
 or by the king, they knew not. Would William simply starve 
 them ; or at least inflict on them so perpetual a Lent, — for of 
 fish there could be no lack, even if they ate or drove away all the 
 fowl, — as would tame down their proud spirits ; which a diet of 
 fish and vegetables, from some ludicrous theory of monastic phy- 
 sicians, was supposed to do ? * Or was he gathering vast armies, 
 from they knew not whence, to try, once and for all, another 
 assault on the island, — it might be from several points at once? 
 
 They must send out a spy, and find out news from the outer 
 world, if news were to be gotten. But who would go ? 
 
 So asked the bishop, and the abbot, and the earls, in council in 
 the abbot's lodging. 
 
 Torfrida was among them. She was always among them now. 
 She was their Alruna-wife, their Vala, their wise woman, whose 
 counsels all received as more than human. 
 
 " I will go," said she, rising up like a goddess on Olympus. 
 " I will cut off my hair, and put on boy's clothes, and smirch my- 
 self brown with walnut leaves ; and I will go. I can talk their 
 French tongue. I know their French ways ; and as for a story 
 to cover my journey and my doings, trust a woman's wit to invent 
 that." 
 
 They looked at her, with delight in her courage, but with 
 doubt. 
 
 "If William's French grooms got hold of you, Torfrida, it 
 would not be a litde walnut brown which would hide you," said 
 Hereward. " It is like you to offer, — worthy of you, who have 
 no peer." 
 
 " That she has not," quoth churchmen and soldiers alike. 
 
 " But — to send you would be to send Hereward's wrong half 
 The right half of Hereward is going ; and that is, himself." 
 
 • The Cornish — the stoutest, tallest, and most prolific race of the South — • 
 live ou hardly anything else but fish and vegetables. 
 
276 HEEEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Uncle, uncle ! " said the young earls, " send Winter, Geri, 
 Leofwin Prat, any of your fellows : but not yourself. If we lose 
 you, we lose our head and our king." 
 
 And all prayed Hereward to let any man go, rather than him- 
 Belf. 
 
 " I am going, lords and knights ; and what Hereward says he 
 does. It is one day to Brandon. It may be two days back ; for 
 if I miscarry, — as I most likely shall, — I must come home 
 round about. On the fourth day, you shall hear of me or from 
 me. Come with me, Torfrida." 
 
 And be strode out. 
 
 He cropped his golden locks, he cropped his golden beard ; 
 and Torfrida cried, as she cropped them, half with fear for him, 
 half for sorrow over his shorn glories. 
 
 " I am no Samson, my lady ; my strength lieth not in my locks. 
 Now for some rascal's clothes, — as little dirty as you can get me, 
 for fear of company." 
 
 And Hereward put on filthy garments, and taking mare Swal- 
 low with him, got into a barge and went across the river to 
 Soham. 
 
 He could not go down the Great Ouse, and up the Little Ouse, 
 which was his easiest way, for the French held all the river 
 below the isle ; and, beside, to have come straight from Ely might 
 cause suspicion. So he went down to Fordham, and crossed the 
 Lark at Mildenhall ; and just before he got to Mildenhall, he 
 met a potter carrying pots upon a pony. 
 
 " Halt, my stout fellow," quoth he, " and put thy pots on my 
 mare's back." 
 
 " The man who wants them must fight for them,'' quoth that 
 stout churl, raising a heavy staff. 
 
 " Then here is he that will," quoth Hereward ; and, jumping 
 off" his mare, he twisted the staff" out of the potter's hands, and 
 knocked him down therewith. 
 
 " That will teach thee to know an Englishman when thon seest 
 him." 
 
 " I have met my master," quoth the churl, rubbing his head. 
 " But dog does not eat dog ; and it is hard to be robbed by an 
 Englishman, after being robbed a dozen times by the French." 
 
 " I will not rob tliee. There is a silver penny for thy pots and 
 thy coat, — for that I must have likewise. And if thou tellest 
 to mortal man aught about this, I will find those who will cut 
 thee to ribbons ; and if not, then turn thy horse's head and ride 
 back to Ely, if thou canst cross the water, and say what has 
 befallen thee ; and thou wilt find there an abbot who will give 
 thee another penny for thy news." 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 277 
 
 So Hereward took the pots, and the potter's clay-greased coat, 
 and went on through Mildenhall, " crying," saith the chronicler, 
 " after the manner of potters, in the English tongue, ' Pots ! pots ! 
 good pots and pans ! ' " 
 
 But when he got through Mildenhall, and well into the rabbit- 
 warrens, he gave mare Swallow a kick, and went over the heath 
 so fast northward, that his pots danced such a dance as broke 
 half of them before he got to Brandon. 
 
 " Never mind," quoth he, " they will think that I have sold 
 them." And when he neared Brandon he pulled up, sorted his 
 pots, kept the whole ones, threw the sherds at the rabbits, and 
 walked on into Brandon solemnly, leading the mare, and crying 
 " Pots ! " 
 
 So " semper marcida et deformis aspectu " — lean and ill- 
 looking — was that famous mare, says the chronicler, that no one 
 would suspect her splendid powers, or take her for anything but 
 a potter's nag, when she was caparisoned in proper character. 
 Hereward felt thoroughly at home in his part ; as able to play 
 the Englishman which he was by rearing, as the Frenchman 
 which he was by education. He was full of heart, and happy. 
 He enjoyed the keen fresh air of the warrens ; he enjoyed the 
 ramble out of the isle, in which he had been cooped up so long ; 
 he enjoyed the fun of the thing, — disguise, stratagem, adventure, 
 danger. And so did the English, who adored him. None of 
 Hereward's deeds is told so carefully and lovingly; and none, 
 doubt it not, was so often sung in after years by farm-house 
 hearths, or in the outlaws' lodge, as this. Eobin Hood himself 
 may have trolled, out many a time, in doggrel strain, how Here- 
 ward played the potter. 
 
 And he came to Brandon, to the " king's court," — probably 
 Weeting Hall, or castle, from which William could command the 
 streams of Wissey and Little Ouse, with all their fens, — and 
 cast about for a night's lodging, for it was dark. 
 
 Outside the town was a wretched cabin of mud and turf, — 
 such a one as Irish folk live in to this day ; and Hereward said 
 to himself, " This is bad enough to be good enough for me." 
 
 So he knocked at the door, and knocked till it was opened, and 
 a hideous old crone put out her head. 
 
 " Who wants to see me at this time of night ? " 
 
 " Any one would, who had heard how beautiful you are. Do 
 you want any pots ? " 
 
 " Pots ! What have I to do with pots, thou saucy fellow ? I 
 thought it was some one wanting a charm." And she shut the 
 door. 
 
 " A charm ? " thought Hereward. " Maybe she can tell me 
 
278 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 news, if she be a witch. They are shrewd souls, these witches, 
 and know more than they tell. But if I can get any news, I 
 care not if Satan brings it in person." 
 
 So he knocked again, till the old woman looked out once more, 
 and bade him angrily be off. 
 
 " But I am belated here, good dame, and afraid of the French. 
 And I will give thee the best bit of clay on my mare's back, — 
 pot, — pan, — pausion, — crock, — jug, or what thou wilt, for a 
 night's lodging." 
 
 " Have you any little jars, — jars no longer than my hand ? " 
 asked she ; for she used them in her trade, and had broken one 
 of late: but to pay for one, she had neither money nor mind. 
 So she agreed to let Here ward sleep there, for the- value of two 
 jars. " But what of that ugly brute of a horse of thine ? " 
 
 " She will do well enough in the turf-shed." 
 
 " Then thou must pay with a pannikin." 
 
 " Ugh ! " groaned Hereward ; " thou drivest a hard bargain, 
 for an Englishwoman, with a poor Englishman." 
 
 " How knowest thou that I am English ? " 
 
 " So much the better if thou art not," thought Hereward ; and 
 bargained with her for a pannikin against a lodging for the horse 
 in the turf-house, and a bottle of bad hay. 
 
 Then he went in, bringing his panniers with him with ostenta- 
 tious care. 
 
 " Thou canst sleep there on the rushes. I have naught to give 
 thee to eat." 
 
 " Naught needs naught," said Hereward ; threw himself down 
 un a bundle of rush, and in a few minutes snored loudly. 
 
 But he was never less asleep. He looked round the whole 
 cabin ; and he listened to every word. 
 
 The Devil, as usual, was a bad paymaster ; for the witch's cabin 
 seemed only somewhat more miserable than that of other old 
 women. The floor was mud, the rafters unceiled ; the stars shone 
 through the turf roof. The only hint of her trade was a hanging 
 shelf, on which stood five or six little earthen jars, and a few 
 packets of leaves. A parchment, scrawled with characters which 
 the owner herself probably did not understand, hung against the 
 cob wall ; and a human skull — probably used only to frighten 
 her patients — dangled from thg roof-tree. 
 
 But in a corner, stuck against the wall, was something which 
 chilled Hereward's blood a little. A dried human hand, which 
 he knew must have been stolen off the gallows, gripping in its 
 fleshless fingers a candle, which he knew was made of human fat. 
 That candle, he knew, duly lighted and carried, would enable the 
 witch to walk unseen into any house on earth, yea, through the 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 279 
 
 court of King William himself, while it drowned all men in pre- 
 ternatural slumber. 
 
 Hereward was very much frightened. He believed as devout- 
 ly in the powers of a witch as did then — and does now, for aught 
 Italian literature, e permissu superiorum, shows — the Pope of 
 Rome. 
 
 So he trembled on his rushes, and wished himself safe through 
 that adventure, without being turned into a hare or a wolf. 
 
 " I would sooner be a wolf than a hare, of course, killing boing 
 more in my trade than being killed ; but — who comes here ? " 
 
 And to the first old crone, who sat winking her bleared eyes, 
 and warming her bleared hands over a little heap of peat in the 
 middle of the cabin, entered another crone, if possible uglier. 
 
 " Two of them ! If I am not roasted and eaten this night, I 
 am a lucky man." 
 
 And Hereward crossed himself devoutly, and invoked St. 
 Ethelfrida of Ely, St. Guthlac of Crowland, St. Fehx of Ramsey, 
 • — to whom, he recollected, he had been somewhat remiss ; but, 
 above all, St. Peter of Peterborough, whose treasures he had 
 given to the Danes. And he argued stoutly with St. Peter and 
 with his own conscience, that the means sanctify the end, and 
 that he had done it all for the best. 
 
 " If thou wilt help me out of this strait, and the rest, blessed 
 Apostle, I will give thee — I will go to Constantinople but what 
 I will win it — a golden table twice as fine as those villains car- 
 ried off, and one of the Bourne manors — Witham — or Toft — 
 or Mainthorpe — whichever pleases thee best, in full fee ; and 
 a — and a — " 
 
 But while Hereward was casting in his mind what gewgaw 
 further might suffice to appease the Apostle, he was recalled to 
 business and common-sense by hearing the two old hags talk to 
 each other in French. 
 
 His heart leapt for joy, and he forgot St. Peter utterly. 
 
 " Well, how have you sped ? Have you seen the king ? " 
 
 " No ;\ but Ivo Taillebois. Eh ! Who the foul fiend have 
 you lying there ? " 
 
 "Only an English brute. He cannot understand us. Talk 
 on: only don't wake the hog. Have you got the gold?" 
 
 " Never mind." 
 
 Then there was a grumbling and a quarrelling, from which 
 Hereward understood that the gold was to be shared between 
 them. 
 
 " But it is a bit of chain. To cut it will spoil it." 
 
 The other insisted ; and he heard them chop the gold chain in 
 two. 
 
280 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 "And is this aU?" 
 
 "I had work enough to get that. He said, No play no 
 pay ; and he would give it me after the isle was taken. But 
 I told him my spirit was a Jewish spirit, that used to serve 
 Solomon the Wise ; and he would not serve me, much less come 
 over the sea from Normandy, unless he smelt gold ; for he loved 
 it hke any Jew." 
 
 " And what did you tell him then ? " 
 
 " That the king must go back to Aldreth again ; for only from 
 thence he would take the isle; for — and that was true enough 
 . — I dreamt I saw all the water of Aldreth full of wolves, clam^ 
 bering over into the island on each other's backs." 
 
 " That means that some of them will be drowned." 
 
 " Let them drown. I left him to find out that part of the 
 dream for himself. Then I told him how he must make another 
 causeway, bigger and stronger than the last, and a tower on 
 which I could stand and cuz-se the English, And I promised 
 him to bring a storm right in the faces of the English, so that 
 they could neither fight nor see." 
 
 " But if the storm does not come ? " 
 
 "It will come. I know the signs of the sky, — who better? 
 — and the weather will break up in a week. Therefore I told 
 him he must begin his works at once, before the rain came on ; 
 and that we would go and ask the spirit of the well to tell us 
 the fortunate day for attacking." 
 
 " That is my business," said the other ; " and my spirit likes 
 the smell of gold as well as yours. Little you would have got 
 from me, if you had not given me half the chain." 
 
 Then the two rose. 
 
 " Let us see whether the English hog is asleep." 
 
 One of them came and listened to Hereward's breathing, and 
 put her hand upon his chest. His hair stood on end ; a cold 
 sweat came over him. But he snored more loudly than ever. 
 
 The two old crones went out satisfied. Then Hereward rose, 
 and glided after them. 
 
 They went down a meadow to a little well, which Hereward 
 had marked as he rode thither, hung round with bits of rag and 
 flowers, as similar " holy wells " are decorated in Ireland to this 
 day. 
 
 He hid behind a hedge, and watched them stoof ing over the 
 well, mumbling he knew not what of cantrips. 
 
 Then there was silence, and a tinkling sound as of water. 
 
 " Once — twice — thrice," counted the witches. Nine times he 
 sounted the tinkling sound. 
 
 " The ninth day, — the ninth day, and the king shall take Ely,*^ 
 
HEKEWABD, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 281 
 
 Baid one in a cracked scream, rising, and shaking her fist toward 
 the isle. 
 
 Hereward was more than half-minded to have put his dagger 
 — the only weapon which he had — into the two old beldames on 
 the spot. But the fear of an outcry kept him still. He had 
 found out already so much, that he was determined to find out 
 more. So to-morrow he would go up to the court itself, and take 
 what luck sent. 
 
 He slipt back to the cabin and lay down again ; and as soon as 
 he had seen the two old crones safe asleep, fell asleep himself, 
 and was so tired that he lay till the sun was high. 
 
 " Get up ! " screamed the old dame at last, kicking him, " or I 
 shall make you give me another crock for a double night's rest." 
 
 He paid his lodging, put the panniers on the mare, and went 
 on crying pots. 
 
 When he came to the outer gateway of the court he tied up 
 the mare, and carried the crockery in on his own back boldly. 
 The scullions saw him, and called him into the kitchen to see his 
 crockery, without the least intention of paying for what they 
 took. 
 
 A man of rank belonging to the court came in, and stared fix- 
 edly at Hereward. 
 
 " You are mightily like that villain Hereward, man," quoth he. 
 
 " Anon ? " asked Hereward, looking as stupid as he could. 
 
 " If it were not for his brown face and short hair, he is as like 
 the fellow as a churl can be to a knight." 
 
 " Bring him into the hall," quoth another, " and let us see if 
 any man knows him." 
 
 Into the great hall he was brought, and stared at by knights 
 and squires. He bent his knees, rounded his shoulders, and 
 made himself look as mean as he could. 
 
 Ivo Taillebois and Earl Warrenne came down and had a look 
 at him. 
 
 " Hereward ! " said Ivo. " I will warrant that little slouching 
 cur is not he. Hereward must be half as big again, if it be true 
 that he can kill a man with one blow of his fist." 
 
 " You may try the truth of that for yourself some day," thought 
 Hereward. 
 
 " Does any one here talk English ? Let us question the fellow," 
 said Earl Warrenne. 
 
 " Hereward ? Hereward ? Who wants to know about that 
 villain ? " answered the potter, as soon as he was asked in Eng- 
 lish. " Would to Heaven he were here, and I could see some of 
 you noble knights and earls paying him for me ; for I owe him 
 more than ever J, shall pay myself." 
 
282 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " What does he mean ? " 
 
 " He came out of the isle ten days ago, nigh on to evening, 
 and drove oflf a cow of mine and four sheep, which was all my 
 living, noble knights, save these pots." 
 
 " And where is he since ? " 
 
 " In the isle, my lords, wellnigh starved, and his folk falling 
 away from him daily from hunger and ague-fits. I doubt if there 
 be a hundred sound men left in Ely." 
 
 " Have you been in thither, then, villain ? " 
 , " Heaven forbid ! I in Ely ? I in the wolf's den ? If I went 
 in with naught but my skin, they would have it off me before I 
 got out again. If your lordships would but come down, and 
 make an end of him once for all ; for he is a great tyrant and 
 terrible, and devours us poor folk like so many mites in cheese." 
 
 " Take this babbler into the kitchen, and feed him," quoth Ear] 
 Warrenne ; and so the colloquy ended. 
 
 Into the kitchen again the potter went. The king's luncheon 
 was preparing ; and he listened to their chatter, and picked up 
 this at least, which was valuable to him, — that the witches' story 
 was true ; that a great attack would be made from Aldreth ; that 
 boats had been ordered up the river to Cotinglade, and pioneers 
 and entrenching tools were to be sent on that day to the site of 
 the old causeway. 
 
 But soon he had to take care of himself. Earl Warrenne's 
 commands to feed him were construed by the cook-boys and scul- 
 lions into a command to make him drunk likewise. To make a 
 laughing-stock of an Englishman was too tempting a jest to be 
 resisted ; and Hereward was drenched (says the chronicler) with 
 wine and beer, and sorely baited and badgered. At last one 
 rascal hit upon a notable plan. 
 
 " Pluck out the English hog's hair and beard, and put him 
 blindfold in the midst of his pots, and see what a smash we shall 
 have." 
 
 Hereward pretended not to understand the words, which were 
 spoken in French ; but when they were interpreted to him, he 
 grew somewhat red about the ears. 
 
 Submit he would not. But if he defended himself, and made 
 an uproar in the king's Court, he might very likely find himself 
 riding Odin's horse before the hour was out. However, happily 
 for him, the wine and beer had made him stout of heart, and 
 when one fellow laid hold of his beard, he resisted sturdily. 
 
 The man struck him, and that hard. Hereward, hot of tem- 
 per, and careless of life, struck him again, right under the ear' 
 
 The fellow dropped for dead. 
 
 Up leapt cook-boys, scullions, "lecheurs" (who hung about 
 
HEREWABU, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 283 
 
 the kitchen to 'Hecher,'' lick the platters), and all the foul- 
 mouthed rascality of a great medisBval household; and attacked 
 Hereward "cum furcis et tridentibus," with forks and flesh- 
 hooks. 
 
 Then was Hereward aware of a great broach, or spit, before 
 the fire ; and recollecting how he had used such a one as a boy 
 against the monks of Peterborough, was minded to use it against 
 the cooks of Brandon; which he did so heartily, that in a few 
 moments he had killed one, and driven the others backward 
 in a heap. 
 
 But his case was hopeless. He was soon overpowered by 
 numbers from outside, and dragged into the hall, to receive 
 judgment for the mortal crime of slaying a man within the 
 precincts of the Court. 
 
 He kept up heart. He knew that the king was there ; he 
 knew that he should most likely get justice from the king. If 
 not, he could but discover himself, and so save his life : for that 
 the king would kill him knowingly, he did not believe. 
 
 So he went in boldly and willingly, and up the hall, where, on 
 the dais, stood William the Norman. 
 
 William had finished his luncheon, and was standing at the 
 board side. A page held water in a silver basin, in which he 
 was washing his hands. Two more knelt, and laced his long 
 boots, for he was, as always, going a-hunting. 
 
 Then Hereward looked at the face of the great man, and felt 
 at once that it was the face of the greatest man whom he had " 
 ever met. 
 
 " I am not that man's match," said he to himself. " Perhaps 
 it will all end in being his man, and he my master." 
 
 " Silence, knaves ! " said William, " and speak one of you at a 
 time. How came this ? " 
 
 " A hkely story, forsooth ! " said he, when he had heard. " A 
 poor English potter comes into my court, and murders my men 
 under my very eyes for mere sport. I do not believe you, 
 rascals ! You, churl," and he spoke through an English in- 
 terpreter, " tell me your tale, and justice you shall have or take, 
 as you deserve. I am the King of England, man, and I know 
 your tongue, though I speak it not yet, more pity." 
 
 Hereward fell on his knees. 
 
 " If you are indeed my Lord the King, then I am safe ; for 
 there is justice in you, at least so all men say." And he told 
 his tale, manfully. 
 
 " Splendeur Dex ! but this is a far likelier story, and I believe 
 it. Hark you, you ruffians ! Here am I, trying to conciliate 
 these English by justice and mercy whenever they will let me, 
 
284 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 and here are you outraging them, and driving them mad and des- 
 perate, just that you may get a handle against them, and thus rob 
 the poor wretches and drive them into the forest. From the low- 
 est to the highest, — from Ivo Taillebois there down to you co6k- 
 boys, — you are all at the same game. And I will stop it ! The 
 next time I hear of outrage to unarmed man or harmless woman, 
 I will hang that culprit, were he Odo my brother himself." 
 
 This excellent speech was enforced with oaths so strange and 
 terrible, that Ivo Taillebois shook in his boots ; and the chaplain 
 prayed fervently that the roof might not fall in on their heads. 
 
 " Thou smilest, man ? " said William, quickly, to the kneeling 
 Hereward. " So thou understandest French ? " 
 
 " A few words only, most gracious King, which we potters pick 
 up, wandering everywhere with our wares," said Hereward, speak- 
 ing in French ; for so keen was "William's eye, that he thought it 
 safer to play no tricks with him. 
 
 Nevertheless, he made his French so execrable, that the very 
 scullions grinned, in spite of their fear. 
 
 " Look you," said William, " you are no common churl ; you 
 have fought too well for that. Let me see your arm." 
 
 Hereward di-ew up his sleeve. 
 
 " Potters do not carry sword-scars like those ; neither are they 
 tattooed like English thanes. Hold up thy head, man, and let us 
 see thy throat." 
 
 Hereward, who had carefully hung down his head to prevent 
 his throat-patterns being seen, was forced to lift it up. 
 
 " Aha ! So I expected. More fair ladies' work there. Is not 
 this he who was said to be so like Hereward ? Very good. Put 
 him in ward till I come back from hunting. But do him no 
 harm. For" — and WiUiara fixed on Hereward eyes of the 
 most intense intelligence — " were he Hereward himself, I should 
 be right glad to see Hereward safe and sound ; my man at last, 
 and earl of all between Humber and the Fens." 
 
 But Hereward did not rise at the bait. With a face of stupid 
 and ludicrous terror, he made reply in broken French. 
 
 " Have mercy, merey. Lord Kiqg ! Make not that fiend earl 
 over us. Even Ivo Taillebois there would be better than he. 
 Send him to be earl over the imps in hell, or over the wild Welsh 
 who are worse still : but not over us, good Lord King, whom he 
 hath polled and peeled till we are — " 
 
 " Silence ! " said William, laughing, as did all round him, 
 " Thou art a cunning rogue enough, whoever thou art. Go into 
 limbo, and behave thyself till I come back." 
 
 " All saints send your grace good sport, and thereby me a good 
 deliverance," quoth Hereward, who knew that his fate might d'l- 
 
HEREWARD. THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 285 
 
 pend on the temper in which William returned. So he was 
 thrust into an outhouse, and there looked up. 
 
 He sat on an empty barrel, meditating on the chances of his 
 submitting to the king after all, when the door opened, and in 
 strode one with a drawn sword in one hand, and a pair of leg- 
 shackles in the other. 
 
 " liold out thy shins, fellow ! Thou art not going to sit at 
 thine ease there like an abbot, after killing one of us grooms, 
 and bringing the rest of us into disgrace. Hold out thy legs, 
 I say!" 
 
 " Nothing easier,'' quoth Hereward, cheerfully, and held out a 
 leg. But when the man stooped to put on the fetters, he received 
 a kick which sent him staggering. 
 
 After which he recollected very little, at least in this world. 
 For Hereward cut off his head with his own sword. 
 
 After which (says the chronicler) he broke away out of the 
 house, and over garden walls and palings, hiding and running, 
 till he got to the front gate, and leaped upon mare Swallow. 
 
 And none saw him, save one unlucky groom-boy, who stood 
 yelling and cursing in front of the mare's head, and went to seize 
 the bridle. 
 
 Whereon, between the imminent danger and the bad language, 
 Hereward's blood rose, and he smote that unlucky groom-boy ; 
 but whether he slew him or not, the chronicler had rather not 
 Bay. 
 
 Then he shook up mare Swallow, and rode for his life, with 
 knights and squires (for the hue and cry was raised) galloping at 
 her heels. 
 
 Who then were astonished but those knights, as they saw the 
 ugly potter's garron gaining on them length after length, till she 
 and her rider had left them far behind ? 
 
 Who then was proud but Hereward, as the mare tucked her 
 great thighs under her, and swept on over heath and rabbit bur- 
 row, over rush and fen, sound ground and rotten all alike to 
 that enormous stride, to that keen bright eye which foresaw every 
 footfall, to that raking shoulder which picked her up again at 
 every stagger? 
 
 Hereward laid the bridle on her neck, and let her go. Fall 
 she could not, and tire she could not ; and he half wished she 
 might go on forever. Where could a man be better than on a 
 good horse, with all the cares of this life blown away out of his 
 brains by the keen air which rushed around his temples ? And 
 he galloped on, as cheery as a boy, shouting at the rabbits as 
 they scuttled from under his feet, and laughing at the dottrel as 
 they postured and anticked on the mole-hills. 
 
286 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 But think he must, at last, of how to get home. For to go 
 through Mildenhall again would not be safe, and he turned over 
 the moors to Icklingham ; and where he went after, no man can 
 tell. 
 
 Certainly not the chronicler ; for he tells how Hereward got 
 back by the Isle of Somersham. Which is all but impossible, for 
 Soraersham is in Huntingdonshire, many a mile on the opposite 
 side of Ely Isle. 
 
 And of all those knights that followed him, noBe ever saw or 
 heard sign of him save one, and his horse came to a standstill in 
 " the aforesaid wood," which the chronicler says was Somersham ; 
 and he rolled off his horse, and lay breathless under a tree, look- 
 ing up at his horse's heaving flauks and wagging tail, and won- 
 dering how he should get out of that place before the English 
 found him and made an end of him. 
 
 Then there came up to him a ragged churl, and asked him 
 who he was, and offered to help him. • 
 
 " For the sake of God and courtesy," quoth he, — his Norman 
 pride being wellnigh beat out of him, — " if thou hast seen or 
 heard anything of Hereward, good fellow, tell me, and I will 
 repay thee well." 
 
 " As thou hast asked me for the sake of God and of courtesy, 
 Sir Knight, I will tell thee. I am Hereward. And in token 
 thereof, thou shall give me up thy lance and sword, and take 
 instead this sword which I carried off from the king's court ; and 
 promise me, on the faith of a knight, to bear it back to King 
 William ; and tell him that Hereward and he have met at last, 
 and that he had best beware of the day when they shall meet 
 again." 
 
 So that knight, not having recovered his wind, was fain to 
 submit, and go home a sadder and a wiser man. And King 
 William laughed a royal laugh, and commanded his knights that 
 they should in no wise harm Hereward, but take him alive, and 
 bring him in, and they should have great rewards. 
 
 Which seemed to them more easily said than done. 
 
CHAPTER XXXT. 
 
 HOW THEY FOUGHT AGAIN AT ALDEETH. 
 
 Heeewaed came back in fear and trembling, after all. He 
 believed in the magic powers of the witch of Brandon ; and he 
 asked Torfrida, in his simplicity, whether she was not cunning 
 enough to defeat, her spells by counter spells. 
 
 Torfrida smiled, and shook her head. 
 
 " My knight, I have long since given up such vanities. Let 
 us not fight evil with evil, but rather vyith good. Better are 
 prayers than charms ; for the former are heard in heaven above, 
 and the latter only in the pit below. Let me and all tKe women 
 of Ely go rather in procession to St. Etheldreda's well, there 
 above the fort at Aldreth, and pray St. Etheldreda to be vrith us 
 when the day shall come, and defend her own isle and the honor 
 of us women who have taken refuge in her holy arms." 
 
 So all the women of Ely walked out barefoot to St. Etheldreda's 
 well, with Torfrida at their head clothed in sackcloth, and with fet- 
 ters on her wrists and waist and ankles ; which she vowed, after the 
 strange, sudden, earnest fashion of those times, never to take off 
 again till she saw the French host flee from Aldreth before the 
 face of St. Etheldreda. So they prayed, while Hereward and 
 his men worked at the forts below. And when they came back, 
 and Torfrida was washing her feet, sore and bleeding from her 
 pilgrimage, Hereward came in. 
 
 " You have murdered your poor soft feet, and taken nothing 
 thereby, I fear." 
 
 " I have. If I had walked on sharp razors all the way, I 
 would have done it gladly, to know what I know now. As I 
 prayed I looked out over the fen ; and St. Etheldreda put a 
 thought into my heart. But it is so terrible a one, that I fear to 
 tell it to you. And yet it seems our only chance." 
 
 Hereward threw himself at her feet, and prayed her to tell. 
 At last she spoke, as one half afraid of her own words, — 
 
 " Will the reeds burn, Hereward ? " 
 
 Hereward kissed her feet again and again, calling her his 
 prophetess, his savior. 
 
 " Burn ! yes, like tinder, in this March wind, if the drought 
 only holds. Pray that the drought may hold, Torfrida." 
 
288 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " There, there, say no more. How hard-hearted war makes 
 even us women ! Tliere, help me to take oiF this rough sack- 
 cloth, and dress myself again." 
 
 Meanwhile William had moved his army again to Cambridge, 
 and on to" Willinghain-field, and there he began to throw up those 
 " globes and montanas," of which Leofric's paraphraser talks, but 
 of which now no trace remains. Then he began to rebuild his 
 causeway, broader and stronger ; and commanded all the fisher- 
 men of the Ouse to bring their boats to Cotinglade, and ferry 
 over his materials. "Among whom came Hereward in his boat, 
 with head and beard shaven lest he should be known, and worked 
 diligently among the rest. But the sun did not set that day with- 
 out mischief; for before Hereward went off, he finished his work 
 by setting the whole on fire, so that it was all burnt, and some of 
 the French killed and drowned." 
 
 And so he went on, with stratagems and ambushes, till " after 
 seven days' continual fighting, they had hardly done one day's 
 work ; save four 'globes' of wood, in which they intended to put 
 their artillery. But on the eighth day they determined to attack 
 the isle, putting in the midst of them that pythoness woman on a 
 high place, where she might be safe freely to exercise her art." 
 
 It was not Hereward alone who had entreated Torfrida to ex- 
 ercise her magic art in their behalf. But she steadily refused, 
 and made good Abbot Thurstan support her refusal by a strict 
 declaration, that he would have no fiends' games played in Ely, 
 as long as he was abbot alive on land. 
 
 Torfrida, meanwhile, grew utterly wild. Her conscience smote 
 her, in spite of her belief that St. Etheldreda had inspired her, 
 at the ten-ible resource which she had hinted to her husband, and 
 which she knew well he would carry out with terrible success. 
 Pictures of agony and death floated before her eyes, and kept her 
 awake at night. She watched long hours in the church in prayer; 
 she fasted ; she disciplined her tender body with sharp pains ; 
 she tried, after the fashion of those times, to atone for her sin, if 
 sin it was. At last she had worked herself up into a religious 
 frenzy. She saw St. Etheldreda in the clouds, towering over the 
 isle, menacing the French host with her virgin palm-branch. She 
 uttered wild prophecies of ruin and defeat to the French ; and 
 then, when her frenzy collapsed, moaned secretly of ruin and 
 defeat hereafter to themselves. But she would be bold; she would 
 play her part ; she would encourage the heroes who looked to 
 her as onp inspired, wiser and loftier than themselves. 
 
 And so it befell, that when tjie men marched down to Hadden- 
 ham that afternoon, Torfrida rode at their head on a white chargei, 
 rpbed from throat to ankle in sackcloth, her fetters clanking on 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 289, 
 
 her limbs. But she called on the English to see in her the em- 
 blem of England, captive yet, unconquered, and to break her fet- 
 ters and the worse letters of every woman in England who was 
 the toy and slave of the brutal invaders ; and so fierce a triumph 
 sparkled from her wild hawk-eyes that the Englishmen looked up 
 to her weird beauty as to that of an inspired saint; and when the 
 Normans came on to the assault there stood on a grassy mound 
 behind the English fort a figure clothed in sackcloth, barefooted 
 and bareheaded, with fetters shining on waist, and wrist, and 
 ankle, — her long black locks streaming in the wind, her long 
 white arms stretched crosswise toward heaven, in imitation of, 
 Moses of old above the battle with Amalek ; invoking St. Ethel-- 
 dreda and all the powers of Heaven, and chanting doom and 
 defiance to the invaders. 
 
 And the English looked on her, and cried : " She is a prophet- 
 ess 1 We wUl surely do some great deed this day, or die around 
 her feet like heroes ! " 
 
 And opposite to her, upon the Norman tower, the old hag of 
 Brandon howled and gibbered with filthy gestures, calling for the 
 thunder-storm which did not come ; for aU above, the sky was 
 cloudless blue. 
 
 And the English saw and felt, though they could not speak it, 
 dumb nation as they were, the contrast between the spirit of 
 cruelty and darkness and the spirit of freedom and light. 
 
 So strong was the new bridge, that William trusted himself upon 
 it on horseback, with Ivo Taillebois at his side. 
 
 William doubted the powers of the witch, and felt rather 
 ashamed of his new helpmate ; but he was confident in his bridge, 
 and in the heavj' artillery which he had placed in his four towers, 
 
 Ivo Taillebois was utterly confident in his witch, and in the 
 bridge likewise. 
 
 William waited for the rising of the tide ; and when the tide 
 was near its height, he commanded the artillery to open, and clear 
 the fort opposite of the English. Then with crash and twang, 
 the balistas and catapults went ofi", and great stones and heavy 
 lances hurtled through the air. 
 
 " Back ! " shouted Torfrida, raised almost to madness, by fast- 
 ing, self-torture, and rehgious frenzy. " Out of yon fort, every 
 man. Why waste your lives under that artillery? Stand still 
 this day, and see how the saints of Heaven shall fight for you." 
 
 So utter was the reverence which she commanded for the 
 moment, that every man drew back, and crowded round hei 
 leet outside the fort. 
 
 "The cowards are fleeing already. Let your men go, Sir 
 King ! " shouted Taillebois. 
 
 13 s 
 
290 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " On to the assault ! Strike for Normandy! " shouted "William 
 
 " I fear much," said he to himself, " that this is some stratagem 
 of that Hereward's. But conquered they must be." 
 
 The evening breeze curled up the reach. The great pike 
 splashed out from the weedy shores, and sent the white-fish 
 flying in shoals into the low glare of the setting sun : and heeded 
 not, stupid things, the barges packed with mailed men, which 
 swarmed in the reeds on either side the bridge, and. began 
 to push out into the river. 
 
 The starlings swung in thousands round the reed-ronds, look- 
 ing to settle in their wonted place : but dare not ; and rose and 
 swung round again, telling each other, in their manifold pipings, 
 how all the reed-ronds teemed with mailed men. And all above, 
 the sky was cloudless blue. 
 
 And then came a trample, a roll of many feet on the soft 
 spongy peat, a low murmur which rose into wild shouts of " Dex 
 Aie!" as a human tide poured along the causeway, and past the, 
 witch of Brandon Heath. 
 
 " ' Dex Aie ? ' " quoth WiUiam, with a sneer. " ' Debbles 
 Aie!' would fit better." 
 
 " If, Sire, the powers above would have helped us, we should, 
 have been happy enough to — But if they would not, it is not 
 our fault if we try below," said Ivo Taillebois. 
 
 William laughed. " It is well to have two strings to one's 
 bow, sir. Forward, men ! forward ! " shouted he, riding out to 
 the bridge-end, under the tower. 
 
 " Forward ! " shouted Ivo Taillebois. 
 
 " Forward ! " shouted the hideous hag overhead. " The spirit, 
 of the well fights for you." 
 
 " Fight for yourselves," said William. 
 
 There was twenty yards of deep clear water between French- 
 man and Englishman. Only twenty yards. Not only the arrows 
 and arblast quarrels, but heavy hand-javelins, flew across every 
 moment ; every now and tlien a man toppled forward, and 
 plunged into the blue depth among the eels and pike, to find 
 his comrades of the summer before ; then the stream was still 
 once more. The coots and water-hens swam in and out of the 
 reeds, and wondered what it was all about. The water-lilies 
 flapped upon the ripple, as lonely as in the loneliest mere. But 
 their floats were soon broken, their white cups stained with 
 human gore. 
 
 Twenty yards of deep clear water. And treasure inestimable 
 to win by crossing it. 
 
 They thrust out baulks, canoes, pontoons ; they crawled upon 
 them like ants, and thrust out more yet beyond, heedless of theii 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 291 
 
 comrades, who slipped, and splashed, and sank, holding out vain 
 jaiids to hands too busy to seize them. And always the old 
 witch jabbered overhead, with her cantrips, pointing, mumming, 
 praying for the storm ; while all above, the sky was cloudless 
 blue. And always on the mound opposite, while darts and 
 quarrels whistled round her head, stood Torfrida, pointing with 
 outstretched scornful finger at the strugglers in the river, and 
 chanting loudly, what the Frenchmen could not tell ; but it 
 made their hearts, as it was meant to do, melt like wax within 
 them. 
 
 '■ They have a counter witch to yours, Ivo, it seems ; and a 
 fairer one. I am afraid the devils, especially if Asmodeus be 
 at hand, are more likely to listen to her than to that old broom- 
 stick-rider aloft." 
 
 " Fair is, that fair cause has. Sir King." 
 
 " A good argument for honest men, but none for fiends. What 
 is the fair fiend pointing at so earnestly there ? " 
 
 " Somewhat among the reeds. Hark to her now ! She is 
 singing, somewhat more like an angel than a fiend, I will say 
 for her." 
 
 And Torfrida's bold song, coming clear and sweet across the 
 water, rose louder and shriller till it almost drowned^the jab- 
 bering of the witch. 
 
 " She sees more there than we do." 
 
 " I see it ! " cried William, smiting his hand upon his 
 thigh. " Par le splendeur Dex ! She has been showing them 
 where to fire the reeds ; and they have done it ! " 
 
 A puff" of smoke ; a wisp of flame ; and then another and 
 another; and a canoe shot out from the reeds on the French 
 shore, and glided into the reeds of the island. 
 
 " The reeds are on fire, men ! Have a care," shouted Ivo. 
 
 " Silence, fool ! Frighten them once, and they will leap like 
 sheep into that gulf. Men! right about! Draw off, — slowly 
 and in order. We will attack again to-morrow." 
 
 The cool voice of the great captain arose too late. A fine 
 of flame was. leaping above the reed bed, crackling and howl- 
 ing before the evening breeze. The column on the causeway 
 had seen their danger but too soon, and fled. But whither? 
 
 A shower of arrows, quarrels, javelins, fell upon the head of 
 the column as it fried to face about and retreat, confusing it more 
 and more. One arrow, shot by no common aim, went clean 
 through William's shield, and pinned it to the mailed flesh. 
 He could not stifle a cry of pain. 
 
 " You are wounded. Sire. Ride for your life ! It is worth 
 that of a thousand of these churls," and Ivo seized William's 
 
292 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 bridle and dragged him, in spite of himself, through the cower> 
 irig, shrieking, struggling crowd. 
 
 On came the flames, leaping and crackling, laughing and 
 shrieking, like a live fiend. The archers and slingers in the 
 boats cowered before it ; and fell, scorched corpses, as It swept 
 on. It reached the causeway, surged up, recoiled from the mass 
 of human beings, then sprang over their heads and passed on- 
 wards, girding them with flame. 
 
 The reeds were burning around them ; the timbers of the bridge 
 caught fire ; the peat and fagots smouldered beneath their feet. 
 They sprang from the burning footway and plunged into the 
 fathomless bog, covering their faces and eyes with scorched hands, 
 and then sank in the black gurgling slime. 
 
 Ivo dragged William on, regardless of curses and prayers from 
 his soldiery ; and they reached the shore just in time to see be- 
 tween them and the water a long black smouldering writhing line; 
 the morass to right and left, which had been a minute before deep 
 reed, an open smutty pool, dotted with boatsful of shrieking and 
 cursing men ; and at the causeway-end the tower, with the flame 
 climbing up its posts, and the witch of Brandon throwing herself 
 desperately from the top, and falling dead upon the embers, a 
 motionless heap of rags. 
 
 " Fool that you are ! Fool that I was ! " cried the great king, 
 as he rolled oif his horse at his tent door, cursing with rage and 
 pain. 
 
 Ivo Taillebois sneaked off, sent over to Mildenhall for the 
 second witch, and hanged her, as some small comfort to his soul. 
 Neither did he forget to search the cabin till he found buried in a 
 crock the bits of his own gold chain and various other treasures, 
 for which the wretched old women had bartered their souls. All 
 which he confiscated to his own use, as a much injured man. 
 
 The next day William withdrew his army. The men refused 
 to face agiiin that blood-stained pass. The Englisl\ spells, they 
 said, were stronger than theirs, or than the daring of brave men. 
 Let William take Torfrida and burn her, as she had burned them, 
 with reeds out of Willingham fen ; then might they try to storm 
 Ely again. 
 
 Torfrida saw them turn, flee, die in agony. Her work was 
 done ; her passion exhausted ; her self-torture, and the mere 
 weight of her fetters, which she had sustained during her passion, 
 weighed her down ; she dropped senseless on the turf, and lay in 
 a trance for many hours. 
 
 Then she arose, and casting off her fetters and her sackcloth, 
 was herself again : but a sadder woman till her dyujg day. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 UOW KING WILLIAM TOOK COUNSEL OF A CHURCHMAN. 
 
 If Torfrida was exhausted, so was Hereward likewise. He 
 knew well that a repulse was not a defeat. He knew well the 
 indomitable persistence, the boundless resources, of the master- 
 mind whom he defied ; and he knew well that another attempt 
 would be made, and then another, till — though it took seven 
 years in the doing — Ely would be won at last. To hold out 
 doggedly as long as he could was his plan : to obtain the best 
 terms he could for his comrades. And he might obtain good 
 terms at last. William might be glad to pay a fair price in order 
 to escape such a thorn in his side as the camp of refuge, and might 
 deal — or, at least, promise to deal — mercifully and generously 
 with the last retpnant of the English gentry. For himself, yield 
 he would not : when all was over, he would flee to the sea, with 
 Torfrida and his own housecarles, and turn Viking; or go to 
 Sweyn Ulfsson in Denmark, and die a free man. 
 
 The English did not foresee these things. Their hearts were 
 lifted up with their victory, and they laughed at William and his 
 French, and drank Torfrida's health much too often for their 
 own good. Hereward did not care to undeceive them. But he 
 could not help speaking his mind in the abbot's chamber to 
 Thurstan, Egelwin, and his nephews, and to Sigtryg Kanaldsson, 
 who was still in Ely, not only because he had pi-omised to stay 
 there, but because he could not get out if he would. 
 
 Blockaded they were utterly, by land and water. The isle 
 furnished a fair supply of food ; and what was wanting, they 
 obtained by foraging. But they had laid the land waste for so 
 many miles round, that their plundering raids brought them in 
 less than of old ; and if they went far, they fell in with the 
 French, and lost good men, even though they were generally 
 successful. So provisions were running somewhat short, and 
 would run shorter still. 
 
 Moreover, there was a great cause of anxiety. Bishop Egel- 
 win, Abbot Thurstan, and the monks of Ely were in rebellion, 
 not only against King William, but moie or less against the Pope 
 of Rome. They might be excommunicafed. The minster lands 
 might be taken away. 
 
294 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Bishop Egelwin set his face like a flint. He expected no 
 mercy. All he had ever done for the French was to warn Robert 
 Comyn that if he stayed in Durham, evil would befall him. But 
 that was as Kttle worth to him as it was to the said Robert. And 
 no mercy he craved. The less 'a man had, the "more fit he was 
 for Heaven. He could but die ; and that he had known ever 
 since he was a chanter-boy. Whether he died in Ely, or in 
 prison, mattered little to him, provided they did not refuse him 
 the sacraments ; and that they would hardly do. But call the 
 Duke of Normandy his rightful sovereign he would not, because 
 he was not, — nor anybody else just now, as far as he could see. 
 
 Valiant likewise was Abbot Thurstan, for himself. But he 
 had — unlike Bishop Egelwin, whose diocese had been given to 
 a Frenchman — an abbey, monks, and broad lands, whereof he 
 was father and steward. And he must do what was best for the 
 abbey, and also what the monks would let him do. For severe 
 as was the discipline of a minster in time of peace, yet in time 
 of war, when life and death were in question, monks had ere 
 now turned valiant from very fear, like Cato's mouse, and mu- 
 tinied : and so might the monks of Ely. 
 
 And Edwin and Morcar ? 
 
 No man knows what they said or thought ; perhaps no man 
 cared much, even in their own days. No hint does any chron- 
 icler give of what manner of men they were, or what manner of 
 deeds they did. Fair, gentle, noble, beloved even by William, 
 they are mere names, and nothing more, in history : and it is to 
 be supposed, therefore, that they were nothing more in fact. The 
 race of Leofric and Godiva had worn itself out. 
 
 One night the confederates had sat late, talking over the future 
 more earnestly than usual. Edwin, usually sad enough, was es- 
 pecially sad that night. 
 
 Hereward jested with him, tried to cheer him ; but he was 
 silent, would not drink, and went away before the rest. 
 
 The next morning he was gone, and with him half a dozen of 
 his private housecarles. 
 
 Hereward was terrified. If defections once began, they would 
 be endless. The camp would fall to pieces, and every man among 
 them would be hanged, mutilated, or imprisoned, one by one, 
 helplessly. They must stand or fall together. - 
 
 He went raging to Morcar. Morcar knew naught of it. On 
 the faith and honor of a knight, he knew naught. Only his 
 brother hiad said to him a day or two before, that he must see his 
 betrothed before he died. 
 
 " He is gone to William, then ? Does he think to win her now, 
 — an outcast and a beggar, — when he was refused her with 
 
HEEEWABD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 295 
 
 broad lands and a thousand men at his back ? Fool ! See that 
 thou play not the fool likewise, nephew, or — " 
 
 " Or what ? " said Morcar, defiantly. 
 
 " Or thou wilt go, whither Edwin is gone, — to betrayal and 
 ruin." 
 
 " Why so ? He has been kind enough to Waltheof and Gos- 
 , patrick, why not to Edwin ? " 
 
 " Because," laughed Hereward, he wanted Waltheof, and he 
 does not want you and Edwin. He can keep Mercia quiet with- 
 out your help. Northumbria and the Fens he cannot without 
 AValtheof 's. They are a rougher set as you go east and north, as 
 you should know already, and must have one of themselves over 
 Ihera to keep them in good humor for a while. When he has used 
 Waltheof as his stalking-horse long enough to build a castle every 
 ten miles, he will throw him away like a worn bowstring. Earl 
 Morcar, nephew mine." 
 
 Morcar shook his head. 
 
 In a week more he was gone likewise. He came to William 
 at Brandon. 
 
 " You are come in at last, young earl ? " said William, sternly. 
 " You are come too late." 
 
 " I throw myself on your knightly faith," said Morcar. But 
 he had come in an angry and unlucky hour. 
 
 " How well have you kept your own, twice a rebel, that you 
 should appeal to mine ? Take him away." 
 
 " And hang him ? " asked Ivo Taillebois. 
 
 " Pish ! No, — thou old butcher. Put him in irons, and send 
 him into Normandy." 
 
 " Send him to Roger de Beaumont, Sire. Roger's son is safe 
 in Morcar's castle at Warwick, so it is but fair that Morcar should 
 be safe in Roger's." 
 
 And to Roger de Beaumont he was sent, while young Roger 
 was Lord of Warwick, and all around that once was Leofric and 
 Godiva's. 
 
 Morcar lay in a Norman keep till the day of William's death. 
 •* On his death-bed the tyrant's heart smote him, and he sent orders 
 to release him. For a few short days, or hours, he breathed free 
 air again. Then Rufus shut him up once more, and forever. 
 
 And that was the end of Earl Morcar. 
 
 A few weeks after, three men came to the camp at Brandon, 
 and they brought a head to the king. And when William looked 
 upon it, it was the head of Edwin. 
 
 The human heart must have burst up again in the tjTant, as 
 he looked on the fair face of him he had so loved, and so wronged; 
 foi they say he wept. 
 
296 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 The knights and earls stood round, amazed and awed, as they 
 saw iron tears run down Pluto's cheek. 
 
 " How came this here, knaves ? " thundered he at l^t. 
 
 They told a rambling story, how Edwin always would needs 
 go to "Winchester, to see the queen, for she would stand his friend, 
 and do him right. And how they could not get to "Winchester, 
 for fear of the French, and wandered in woods and wolds ; 
 and how they were set upon, and hunted ; and how Edwin still 
 was mad to go to "Winchester: but when he could not, he would 
 go to Blethwallon and his "Welsh; and how Earl Randal of Ches- 
 ter set upon them ; and how they got between a stream and the 
 tide-way of the Dee, and were cut off. And how Edwin would 
 not yield. And how then they slew him in self-defence, and 
 Randal let them hring the head to the king. 
 
 This, or something like it, was their story. But who could be- 
 lieve traitors ? Where Edwin wandered, what he did during those 
 months, no man knows. All that is known is, three men brought 
 his head to "William, and told some such tale. And so the old 
 nobility of England died up and down the ruts and shaughs, like 
 wounded birds; and, as of wounded" birds, none knew or cared 
 how far they had run, or how their broken bones had ached be- 
 fore they died. 
 
 " Out of their own mouths they are condemned, says Holy 
 Writ," thundered "William. " Hang them on high." 
 
 And hanged on high they were, on Brandon heath. 
 
 Then the king turned on his courtiers, glad to ease his own 
 conscience by cursing them. 
 
 " This is your doing, sirs ! If I had not listened to your base 
 counsels, Edwin might have been now my faithful liegeman and 
 my son-in-law ; and I had had one more Englishman left in peace, 
 and one less sin upon my soul." 
 
 " And one less thorn in thy side," quoth Ivo Taillebois. 
 
 " "Who spoke to thee ? Ralph Guader, thou gavest me the 
 counsel : thou wilt answer it to God and his saints." 
 
 " That did I not. It was Earl Roger, because he wanted the 
 man's Shropshire lands." •* 
 
 Whereon high words ensued ; and the king gave the earl the 
 lie in his teeth, which the earl did not forget. 
 
 '' I think," said the rough, shrewd voice of Ivo, " that instead 
 of crying over spilt milk, — for milk the lad was, and never 
 would have grown to good beef, had he lived to my age — " 
 
 " "Who spoke to thee ? " 
 
 " No man, and for that reason I spoke myself. I have lands 
 in Spalding, by your Majesty's grace, and wish to enjoy them in 
 peace, having worked for them hard enough — and how can I do 
 that, as long as Here ward sits in Ely ?" 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH, 297 
 
 "Splendeur Dex ! " said William, " thou art right, old butcher." 
 
 So they laid their heads together to slay Hereward. And 
 after they had talked awhile, then spoke William's chaplain for 
 the nonce, an Italian, a friend and pupil of Lanfranc of Pavia, 
 an Italian also, then Archbishop of Canterbury, scourging and 
 imprisoning English monks in the south. And he spoke like an 
 Italian of those times, who knew the ways of Rome. 
 
 " If his Majesty will allow my humility to suggest — " 
 
 "What? Thy humility is proud enough under the rose, I 
 will warrant : but it has a Roman wit under the rose likewise. 
 Speak!" 
 
 " That when the secular and carnal arm has failed, as it is 
 written, * He poureth contempt upon princes, and letteth them 
 wander out of the way in the wilderness, or fens, — for the 
 Latin word, and I doubt not the Hebrew, has both meanings.'' 
 
 " Splendeur Dex ! " cried William, bitterly ; " that hath he 
 done with a vengeance ! Thou art right so far, Clerk ! " 
 
 " Yet helpeth He the poor, videlicet, his Church and the re- 
 ligious, who are vowed to holy poverty, out of misery, videlicet, 
 the oppression of barbarous customs, and maketh them house- 
 holds like a flock of sheep." 
 
 " They do that for themselves already, here in England," said 
 William, with a sneer at the fancied morals of the English monks 
 and clergy .t 
 
 " But Heaven, and not the Church, does it for the true poor, 
 whom your Majesty is bringing in, to your endless glory." 
 
 " But what has all this to do with taking Ely ? " asked William, 
 impatiently. " I asked thee for reason, and not sermons." 
 
 " This. That it is in the power of the Holy Father, — and 
 that power he would doubtless allow you, as his dear son and 
 most faithful servant, to employ for yourself, without sending to 
 Rome, which might cause painful delays — to — " 
 
 It might seem strange tliat William, Taillebois, Guader, War- 
 renne, short-spoken, hard-headed, swearing warriors, could allow, 
 complacently, a smooth churchman to dawdle on like this, count- 
 
 * I do not laugh at Holy Scripture myself. I only insert this as a specimen 
 of the usual mediaeval " cant," — a name and a practice which are both derived, 
 not from Puritans, bat from monks. 
 
 t The alleged profligacy and sensuality of the English Church before the 
 Conquest rests merely on a few violent aiid vague expressions of the Norman 
 monks who displaced them. No facts, as far as I can. find, have ever been al- 
 leged. And without facts on the other side, an impartial man will hold by the 
 one fact which is certain, that the Church of England, popish as it was, was, 
 unfortunately for it, not popish enough ; and from its insular freedom, obnoxious 
 to the Church of Rome, and the ultramontane clergy of Normandy ; and was 
 therefore to be believed capable — and therefore again accused — of any and 
 every crime. 
 
 13* 
 
298 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH 
 
 ing his periods on his fingers, and seemingly never coming to the 
 point. 
 
 But they knew well, that the churchman was a far cunninger; 
 as well as a more learned, man than themselves. They knew 
 well that they could not hurry him, and that they need not ; that 
 he would make his point at last, hunting it out step by step, and 
 letting them see how he got thither, like a cunning hound. They 
 knew that if he spoke, he had thought long and craftily, till he 
 had made up his mind ; and that, therefore, he would very prob- 
 ably make up their minds likewise. It was — as usual in that 
 age — the conquest, not of a heavenly spirit, though it boasted ■ 
 itself such, but of a cultivated mind over brute flesh. 
 
 They might have said all this aloud, and yet the churchman' 
 would have gone on, as he did, where he left off, with unaltered 
 blandness of tone. 
 
 " To convert to other uses the goods of the Church, — to con- 
 vert them to profane uses would, I need not say, be a sacrilege as 
 horrible to Heaven as impossible to so pious a monarch — " 
 
 Ivo Taillebois winced. He had just stolen a manor from the 
 monks of Crowland, and meant to keep it. 
 
 " Church lands belonging to abbeys or sees, whose abbots or 
 bishops are contumaciously disobedient to the Holy See, or to 
 their lawful monarch, he being in the communion of the Church 
 and at peace with the said Holy See. If, therefore, — to come to . 
 that point at which my incapacity, through the devious windings 
 of my own simplicity, has been tending, but with halting steps, 
 from the moment that your Majesty deigned to hear — " 
 
 " Put in the spur, man ! " said Ivo, tired at last, " and run the 
 deer to soil." 
 
 " Hurry no man's cattle, especially thine own,'' answered the 
 churchman, with so shrewd a wink, and so cheery a voice, that 
 Ivo, when he recovered from his surprise, cried, — 
 
 " Why, thou art a good huntsman thyself, I believe now." 
 
 " All things to all men, if by any means — But to return. If 
 your Majesty should think fit to proclaim to the recalcitrants of 
 Ely, that unless they submit themselves to your Royal Grace — 
 and to that, of course, of His Holiness, our Father ^ — within a 
 certain day, you will convert to other uses — premising, to avoid 
 scandal, that those uses shall be for the benefit of Holy Church 
 — all lands and manors of theirs lying without the precincts of the 
 lAe of Ely, — those lands being, as is known, large, and of great 
 value, — Quid plura? Why burden your exalted intellect by de- 
 tailing to you consequences which it has, long ere now, foreseen." 
 
 " * * * * " quoth William, who was as sharp as the Italian, 
 and had seen it all. " I will make thee a bishop 1 " 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 299 
 
 *' Spare to burden my weakness," said the chaplain ; and slipt 
 away into the shade. 
 
 " You will take his advice ? " asked Ivo. 
 
 "I will." 
 
 " Then I shall see that Torfrida burn at last." 
 
 " Burn her?" and WilHam swore. 
 
 " I promised my soldiers to bum the witch with reeds out of 
 Haddenham fen, as she had burned them ; and I must keep my 
 knightly word." 
 
 William swore yet more. Ivo Taillebois was a butcher and 
 a churl. 
 
 " Call me not butcher and churl too often, Lord King, ere thou 
 hast found whether thou needest me or not. Kough I may be, 
 false was I never." 
 
 "That thou wert not," said William, who needed Taillebois 
 much, and feared him somewhat ; and remarked something mean- 
 ing in his voice, which made him calm himself, diplomat as he 
 was, instantly. " But burn Torfrida thou shalt not." 
 
 " Well, I care not. I have seen a woman burnt ere now, and 
 had no fancy for the screeching. Beside, they say she is a very 
 fair dame, and has a fair daughter, too, coming on, and she may 
 very well make a wife for a Norman." 
 
 " Marry her thyself." 
 
 " I shall have to kill Hereward first." 
 
 " Then do it, and I will give thee his lands." 
 
 " I may have to kill others before Hereward." 
 
 " You may ? " 
 
 And so the matter dropped. But William caught Ivo alone 
 after an hour, and asked him what he meant. 
 
 " No pay, no play. Lord King, I have served thee well, rough 
 and smooth." 
 
 " Thou hast, and hast been well paid. But if I have said 
 aught hasty — '" 
 
 " Pish, Majesty. I am a plain-spoken man, and like a plain- 
 spoken master. But, instead of marrying Torfrida or her daugh- 
 ter, I have more mind to her niece, who is younger, and has no 
 Hereward to be killed first," 
 
 "Her niece? Who?" 
 
 " Lucia, as we call her, — Edwin and Morcar's sister, — Here- 
 ward's niece, Torfrida's niece." 
 
 "No pay, no play, saidst thou ? — so say L What meant you 
 by having to kill others before Hereward?" 
 
 " Beware of Waltheof !" said Ivo. 
 
 " Waltheof ? Pish! This is one of thy inventions for making 
 me hunt every Englishman to death, that tliou mayest gnaw theii 
 bones." 
 
300 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Is it ? ■ Then this I say more. Beware of Ralph Guader ! ' 
 
 « Pish ! " 
 
 " Pish on, Lord King." Etiquette was not yet discovered by 
 Norman barons and earls, who thought themselves all but as good 
 as their king, gave hira their advice when they thought fit, and 
 if he did not take it, attacked him with all their meinie. " Pish 
 on, but listen. Beware of Roger ! " 
 
 " And what more ? " 
 
 " And give me Lucia. I want her. I will have her." 
 
 William laughed. " Thou of all men ! To mix that ditch- 
 water with that wine ? " 
 
 " They were mixed in thy blood, Lord King, and thou art the 
 better man for it, so says the world. Old wine and old blood 
 throw any lees to the bottom of the cask ; and we shall have a 
 son worthy to ride behind — " 
 
 " Take care ! " quoth William. 
 
 " Tlie greatest captain upon earth." 
 
 William laughed again, like Odin's self. 
 
 " Thou shalt have Lucia for that word." 
 
 " And thou shalt have the plot ere it breaks. As it will." 
 
 " To this have I come at la.st," said William to himself, as they 
 parted. " To murder these English nobles, to marry their daugh- 
 ters to my grooms. Heaven forgive me ! They have brought 
 it upon themselves by contumacy to Holy Church." 
 
 " Call my secretary, some one." 
 
 The Italian re-entered. 
 
 " The valiant and honorable and illustrious knight, Ivo Taille- 
 bois. Lord of Holland and Kesteven, weds Lucia, sister of the 
 late earls Edwin and Morcar, now with the queen ; and with 
 her, her manors. You will prepare the papers. 
 
 " I am yours to death," said Ivo. 
 
 " To do you justice, I think thou wert that already. Stay- 
 here — Sir Priest — do you know any man who knows this Tor- 
 frida?" 
 
 " I do, Majesty," said Ivo. There is one Sir Ascelin, a man 
 of Gilbert's, in the camp." 
 
 " Send for him." 
 
 " This Torfrida," said William, " haunts me." 
 
 " Pray Heaven she have not bewitched your Majesty." 
 
 " Tut ! I am too old a campaigner to take much harm by wo- 
 man's sharpshooting at fifteen score yards off, beside a deep stream 
 between. No. The woman has courage, — and beauty, too, you 
 Bay?" 
 
 "What of that, O Prince?" said the Italian. "Who more 
 beautiful — if report be true — than those lost women who dance 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. SOI 
 
 nightly in the forests with Venus and Herodias, — as it may be 
 this Torfrida has done many a time ? " 
 
 " You priests are apt to be hard upon poor women.'' 
 
 " The fox found that the grapes were sour," said the Italian, 
 laughing at himself and his cloth, or at anything else by which 
 he could cui'ry favor. 
 
 " And this woman was no vulgar witch. That sort of person- 
 age suits Taillebois's taste, rather than Hereward's." 
 
 " Hungry dogs eat dirty pudding," said Ivo, pertinently. 
 
 " The woman believed herself in the right. She believed that 
 the saints of heaven were on her side. I saw it in her attitude, 
 in her gestures. Perhaps she was right." 
 
 " Sire ? " said both by-standers, in astonishment. 
 
 " I would fain see that woman, and see her husband too. They 
 are folks after my own heart. I would give them an earldom to 
 win them." 
 
 " I hope that in that day you will allow your faithful servant 
 Ivo to retire to his ancestral manors in Anjou ; for England will 
 be too hot for him. Sire, you know not this man, — a liar, a 
 bully, a robber, a swash-buckling ruffian, who — " and Ivo ran 
 on with furious invective, after the fashion of the Normans, who 
 considered no name too bad for an English rebel. 
 
 " Sir Ascelin," said William, as Ascelin came in, " you know 
 Hereward ? " 
 
 Ascelin bowed assent. 
 
 " Are these things true which Ivo alleges ? " 
 
 " The Lord Taillebois may know best what manner of man ho 
 is since he came into this English air, which changes some folks 
 mightily," witli a hardly disguised sneer at Ivo ; " but in Flan- 
 ders he was a very perfect knight, beloved and honored of all 
 men, and especially of your father-in-law, the great marquis." 
 
 " He is a friend of yours, then?" 
 
 " No man less. I owe him more than one grudge, though all 
 in fair quarrel ; and one, at least, which can only be wiped out 
 in blood." 
 
 "Eh! What?" 
 
 Ascelin hesitated. 
 
 "Tell me, sir!" thundered William, "unless you have aught 
 to-be ashamed of." 
 
 " It is no shame, as far as I know, to confess that I was once 
 a suitor, as were all knights for miles round, for the hand of the 
 once peerless Torfrida. And no shame to confess, that when 
 Hereward knew thereof, he sought me out at a tournament, and 
 Eerved me as he has served many a better man before and since" 
 
 " Over thy horse's croup, eh ? " said William. 
 
302 HEBEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " I am not a bad horseman, as all know, Lord King. But 
 Heaven save me, and all I love, from that Hereward. They say 
 he has seven men's strength ; and I verily can testify to the truth 
 thereof." 
 
 " That may be by enchantment," interposed the Italian. 
 
 " True, Sir Priest. This I know, that he wears enchanted 
 armor, which Torfrida gave him before she married him." 
 
 " Enchantments again," said the secretary. 
 
 " Tell me now about Torfrida," said William. 
 
 Ascelin told him all about her, not forgetting to say — what, 
 according to the chronicler, was a common report — that she had 
 compassed Hereward's love by magic arts. She used to practise 
 sorcery, he said, with her sorceress mistress, Richilda of Hainault. 
 All men knew it. Arnoul, Richilda's son, was as a brother to her. 
 And after old Baldwin died, and Baldwin of Mons and RicbUda 
 came to Bruges, Torfrida was always with her while Hereward 
 was at the wars. 
 
 " The woman is a manifest and notorious witch," said the sec- 
 retary. 
 
 " It seems so indeed," said William, with something like a sigh. 
 And so were Torfrida's early foUies visited on her ; as all early 
 follies are. " But Hereward, you say, is a good knight and 
 true?" 
 
 " Doubtless. Even when he committed that great crime at 
 Peterborough — " 
 
 " For which he and all his are duly excommunicated by the 
 Bishop," said the secretary. 
 
 " He did a very courteous and honorable thing." And Ascelin 
 told how he had saved Alftruda, and instead of putting her to 
 lansom, had sent her safe to Gilbert. 
 
 " A very knightly deed. He should be rewarded for it." 
 
 " Why not burn the witch, and reward him with Alftruda in- 
 stead, since your Majesty is in so gracious a humor ? " said Ivo. 
 
 " Alftruda ! Who is she ? Ay, I recollect her. Young Dol- 
 fin's wife. Why, she has a husband already." 
 
 " Ay, but his Holiness at Rome can set that right. What is 
 there that he cannot do ? " 
 
 " There are limits, I fear, even to his power. Eh, priest ? " 
 
 " What his Holiness's powers as the viceroy of Divinity on earth 
 might be, did he so choose, it were irreverent to inquire. But as 
 he condescends to use that power only for the good of mankind, 
 he condescends, like Divinity, to be bound by the very laws which 
 he has promulgated for the benefit of his subjects ; and to make 
 himself only a life-giving sun, when he might be a destructive 
 thunderbolt." 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH.' 303 
 
 " He is very kind, and we all owe him thanks," said Ivd, who 
 had a confused notion that the Pope might strike him dead with 
 lightning, but was good-natured enough not to do so. " Still, 
 he might think of this plan ; for they say that the lady is an 
 old friend of Hereward's, and not over fond of her Scotch hus- 
 band." 
 
 " That I know well," said William. 
 
 " And beside — if aught untoward should happen to Dolfin and 
 his kin — " 
 
 " She might, with her broad lands, be a fine bait for Hereward. 
 I see. Now, do this, by my command. Send a trusty monk into 
 Ely. Let him tell the monks that we have determined to seize 
 all their outlying lands, unless they surrender within the week. 
 And let him tell Hereward, by the faith and oath of William of 
 Normandy, that if he will surrender himself to my grace, he shall 
 have his lands in Bourne, and a free pardon for himself and all 
 his comrades." 
 
 The men assented, much against their will, and went out on 
 their errand. 
 
 " You have played me a scurvy trick, sir," said Ascelin, " in 
 advising the king to give the Lady Alftruda to Hereward." 
 
 " What! Did you want her yourself? On my honor I knew 
 not of it. But have patience. You shall have her yet, and all 
 her lands, if you will hear my counsel, and keep it." 
 
 " But you would give her to Hereward ! " 
 
 " And to you too. It is a poor bait, say these frogs of fenmen, 
 that will not take two pike running. Listen to me. I must kill 
 this Hereward. I hate him. I cannot eat my meat for thinking 
 of him. Kill him I must." 
 
 " And so must I." 
 
 " Then we are both agreed. Let us work together, and never 
 mind if one's blood be old and the other's new. I am neither 
 fool nor weakly, as thou knowest." 
 
 Ascelin could not but assent. 
 ■ "Then here. We must send the King's message. But we 
 must add to it." 
 
 " That is dangerous." 
 
 " So is war ; so is eating, drinking ; so is everything. But 
 we must not let Hereward come in. We must drive him to 
 despair. Make the messenger add but one word, — that the 
 king exempts from the amnesty Torfrida, on account of — You 
 can put it into more scholarly shape than I can. " 
 
 " On account of her abominable and notorious sorceries ; and 
 deipands that she shall be given up forthwith to the ecclesiastical 
 power, to be judged as she deserves." 
 
304 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Just so. And then for a load of reeds out of Haddenham 
 fen." 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " said Ascelin, who had loved her once. 
 "Would not perpetual imprisonment suffice?" 
 
 " What cai-e I ? That is the churchmen's affair, not ours. 
 But I fear we shall not get her. Even so Hereward will flee 
 with her, — maybe escape to Flanders, or Denmark. He can 
 escape through a rat's-hole if he will. And then we are at 
 peace. I had sooner kill him and have done with it : but out 
 of the way he must be put." 
 
 So they sent a monk in with the message, and commanded 
 him to tell the article about the Lady Torfrida, not only to 
 Hereward, but to the abbot and all the monks. 
 
 A curt and fierce answer came back, not from Hereward, but 
 from Torfrida herself, — that William of Normandy was no 
 knight himself, or he would not offer a knight liis Itfe, on con- 
 dition of burning his lady. 
 
 William swore horribly. " What is all this about ? " They 
 told him — as much as they chose to tell him. He was very 
 wroth. " Who was Ivo Taillebois, to add to his message ? He 
 had said that Torfrida should not burn." Taillebois was stout ; 
 for he had won the secretary over to his side meanwhile. He 
 had said nothing about burning. He had merely supplied an 
 oversight of the king's. The woman, as the secretary knew, 
 could not, with all deference to his Majesty, be included in an 
 amnesty. She was liable to ecclesiastical censure, and the 
 ecclesiastical courts. William might exercise his influence on 
 them in all lawful ways, and more, remit her sentence, even so 
 far as to pardon her entirely, if his merciful temper should so 
 incline him. But meanwhile, what better could he, Ivo, have 
 done, than to remind the monks of Ely that she was a sorceress ; 
 that she had committed grave crimes, and was liable to punish- 
 ment herself, and they to punishment also, as her shelterers and 
 accomplices ? What he wanted was to bring over the monks ; 
 and he believed that message had been a good stroke toward 
 that. As for Hereward, the king need not think of him. He 
 never would come in alive. He had sworn an oath, and ha 
 would keep it. 
 
 And so the matter ended. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 HOW THE MONKS OF ELY DID AFTER THEIE KIND. 
 
 William's bolt, or rather inextinguishable Greek fire, could 
 not have fallen into Ely at a more propitious moment. 
 
 Hereward was away, with a large body of men, and many' 
 ships, foraging in the northeastern fens. He might not be back 
 for a week. 
 
 Abbot Thurstan — for what cause is not said — had lost heart 
 a little while before, and fled to " Angerhale, taking with him the 
 ornaments and treasure of the church." 
 
 Hereward had discovered his flight with deadly fear : but pro- 
 visions he must have, and forth he must go, leaving Ely in charge 
 of half a dozen independent English gentlemen, each of whom 
 would needs have his own way, just because it was his own. 
 
 Only Torfrida he took, and put her hand into the hand of 
 Ranald Sigtrygsson, and said, " Thou true comrade and perfect 
 knight, as I did by thy wife, do thou by mine, if aught befall." 
 
 And Ranald swore first by the white Christ, and then by the 
 head of Sleipnir, Odin's horse, that he would stand by Torfrida 
 till the last ; and then, if need was, slay her. 
 
 " You will not need, King Ranald. I can slay myself," said 
 she, as she took the Ost-Dane's hard, honest hand. 
 
 And Hereward went, seemingly by Mepal or Sutton. Then 
 came the message ; and all men in Ely knew it. 
 
 Torfrida stormed down to the monks, in honest indignation, to 
 demand that they should send to William, and purge her of the 
 calumny. She found the Chapter-door barred and bolted. They 
 were all gabbling inside, like starlings on a foggy morning, and 
 would not let her in. She hurried back to Ranald, fearing trea- 
 son, and foreseeing the effect of the message upon the monks. 
 
 But what could Ranald do ? To find out their counsels was 
 impossible for him, or any man in Ely. For the monks could 
 talk Latin, and the men could not. Torfrida alone knew the 
 sacred tongue. 
 
 If Torfrida could but listen at the keyhole. Well, — all was 
 fair in war. And to the Chapter-house door she went, guarded 
 by Ranald and some of his housecarles, and listened, with a beat- 
 ing heart. She heard words now incomprehensible. That men 
 
306 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 who most of them lived no better than their own serfs ; who 
 could have no amount of wealth, not even the hope of leaving 
 that wealth to their children, — should chng to wealth, — strug- 
 gle, forge, lie, do anything for wealth, to be used almost entirely 
 not for themselves, but for the honor and glory of the convent, — 
 indicates an intensity of corporate feeling, unknown in the outer 
 world then, or now. 
 
 The monastery would be ruined ! Without this manor, without 
 that wood, without that stone quarry, that fishery, — what would 
 become of them ? 
 
 But mingled with those words were other words, unfortunately 
 more intelligible to this day, — those of superstition. 
 
 What would St. Etheldreda say ? How dare they provoke her 
 wrath ? Would she submit to lose her lands ? She might do, — 
 what might she not do ? Her bones would refuse ever to work 
 a miracle again. They had been" but too slack in miracle-working 
 for many years. She might strike the isle with barrenness, the 
 minster with lightning. She might send a flood up the fens. 
 She might -^ 
 
 William the Norman, to do them justice, those valiant monks 
 feared not ; for he was man, and could but kill the body. But 
 St. Etheldreda, a virgin goddess, with all the host of heaven to 
 back her, — might she not, by intercession with powers still 
 higher than her own, destroy both body and soul in hell ? 
 
 " We are betrayed. They are going to send for the Abbot 
 from Angerhale," said Torfrida at last, reeling from the door. 
 « All is lost." 
 
 " Shall we burst open the door and kill them all ? " asked 
 Ranald, simply. 
 
 " No, King, — no. They are God's men ; and we have blood 
 enough on our souls." 
 
 " We can keep the gates, lest any go out to the King." 
 
 " Impossible. They know the isle better than we, and have a 
 thousand arts." 
 
 So all they could do was to wait in fear and trembling for 
 Hereward's return, and send Martin Lightfoot off to warn him, 
 wherever he might be. 
 
 The monks remained perfectly quiet. The organ droned, the 
 chants wailed, as usual ; nothing interrupted the stated order of 
 the services ; and in the hall, each day, they met the knights as 
 cheerfully as ever. Greed and superstition had made cowards 
 of them, — and now traitors. 
 
 It was whispered that Abbot Thurstan had returned to the 
 minster : but no man saw him : and so three or four days went 
 on. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 307 
 
 Martin found Hereward after incredible labors, and told him all, 
 clearly and shrewdly. The man's manifest insanity only seemed 
 to quicken his wit, and increase his powers of bodily endurance. 
 
 Hereward was already on his way home ; and never did he 
 and his good men row harder than they rowed that day back to 
 Sutton. He landed, and hurried on with half his men, leaving 
 the rest to disembark the booty. He was anxious as to the 
 temper of the monks. He foresaw all that Torfrida had foreseen. 
 And as for Torfrida herself, he was half mad. Ivo Taillebois's 
 addition to William's message had had its due eiFect. He vowed 
 even deadlier hate against the Norman than he had ever felt 
 before. He ascended the heights to Sutton. It was his shortest 
 way to Ely. He could not see Aldreth from thence; but he 
 could see Willingham field, and Belsar's hills, round the corner 
 of Haddeoham Hill. 
 
 Tlie sun was setting long before they reached Ely ; but just as 
 he sank into the western fen. Winter stopped, pointing. " Was 
 that the flash of arms ? There, far away, just below Willingham 
 town. Or was it the setting sun upon the ripple of some long 
 water ? " 
 
 " There is not wind enough for such a ripple,'' said one. But 
 ere they could satisfy themselves, the sun was down, and all the 
 fen was gray. 
 
 Hereward was still more uneasy. If that had been the flash 
 of arms, it must have come off a very large body of men, moving 
 iu column, and on the old straight road between Cambridge and 
 Ely. He hastened on his men. But ere they were within sight 
 of the minster-tower, they were aware of a horse galloping vio- 
 lently towai'ds them through the dusk. Hereward called a halt. 
 He heard his own heart beat as he stopped. The horse was 
 pulled up short among them, and a lad threw himself off. 
 
 " Hereward ? Thank God, I am in time ! " 
 
 The voice was the voice of Torfrida. 
 
 " Treason ! " she gasped. 
 
 " I knew it." 
 
 " The French are in the island. They have got Aldreth. 
 The whole army is marching from Cambridge. The whole fleet 
 is coming up from Southrey. And you have time — " 
 
 " To burn Ely over the monks' heads. Men ! Get bogwood 
 out of yon cottage, make yourselves torches, and onward!" 
 
 Then rose a babel of questions, which Torfrida answered as 
 she could. But she had nothing to tell. " Clerks' cunning," she 
 said bitterly, " was an overmatch for woman's wit." She had sent 
 out a spy : but Be had not returned till an hour since. Then he 
 came back breathless, with the news that the French army was 
 
808 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 on the march from Cambridge, and that, as he came over the 
 water at Alrech, he found a party of French knights in the fort 
 on the Ely side, talking peaceably with the monks on guard. 
 
 She had run up to the borough hill, — which men call Cherry 
 Hill at this day, — and one look to the northeast had shown her 
 the river swarming with ships. She had rushed home, put on 
 men's clothes, hid a few jewels in her bosom, saddled Swallow, 
 and ridden for her life thither. 
 
 "And KingEanald?" 
 
 He and his men had gone desperately out towards Haddenham, 
 with what English they could muster ; but all were in confusion. 
 Some were getting the women and children into boats, to hide 
 them in the reeds. Others battering the minster gates, vowing 
 vengeance on the monks. 
 
 " Then Ranald will be cut off! Alas for the day that ever 
 brought his brave heart hither ! " 
 
 And when the men heard that, a yell of fury and despair burst 
 from all throats. 
 
 Should they go back to their boats ? 
 
 " No ! onward," cried Hereward. " Revenge first, and safety 
 after. Let us leave nothing for the accursed Frenchmen but 
 smoking ruins, and then gather our comrades, and cut our way 
 back to the north." 
 
 " Good counsel," cried Winter. " We know the roads, and 
 they do not ; and in such a dark night as is coming, we can 
 march out of the island without their being able to follow us a 
 mile." 
 
 They hurried on ; but stopped once more, at the galloping of 
 another horse. 
 
 " Who comes, friend or foe ? " 
 
 " Alwyn, son of Orgar ! " cried a voice under breath. " Don't 
 make such a noise, men ! The French are within half a mile of 
 you." 
 
 " Then one traitor monk shall die ere I retreat," cried Here- 
 ward, seizing him by the throat. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, hold ! " cried Torfrida, seizing his arm. 
 " You know not what he may have to say." 
 
 " I am no traitor, Hereward ; 1 have fought by your side as 
 well as the best ; and if any but you had called Alwyn — " 
 
 " A curse on your boasting. Tell us the truth." 
 
 " The Abbot has made peace with the King. ' He would give 
 up the isliind, and St. Etheldreda should keep all her lands and 
 honors. I said what I could ; but who was I to resist the whole 
 chapter? Could 1 alone brave St. Etheldreda's wrath?" 
 
 " Alwyn, the valiant, afraid of a dead girl ! " 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 309 
 
 " Blaspheme not, Herevvard ! She may hear you at this mo- 
 ment ! Look there ! " and pointing up, the monk cowered in 
 terror, as a meteor flashed through the sky. 
 
 " That is St. Etheldreda shooting at us, eh ? Then all I can 
 Bay is, she is a very bad marksman. And the French are in the 
 island?" 
 
 " They are.'' 
 
 " Then forward, men, for one half-hour's pleasure ; and then to 
 die like Englishmen." 
 
 " On ? " cried Afwyn. " You cannot go on. The King is at 
 Whichford at this moment with all his army, half a mile off! 
 Right across the road to Ely ! " 
 
 Hereward grew Berserk. " On ! men ! " shouted he, " we shall 
 kill a few Frenchmen apiece before we die ! " 
 
 " Hereward," cried Torfrida, " you shall not go on ! If you 
 go, I shall be taken. And if I am taken, I shall be burned. And 
 I cannot burn, — I cannot ! I shall go mad with terror before I 
 come to the stake. I cannot go stript to my smock before those 
 Frenchmen. I cannot be roasted piecemeal ! Hei-eward, take 
 me away ! Take me away ! or kill me, now and here ! " 
 
 He paused. He had never seen Torfrida thus overcome. 
 
 " Let us flee ! The stars are against us. God is against us ! 
 Let us hide, — escape abroad: beg our bread, go on pilgrimage 
 to Jerusalem together, — for together it must be always : but take 
 me away ! " 
 
 " We will go back to the boats, men," said Hereward. 
 
 But they did not go. They stood there, irresolute, looking 
 towards Ely. 
 
 The sky was pitchy dark. The minster roofs, lying northeast, 
 were utterly invisible against the blackness. 
 
 " We may at least save some who escape out," said Hereward. 
 "March on quicklj' to the left, under the hill to the plough- 
 field." 
 
 They did so. 
 
 " Lie down, men. There are the French, close on our right. 
 Down among the bushes." 
 
 And they heard the heavy tramp of men within a quarter of a 
 mile. 
 
 " Cover the mare's eyes, and hold her mouth, lest she neigh,'" 
 said Winter. 
 
 Hereward and Torfrida lay side by side upon the heath. She 
 was shivering with cold and horror. He laid his cloak over her ; 
 put his arm round her. 
 
 " Your stars did not foretell you this, Torfrida.'' He spoke not 
 bitterly, but in utter sadness. 
 
310 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 She burst into an agony of weeping. 
 
 " My stars at least foretold me nothing but woe, since first 1 
 Baw your face." 
 
 " Why did you marry me, then ? " asked he, half angrily. 
 
 " Because I loved you. Because I love you still." 
 
 " Then you do not regret ? " 
 
 " Never, never, never ! I am quite happy, — quite happy. 
 Why not ? " 
 
 A tow murmur from the men made them look up. They were 
 near enough to the town to hear, — only too much. They heard 
 the trariip of men, shouts and yells. Then the shrill cries of 
 women. All dull and muffled the sounds came to them through 
 the still night ; and they lay there spell-bound, as in a nightmare, 
 as men assisting at some horrible tragedy, which they had no 
 power to prevent. Then there was a glare, and a wisp of smoke 
 against the black sky, and then a house began burning brightly, 
 and then another. 
 
 " This is the Frenchman's faith ! " 
 
 And all the while, as the sack raged in the town below, the 
 minster stood above, dark, silent, and safe. The church had 
 provided for herself, by sacrificing the children beneath her fos- 
 tering shadow. 
 
 They waited nearly an hour : but no fugitives came out. 
 
 " Come, men," said Hereward, wearily, " we may as well to 
 the boats." 
 
 And so they went, walking on like men in a dream, as yet too 
 stunned to realize to themselves the hopeless horror of their situ- 
 ation. Only Hereward and Torfrida saw it all, looking back on 
 the splendid past, — the splendid hopes for the future : glory, 
 honor, an earldom, a free Danish England, — and this was all 
 that was left ! 
 
 " No it is not ! " cried Torfrida suddenly, as if answering her 
 own unspoken thoughts, and his. " Love is still left. The gal- 
 lows and the stake cannot take that away." And she clung closer 
 to her husband's side, and he again to hers. 
 
 They reached the shore, and told their tale to their comrades. 
 Whither now ? 
 
 " To Well. To the wide mere,'' said Hereward. 
 
 " But their ships will hunt us out there." 
 
 " We shall need no hunting. We must pick up the men at 
 Cissham. You would not leave them to be murdered, too, as we 
 have left the Ely men ? " 
 
 No. They would go to Well. And then ? 
 
 " The Bruneswald, and the merry greenwood," said Hereward. 
 
 " Hey for the merry greenwood ! " shouted Leofric the Deacon. 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 311 
 
 And the men, in the sudden delight of finding any place, any 
 purpose, answered with a lusty cheer. 
 
 " Brave hearts," said Here ward. " We will live and die to- 
 gether like Englishmen." 
 
 " We will, we will. Viking.'' 
 
 " Where shall we stow the mare ? " asked Geri, " the heats 
 are full already." 
 
 " Leave her to me. On board, Torfrida." 
 
 He got on board last, leading the mare by the bridle. 
 
 " Swim, good lass ! " said he, as they pushed off; and the good 
 lass, who had done it many a time before, waded in, and was soon 
 swimming behind. Hereward turned, and bent over the side in 
 the darkness. There was a strange gurgle, a splash, and a swirl. 
 He turned round, and sat upright again. They rowed on. 
 
 " That mare will never swim all the way to Well," said 
 one. 
 
 " She will not need it," said Hereward. 
 
 " Why," cried Torfrida, feeling in the darkness, " she is loose. 
 What is this in your hand ? Your dagger ! And wet ! " 
 
 " Mare Swallow is at the bottom of the reach. We could never 
 have got her to Well." 
 
 " And you have — " cried a dozen voices. 
 
 " Do you think that I would let a cursed Frenchman — ay, 
 even William's self — say that he had bestridden Here ward's 
 mare ? " 
 
 None answered : but Torfrida, as she laid her head upon her 
 husband's bosom, felt the great tears running down from his cheek 
 on to her own. 
 
 None spoke a word. The men were awe-stricken. There 
 was something despairing and ill-omened in the deed. And yet 
 there was a savage grandeur in it, which bound their savage 
 hearts still closer to their chief. 
 
 And so mare Swallow's bones lie somewhere in the peat urito 
 this day. 
 
 They got to Well ; they sent out spies to find the men who had 
 been " wasting Cissham with fire and sword " ; and at last brought 
 them in. Ill news, as usual, had travelled fast. They had heard 
 of the fall of Ely, and hidden themselves " in a certain very small 
 island which is called Stimtench," where, thinking that the friends 
 in search of them were Frenchmen in pursuit, they hid them- 
 .selves among the high reeds. There two of them — one Stark- 
 wolf by name, the other Broher — hiding near each other, 
 " thought that, as they were monks, it might conduce to their 
 safety if they had shaven crowns; and set to work with their 
 Bwords to shave each other's heads as well as they could. But at 
 
312; HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 last, by their war-cries and their speech, recognizing each other, 
 they left off fighting," and went after Hereward. 
 
 So jokes, grimly enough, Leofric the Deacon, who must have 
 seen them come in the next morning, with bleeding coxcombs, 
 and could laugh over the thing in after years. But he was in no 
 humor for jesting in the days in which they lay at Well. Nor 
 was he in jesting humor when, a week afterwards, hunted by the 
 Normans from Well, and forced too take to meres and waterways 
 known only to them, and too shallow and narrow for the Norman 
 ships, they found their way across into the old Nen, and so by 
 Thorney on toward Crowland, leaving Peterborough far on the 
 left. For as they neared Crowland, they saw before them, rowing 
 slowly, a barge full of men. And as they neared that barge, be- 
 hold, all they who rowed were" blind of both their eyes; and 
 all they who sat and guided them were maimed of both their 
 hands. And as they came alongside, there was not a man in all 
 that ghastly crew but was an ancient friend, by whose side they had 
 fought full many a day, and with whom they had drunk deep full 
 many a night. They were the first-fruits of William's ven- 
 geance ; thrust into that boat, to tell the rest of the fen-men what 
 those had to expect who dared oppose the Norman. And they 
 were going, by some by-stream, to Crowland, to the sanctuary of 
 the Danish fen-men, that they might cast themselves down before 
 St. Guthlac, and ask of him that mercy for their souls which the 
 conqueror had denied to their bodies. Alas for them ! they were 
 but a handful among hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mutilated 
 cripples, who swarmed all over England, and especially in the 
 north and east, throughout the reign of the Norman conqueror. 
 They told their comrades' fate, slaughtered in the first attack, or 
 hanged afterwards as rebels and traitors to a foreigner whom they 
 had never seen, and to whom they owed no fealty by law of God 
 or man. 
 
 " And Ranald Sigtrygsson ^ " 
 
 None knew aught of him. He never got home again to his 
 Irish princess. 
 
 " And the poor women ? " asked Torfrida. 
 
 But she received no answer. 
 
 And the men swore a great oath, and kept it, never to give 
 quarter to a Norman, as long as there was one left on Enghsh 
 ground. 
 
 Neither were the monks of Ely in jesting humor, when they 
 came to count up the price of their own baseness. They had 
 (as was in that day the cant of all cowardly English churchmen, 
 as well as of the more crafty Normans) " obeyed the apostolie 
 injunction, to submit to the powers that be, because they are or- 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 313 
 
 dained," &(!. But they found the hand of the powers that be a 
 very heavy one. Forty knights were billeted on fhem at free 
 quarters with all their men. Every morning the butler had to 
 distribute to them food and pay in the great hall ; and in vain . 
 were their complaints of bad faith. William meanwhile, who 
 loved money as well as he "loved the tall deer," had had 1,000 
 (another says 700) marks of them as the price of their church's 
 safety, for the payment whereof, if one authority is to be trusted, 
 they sold " all the furniture of gold and silver, crosses, altars, 
 coffers, covers, chalices, platters, ewers, urnets, basons, cups, and 
 saucers." Nay, the idols themselves were not spared, " for," be- 
 side that, " they sold a goodly image of our Lady with her little 
 Son, in a throne wrought with marvellous workmanship, which 
 Elsegus the abbot had made. Likewise, they stripped many im- 
 ages of holy virgins of much furniture of gold and silver." * So 
 that poor St. Etheldreda had no finery in which to appear on fes- 
 tivals, and went in russet for many years after. The which 
 money (according to another f) they took, as they had promised, 
 to Picot the Viscount at Cambridge. He weighed the money ; 
 and finding it an ounce short, accused them of cheating the King, 
 and sentenced them to pay 300 marks more. After which the 
 royal commissioners came, plundered the abbey of all that was 
 left, and took away likewise " a great mass of gold and silver 
 found in Wentworth, wherewith the brethren meant to repair 
 the altar vessels " ; and also a " notable cope which Archbishop 
 Stigand gave, which the church hath wanted to this day." 
 
 Thurstan, the traitor Abbot, died in a few months. Egelwin, 
 the Bishop of Durham, was taken in the abbey. He was a 
 bishop, and they dared not kill him. But he was a patriot, and 
 must have no mercy. They accused him of stealing the treasures 
 of Durham, which he had brought to Ely for the service of his 
 couiitry ; and shut him up in Abingdon. A few months after, tlie 
 brave man was found starved and dead, " whether of his own will 
 or enforced " ; and so ended another patriot prelate. But we do 
 not read that the Normans gave back the treasure to Durham. 
 And so, yielding an inimen.--e mass of booty, and many a fair 
 woman, as the Norman's prey, ended the Camp of Refuge, and 
 the glory of the Isle of Ely. 
 
 * These details are from a story found in the Isle of Ely, published by Dr. 
 Giles. It seems a late composition, — probably of the sixteenth century, — and 
 bas manifest errors of fact; but valeat quantum. 
 
 t Stow's "Annals." 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER X3iXlV. 
 
 HOW HEEEWARD WENT TO THE GREENWOOD. 
 
 And now is Hereward to the greenwood gone, to be a bold 
 outlaw ; and not only an outlaw himself, but the father of all out- 
 laws, who held those forests for two hundred years, from the fens 
 to the Scottish border. Utlages, forestiers, latrunculi (robberlets), 
 sicarii, cutthroats, sauvages, who prided themselves upon sleep- 
 ing on the bare ground ; they were accursed by the conquerors, 
 and beloved by the conquered. The Norman viscount or sheriff 
 commanded to hunt them from hundred to hundred, with hue and 
 cry, horse and bloodhound. The English yeoman left for them a 
 keg of ale, or a basket of loaves, beneath the hoUins green, as 
 sauce for their meal of " nombles of the dere." 
 
 " For hart and hind, and doe and roe, 
 Were in that forest great plentie," 
 
 " Swannes and fesanntes they had full good 
 And foules of the rivere. 
 There fayled never so lytell a byrde. 
 That ever was bred on brere." 
 
 With the same friendly yeoman "that was a good felawe," 
 they would lodge by twos and threes during the sharp frosts 
 of midwinter, in the lonely farm-house which stood in the " field " 
 or forest-clearing; but for the greater part of the year their 
 " lodging was on the cold ground " in the holly thickets, or undc 
 the hanging rock, or in a lodge of boughs. 
 
 And then, after a while, the life which began in terror, and 
 despair, and poverty, and loss of land and kin, became not only 
 tolerable, but pleasant. Bold men and hardy, they cai'ed less and 
 less for 
 
 " The thornie wayes, the deep valleys, 
 
 The snowe, the frost, the rayne, 
 
 The oolde, the hete ; for dry or wete 
 
 We must lodge on the plaine, 
 
 And us above, none other roofe. 
 
 But a brake bushe, or twayne." 
 
 And they found fair lasses, too, in time, who, like Torfrida and 
 Maid Marian, would answer to their warnings against the outlaw 
 life, with the nut-browne maid, that — 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 315 
 
 ' Amonge the wylde dere, such an arohere 
 
 As men say that ye be, 
 He may not fayle of good intayle 
 
 Where is so great plenty : 
 And water clere of the rivere, 
 
 Shall be full swete to me, 
 With which in hele, I shall right wele, 
 
 Endure, as ye may see." 
 
 Then called they themselves " merry men," and the forest the 
 •* merry greenwood " ; and sang, with Robin Hood, — 
 
 ** A merrier man than T, belyye 
 There lives uot in Christentie." 
 
 They were coaxed back, at times, to civilized life ; they got 
 their grace of the king, and entered the king's service'; but the 
 craving after the greenwood was upon them. They dreaded and 
 hated the four stone walls of a Norman castle, and, like Robin 
 Hood, slipt back to the forest and the deer. 
 
 Gradually, too, law and order rose among them, lawless as they 
 were ; the instinct of discipline and self-government, side by side 
 with that of personal independence, which is the peculiar mark 
 and peculiar strength of the English character. Who knows not 
 how, in the " Lytell Geste of Robin Hood," they shot at " pluck- 
 buffet," the king among them, disguised as an abbot ; and every 
 man who missed the rose-garland, " his tackle he should tyne " ; — 
 
 " And here a buffet on his head, 
 I wys ryght all bare, 
 And all that fell on Robyn's lote, 
 He smote them wonder sair. 
 
 " Till Robyn fayled of the garlonde, 
 Three fyngers and mair." 
 
 Then good Gilbert bids him in his turn 
 
 " ' Sta,nd forth and take his pay.' 
 
 " ' If it be so,' sayd Robyn, 
 ' That may no better be, 
 Syr Abbot, 1 delyver thee myn arrowe, 
 "I pray thee, Syr, serve thou me.' 
 
 " ' It falleth not for myne order,' saith on Itynge, 
 ' Robyn, by thy leve. 
 For to smyte no good yeman, 
 For doute I should hym greve.' 
 
 " ' Smyte on bpldly,' sayd Robyn, 
 ' I give thee large leve.' 
 Anon our kynge, with that word, 
 He folde up his sieve. 
 
 " And such a buffet he gave Robyn, 
 
 To grounds he yode full nere. 
 
 ' I make myn avowe,' sayd Robyn, 
 
 ' Thou art a stalwarte frere. 
 
316 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " ' There is pyth in thyn arme,' sayd Robyn, 
 ' I trowe thou canst well shoote.' 
 Thus our kynge and Robyn Hode 
 Together they are met." 
 
 Hard knocks in good humor, strict rules, fair play, and equal 
 justice, for high and low ; this was the old outlaw spirit, whicli 
 has descended to their inlawed descendants; and makes, to this 
 day, the life and marrow of an English public school. 
 
 One fixed idea the outlaw had, — hatred of the invader. If 
 "his herde were the king's deer," "his treasure was the earl's 
 purse " ; and still oftener the purse of the foreign churchman, 
 Norman or Italian, who had expelled the outlaw's English cous- 
 ins from their convents ; shamefully scourged and cruelly im- 
 prisoned them, as the blessed Archbishop Lanfranc did at Can- 
 terbury, because they would not own allegiance to a French 
 abbot ; or murdered them at the high altar, as did the new abbot 
 of Glastonbury, because they would not change their old ' Gre- 
 gorian chant for that of William of Fescamp.* 
 
 On these mitred tyrants the outlaw had no mercy, as far as 
 their purses were concerned. Their persons, as consecrated, 
 were even to him sacred and inviolable, — at least, from wounds 
 and death ; and one may suppose Hereward himself to have 
 been the first author of the laws afterward attributed to Robin 
 Hood. As for " robbing and reving, beting and bynding," free 
 warren was allowed against the Norman. 
 
 " ' Thereof no foors,' said Robyn, 
 ' We shall do well enow. 
 But look ye do no housbonde harme, 
 That tiiletU wyth his plough. 
 
 " ' No more ye shall no good yeman, 
 That walketh by grene wood shawe; 
 Ne no knyght, ne no sqiiyer, 
 That will be good feiawe. 
 
 " ' These bysshoppes, and these archbysshoppes, 
 Ye shall them bete and binde; 
 The hye sheryfF of Nottingham, 
 Hym bolde in your mynde.' 
 
 « * * « 
 
 " Robyn loved our dere Ladye. 
 For doubt of dedely synne, 
 Wolde he never do company harme 
 That any woman was ynne." 
 
 And even so it was with Hereward in the Bruneswald, if the 
 old chroniclers, Leofric especially, are to be believed. 
 
 And now Torfrida was astonished. She had given way 
 utterly at Ely, from woman's fear, and woman's disappoint- 
 
 * See tie Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 
 
HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 317 
 
 nent. All was over. All was lost. What was left, save to 
 lie? 
 
 But — and it was a new and unexpected fact to one of her 
 excitable Southern blood, easily raised, and easily depressed — 
 she discovered that neither her husband, nor Winter, nor Geri, 
 nor Wenoch, nor Ranald of Ramsey, nor even the romancing 
 harping Leofric, thought that all was lost. She argued it with 
 them, not to persuade them into base submission, but to satisfy 
 her own surprise. 
 
 "But what will you do?" 
 
 " Live in the greenwood." 
 
 " And what then ? " 
 
 "Burn every town which a Frenchman holds, and kill every 
 Frenchman we meet." 
 
 " But what plan have you ? " 
 
 " Who wants a plan, as you call it, while he has the green 
 hollies overhead, the dun deer on the lawn, bow in his hand, 
 and sword by his side ? " 
 
 " But what will be the end of it all ? " 
 
 " We shall live till we die." 
 
 " But William is master of all England." 
 
 " What .is that to us ? He is not our master." 
 
 " But he must be some day. You will grow fewer and fewer. 
 His government will grow stronger and stronger." 
 
 " What is that to us ? When we are dead, there will be 
 brave yeomen in plenty to take our place. You would not 
 turn traitor ? " 
 
 " I ? never ! never ! I will live and die with you in your 
 greenwood, as you call it. Only — I did not understand you 
 English." 
 
 Torfrida did not. She was discovering the fact, which her 
 nation have more than once discovered since, that the stupid 
 valor of the Englishman never knows when it is beaten ; and 
 sometimes, by that self-satisfied ignorance, succeeds in not being 
 beaten after all. 
 
 So Hereward — if the chronicles apeak truth — assembled a 
 formidable force, wellnigh, at last, four hundred men. Winter, 
 Geri, Wenoch, Grogan, one of the Azers of Lincoln, were still 
 with him. Ranald the butler still carried his standard. Of 
 Duti and Outi, the famous brothers, no more is heard. A 
 valiant Matelgar takes their place; Alfric and Sexwold and 
 many another gallant fugitive cast up, like scattered hounds, 
 at the sound of " The Wake's " war-horn. There were those 
 among them (says Gaimar) who scorned to fight single-handed 
 less than three Normans. As for Hereward, he would fight 
 seven. 
 
318 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " Leg quatre .oscist, les treis fuirent; 
 liiftffrez, sanojlant, cil s'en partirent 
 En phisurs lius issi avrit, 
 K'encontre seit trfes bien se tuit 
 De seit homines avait vertu, 
 Un plus hardi ne fu veu." 
 
 They ranged up the Bruneswald, dashing out to the war-cry 
 of " A Wake ! a Wake ! " laying all waste with fire and sword, 
 that is, such towns as were in the hands of Normans. And a no- 
 ble range they must have had for gallant sportsmen. Away south, 
 between the Nene and Welland, stretched from Stamford and 
 Peterborough the still vast forests of Rockingham, nigh twenty 
 miles in length as the crow flies, down beyond Rockingham town, 
 and Geddington Chase. To the west, they had the range of the 
 " hunting counties," dotted still, in the more eastern part, with in- 
 numerable copses and shaughs, the remnants of the great forest, 
 out of which, as out of Rockinghamshire, have been cut those fair 
 parks and 
 
 "Handsome houses. 
 Where the wealthy nobles dwell"; 
 
 past which the Lord of Burleigh led his Welsh bride to that 
 Burghley House by Stamford town, wellnigh the noblest of them 
 all, which was, in Hereward's time, deep wood, and freestone 
 down. Round Exton, and Normanton, and that other Burley on 
 the Hill ; on through those Morkery woods, which still retain the 
 name of Hereward's ill-fated nephew ; north by Irnham and Cor- 
 by ; on to Belton and Syston (par nobile), and southwest again 
 to those still wooded heights, whence all-but-royal Belvoir looks 
 out over the rich green vale below, did Hereward and his men 
 range far and wide, harrying the Frenchman, and hunting the 
 dun deer. Stags there were in plenty. There remain to this 
 day, in Grimsthorpe Park by Bourne, the descendants of the 
 very deer which Earl Leofric and Earl Algar, and after them 
 Hereward the outlaw, hunted in the Bruneswald. 
 
 Deep-tangled forest filled the lower claylands, swarming with 
 pheasant, roe, badger, and more wolves than were needed. Bro- 
 ken, park-like glades covered the upper freestones, where the 
 red deer came out from harbor for their evening graze, and the 
 partridges and plovers whirred up, and the hares and rabbits loped 
 away, innumerable ; and where hollies and ferns always gave dry 
 lying for the night. .What did men need more, whose bodies 
 were as stout as their hearts ? 
 
 They were poachers and robbers; and why not? The deer 
 had once been theirs, the game, the land, the serfs ; and if Godric 
 of Corby slew the Irnham deer, b\u'ned Irnham Hall over the 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 319 
 
 bead of the new Norman lord, and thought no harm, he did but 
 what he would with that which had been once his own. 
 
 Easy it was to dash out by night and make a raid ; to harry 
 the places which they once had owned themselves, in the vale of 
 Belvoir to the west, or to the east in the strip of fertile land 
 which sloped down into the fen, and levy black-mail in Ripping- 
 hale, or Folkingbam, or Aslackby, or Sleaford, or any other of 
 the " Vills " (now thriving villages) which still remain in Domes- 
 day-book, and written against them the ugly and significant, — 
 
 "InTatenai habuerunt Turgisle et Suen IIII. Carrucaj trse,"- 
 &c. " Hoc Ivo Taillebosc ibi habet in dominio," — all, that is, 
 that the wars had left of them. 
 
 The said Turgisle (Torkill or Turketil misspelt by French- 
 men) and Sweyn, and many a good man more, — for Ivo's pos- 
 sessions were enormous, — were thorns in the sides of Ivo and 
 his men which must be extracted, and the Bruneswald a nest of 
 hornets, which must be smoked out at any cost. 
 
 Wherefore it befell, that once upon a day there came riding to 
 Hereward in the Bruneswald a horseman all alone. 
 
 And meeting with Hereward and his men he made signs of 
 amity, and bowed himself low, and pulled out of his purse a let- 
 ter, protesting that he was an Englishman and a " good felawe," 
 and that, though he came from Lincoln town, a friend to the 
 English had sent him. 
 
 That was believable enough, for Hereward had his friends 
 and his spies far and wide. 
 
 And when he opened the letter, and looked first, like a wary 
 man, at the signature, a sudden thrill went through him. 
 
 It was Alftruda's. 
 
 If he was interested in her, considering what had passed be- 
 tween them from her childhood, it was nothing to be ashamed 
 of. And yet somehow he felt ashamed of that same sudden 
 thrill. 
 
 And Hereward had reason to be ashamed. He had been 
 faithful to Torfrida, — a virtue most rare in those days. Few 
 were faithful then, save, it may be, Baldwin of Mons to his tyrant 
 and idol, the sorceress Eichilda ; and William of Normandy, — 
 whatever were his other sins, — to his wise and sweet and beau- 
 tiful Matilda. The stories of his coldness and cruelty to her 
 seem to rest on no foundation. One need believe them as little 
 as one does the mytli of one chronicler, that when she tried to 
 stop him from some expedition, and clung to him as he sat upon 
 his horse, he smote his spur so deep into her breast that she fell 
 dead. The man had self-control, and feared God in his own wild 
 way, — therefore it was, perhaps, that he conquered. 
 
320 HEBEWAED, THE LAST OF THE KNGLISH. 
 
 And Hereward had been faithful likewise to Torfrida, and 
 loved her with an overwhelming adoration, as all true men love. 
 And for that very reason he was the more aware that his feel- 
 ing for Alftruda was strangely like his feeling for Torfrida, and 
 yet strangely different. 
 
 There was nothing in the letter that he should not have read. 
 She called him her best and dearest friend, twice the savior of 
 her life. What could she do in return, but, at any risk to herself, 
 try and save his life ? The French were upon htm. The posse 
 comitatus of seven counties was raising. " Northampton, Cam- 
 bridge, Lincoln, Holland, Leicester, Huntingdon, Warwick," were 
 coming to the Bruneswald to root him out. 
 
 " Lincoln ? " thought Hereward. " That must be Gilbert of 
 Ghent, and Oger the Breton. No ! Gilbert is not coming, Sir 
 Ascelin is coming for him. Holland? That is my friend Ivo 
 Taillebois. WeU, we shall have the chance of paying off old 
 scores. Northampton ? Tlie earl thereof just now is the pious 
 and loyal Waltheof, as he is of Huntingdon and Cambridge. Is he 
 going to join young Fitz-Osbern from Warwick and Leicester, to 
 root out the last Englishman ? Why not ? That would be a 
 deed worthy of the man who married Judith, and believes in the 
 powers that be, and eats dirt daily at WilUam's table." 
 
 Then he read on. 
 
 Ascelin had been mentioned, he remarked, three or four times 
 in the letter, which was long, as from one lingering over the 
 paper, wishing to say more than she dared. At the end was a 
 hint of the reason : — 
 
 " 0, that having saved me twice, you could save me once more. 
 Know you that Gospatrick has been driven from his earldom on 
 charge of treason, and that Waltheof has Northumbria in his place, 
 as well as the parts round you ? And that Gospatrick is fled to 
 Scotland again, with his sons, — my man among them ? And 
 now the report comes, that my man is slain in battle on the Bor- 
 der ; and that I am to be given away, — as I have been given 
 away twice before, — to Ascelin. This I know, as I know all, not 
 only from him of Ghent, but from him of Peterborough, Ascelin's 
 uncle." 
 
 Hereward laughed a laugh of cynical triumph, — pardonable 
 enough in a broken man. 
 
 '• Gospatrick ! the wittol ! the woodcock ! looking at the springe, 
 and then coolly putting his head therein. Throwing the hatchet 
 after the helve ! selling his soul and never getting the price of it ! 
 I foresaw it, foretold It, I believe to Alftruda herself, — foretold 
 that he would not keep his bought earldom three years. What a 
 people we are, we English, if Gospatrick is, — as he it, — the 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLiaH. 321 
 
 shrewdest man among us, with a dash of canny Scots blood too. 
 Among the one-eyed, the blind is king,' says Torfrida, out of her 
 wise ancients, and blind we are, if he is our best. No. There is 
 one better man left I trust, one that will never be fool enough to 
 put his head into the wolf's mouth, and trust the Norman, and 
 that is Hereward the outlaw." 
 
 And Hereward boasted to himself, at Gospatrick's expense, of 
 hia own superior wisdom, till his eye caught a line or two, which 
 finished the letter. 
 
 " O that you would change your mind, much as I honor you 
 for it. O that you would come in to the king, who loves and 
 trusts you, having seen your constancy and faith, proved by so 
 many years of affliction. Great things are open to you, and great 
 joys ; — I dare not tell you what : but I know them, if you would 
 come in. You, to waste yourself in the forest, an outlaw and a 
 savage ! Opportunity once lost, never returns ; time flies fast, 
 Hereward. my friend, and we shall all grow old, — I think at times 
 that I shall soon grow old. ' And the joys of life will be impossi- 
 ble, and nothing left but vain regrets." 
 
 " Hey ? " said Hereward, " a very clerkly letter. I did not 
 think she was so good a scholar. Almost as good a one as Torfrida." 
 
 That was all he said ; and as for thinking, he had the posse 
 comitatus of seven counties to think of. But what could those 
 great fortunes and joys be, which Alftruda did not dare to de- 
 scribe ? 
 
 She growing old, too ? Impossible, that was woman's vanity. 
 It was but two years since she was as fair as a saint in a window. 
 " She shall not marry Ascelin. I will cut his head off. She shall 
 have her own choice for once, poor child." 
 
 And Hereward found himself worked up to a great height of 
 paternal solicitude for Alftruda, and righteous indignation against 
 Ascelin. He did not confess to himself that he disliked much, in 
 his selfish vanity, the notion of Alftruda's marrying any one at 
 all. He did not want to marry her himself, — of course not. 
 But there is no dog in the manger so churlish on such points as a 
 vain man. There are those who will not willingly let their own 
 sisters, their own daughters, their own servants marry. Why 
 should a woman wish to marry any one but them ? 
 
 But Hereward, however vain, was no dreamer or sluggard. 
 He sat to work, joyfully, cheei'fuUy, scenting battle afar off, like 
 Job's war-horse, and pawing for the battle. He sent back Alf- 
 truda's messenger, with this answer : — 
 
 " Tell your, lady that I kiss her hands and feet. That I cannot 
 write, for outlaws carry no pen and ink. But that what she has 
 aommanded, that will I perform." 
 
 14* V 
 
322 HEEEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 It is noteworthy, that when Hereward showed Torfrida (which 
 he did franldy) Alftruda's letter, he did not tell her the exact 
 words of his answer, and stumbled and varied much, vexing her 
 thereby, when she, naturally, wished to hear them word for 
 word. 
 
 Then he sent out spies to the four airts of heaven. And his 
 spies, finding a friend and a meal in every hovel, brought home 
 all tlie news he needed. 
 
 He withdrew Torfrida and his men into the heart of the forest, 
 — no hint of the place is given by the chronicler, — cut down 
 trees, formed an abattis of trunks and branches, and awaited the 
 enemy. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 HOW ABBOT THOROLD WAS PUT TO EANSOM. 
 
 Though Hereward had as yet no fend against " Bysshopp ta 
 and Archbysshoppes," save Egelsin of Selsey, who had excom- 
 municated him, but who was at the other end of England, he 
 had feud, as may be supposed, against Thorold, Abbot of Peter- 
 borough, and Thorold feud likewise against him. When Thorold 
 had entered the " Golden Borough," hoping to fatten himself with 
 all its treasures, he had found it a smoking ruin, and its treasures 
 gone to Ely to pay Sweyn and his Danes. And such a " sacri- 
 lege," especially when he was the loser thereby, was the unpar- 
 donable sin itself in the eyes of Thorold, as he hoped it might be 
 in the eyes of St. Peter. Joyfully therefore he joined his friend 
 Ivo Taillebois, when, " with his usual pompous verbosity," saith 
 Peter of Blois, writing on this very matter, he asked him to join 
 in destroying Hereward. 
 
 Nevertheless, with all the Norman chivalry at their back, it 
 behooved them to move with caution ; for (so says the chronicler) 
 " Hereward had in these days very many foreigners, as well as 
 landstblk, who had come to him to practise and learn war, and 
 fled from their masters and friends when they heard of his fame ; 
 and some of them the king's courtiers, who had come to see 
 whether those things which they heard were true, whom Here- 
 ward nevertheless received cautiously, on plighted troth and 
 oath." 
 
 So Ivo Taillebois summoned all his men, and all other men's 
 men who would join him, and rode forth through Spalding and 
 Bourne, having announced to Lucia his bride that, he was going 
 to slay her one remaining relative ; and when she wept, cursed 
 and kicked her, as he did once a week. After which he came 
 to Thorold of Peterborough. 
 
 So on the two worthies rode from Peterborough to Stamford, 
 and from Stamford into the wilderness, no man knows whither. 
 
 " And far they rode by bush and shangh, 
 And far by moss and mire," — 
 
 Dut never found a track of Hereward or his men. And Ivo 
 
324 HERE WARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Taillebois left off boasting how he would burn Torfrida over a 
 slow fire, and confined himself to cui-sing ; and Abbot Thorold 
 left off warbling the song of Eoland as if he had been going to 
 a second battle of Hastings, and wished himself in warm bed at 
 Peterborough. 
 
 But at the last they struck upon a great horse-track, and fol- 
 lowed it at their best pace for several miles, and yet no sign of 
 Hereward. 
 
 " Catch an Englishman," quoth the abbot. 
 
 But that was not so easy. The poor folk had hidden them- 
 selves, like Israel of old, in thickets and dens and caves of rocks, 
 at the far-off sight of the Norman tyrants, and not a living soul 
 had appeared for twenty miles. At last they caught a ragged 
 wretch herding swine, and haled him up to Ivo. 
 
 " Have you seen Hereward, villain ? " asked he, through an 
 interpreter. 
 
 " Nay." 
 
 " You lie. These are his fresh horse-tracks, and you must 
 have seen him pass." 
 
 " Eh ? " 
 
 " Thrust out one of his eyes, and he will find his tongue." 
 
 It was done. 
 
 " Will you answer now ? " 
 
 The poor wretch only howled. 
 
 " Thrust out the other." 
 
 " No, not that ! Mercy : I will tell. He is gone by this four 
 hours. How have you not met him?" 
 
 " Fool ! The hoofs point onward there." 
 
 " Ay," — and the fellow could hardly hide a grin, — " but he 
 had shod all his horses backwards." 
 
 A storm of execration followed. They might be thrown twenty 
 miles out of their right road by the stratagem. 
 
 " So you had seen Hereward, and would not tell. Put out his 
 other eye," said Taillebois, as a vent to his own feelings. 
 
 And they turned their horses' heads, and rode back, leaving 
 the man blind in the forest. 
 
 The day was waning now. The fog hung heavy on the tree- 
 tops, and dripped upon their heads. The horses were getting 
 tired, and slipped and stumbled in the deep clay paths. The foot- 
 men were more tired still, and, cold and hungry, straggled more 
 and more. The horse-tracks led over an open lawn of grass and 
 fern, with here and there an ancient thorn, and round it on three 
 sides thick wood of oak and beech, with under copse of holly and 
 hazel. Into that wood the horse-tracks led, by a path on which 
 there was but room for one horse at a time. 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 325 
 
 " Here they are at last ! " cried Ivo. " I see the fresh foot- 
 marks of men, as well as horses. Push on, knights and men 
 at-arms." 
 
 The Abbot looked at the dark, dripping wood, and meditated. 
 
 " I think that it will be as well for some of us to remain here ; 
 and, spreading our men along the woodside, prevent the escape 
 of the villains. A moi, homines cTarmes ! " 
 
 " As you like. I will go in and bolt the rabbit ; and you shall 
 snap him up as he comes out." 
 
 And Ivo, who was as brave as a bull-dog, thrust his horse into 
 the path, while the Abbot sat shivering outside. " Certain nobles 
 of higher rank," says Peter de Blois, " followed his example, not 
 wishing to rust their armor, or tear their fine clothes, in the dank 
 copse." 
 
 The knights and men-at-arms straggled slowly into the forest, 
 some by the path, some elsewhere, grumbling audibly at the black 
 work before them. At last the crashing of the branches died 
 away, and all was still. 
 
 Abbot Thorold sat there upon his shivering horse, shivering 
 himself as the cold pierced through his wet mail ; and as near an 
 hour past, and no sign of foe or friend appeared, he cursed the 
 hour in which he took off the beautiful garments of the sanctuary 
 to endure those of the battle-field. He thought of a warm cham- 
 ber, warm bath, warm footcloths, warm pheasant, and warm wine. 
 He kicked his freezing iron feet in the freezing iron stirrup. He 
 tried to blow his nose with his freezing iron hand ; but dropt his 
 handkerchief into the mud, and his horse trod on it. He tried to 
 warble the song of Roland ; but the words exploded in a cough 
 and a sneeze. And so dragged, on the weary hours, says the 
 chronicler, nearly all day, till the ninth hour. But never did 
 they see coming out of the forest the men who had gone in. 
 
 A shout from his nephew. Sir Ascelin, made all turn their 
 heads. Behind them, on the open lawn, in the throat between 
 the woods by which they had entered, were some forty knights, 
 galloping toward them. 
 
 "Ivo?" 
 
 " No ! " almost shrieked the Abbot. " There is the white-bear 
 banner. It is Hereward." 
 
 " There is Winter on his left," cried one. " And there, with 
 the standard, is the accursed monk, Ranald of Ramsey." 
 
 And on they came, having debouched from the wood some two 
 hundred yards off, behind a roll in the lawn, just far enough off 
 to charge as soon as they were in line. ' 
 
 On they came, two deep, with lances high over their shoulders, 
 heads and heels well dovn, while the green tufts flew behivid 
 
326 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 
 
 them. " A moi, homines cCarmes ! " shouted the Abbot. But 
 too late. The French turned right and left. To form was im- 
 possible, ere the human whirlwind would be upon them. 
 
 Another half-minute and with a shout of " A bear ! a bear . 
 The Wake ! the Wake ! " they were struck, ridden through^ 
 hurled over, and trampled into the mud. 
 
 " I yield. Grace ! I yield ! !' cried Thorold, struggling from 
 under his horse ; but there was no one to whom to yield. The 
 knights' backs were fifty yards off, their right arms high in the 
 oir, striking and stabbing. 
 
 The battle was " a Voutrance." There was no quarter given 
 that day. 
 
 " And he that came live out thereof 
 Was he that ran away." 
 
 The Abbot tried to make for the wood, but ere he could gain 
 it, the knights had turned, and one rode straight at him, throwing 
 away a broken lance, and drawing his sword. 
 
 Abbot Thorold may not have been the coward which Peter of 
 Blois would have him, over and above being the bully which aU 
 men would have him ; but if so, even a worm will turn ; and so 
 did the Abbot : he drew sword from thigh, got well under his 
 shield, his left foot forward, and struck one blow for his life, and 
 at the right place, — his foe's bare knee. 
 
 But he had to do with a warier man than himself. There was 
 a quick jerk of the rein ; the horse swerved round, right upon 
 him, and knocked him head over heels ; while his blow went into 
 empty air. 
 
 " Yield or die ! " cried the knight, leaping from his horse, and 
 kneeling on his head. 
 
 " I am a man of God, an abbot, churchman, Thorold." 
 
 " Man of all the devils ! " and the knight lugged him up, and 
 bound his arms behind him with the abbot's own belt. 
 
 " Ahoi ! Here ! I have caught a fish. I have got the Gtolden 
 Borough in my purse ! " roared he. " How much has St. Peter 
 gained since we borrowed of him last. Abbot ? He will have to 
 pay out the silver pennies bonnily, if he wishes to get back thee." 
 
 " Blaspheme not, godless barbarian ! " Whereat the knight 
 kicked him. 
 
 " And you have Thorold the scoundrel, Winter ? " cried Here- 
 ward, galloping up. " And we have three or four more dainty 
 French knights, and a viscount of I know not where among them. 
 This is a good day's work. Now for Ivo and his tail." 
 
 And the Abbot, with four or five more prisoners, were hoisted 
 on to their own horses, tied firmly, and led away into the forest 
 path. 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 327 
 
 " Do not leave a wounded man to die," cried a knigbt who lay 
 on the lawn. 
 
 " Never we. I will come back and put you out of your pain," 
 quoth some one. 
 
 " Siward ! Si ward Le Blanc ! Are you in this meinie ? " cried 
 the knight in French. 
 
 "That am I. Who calls?" 
 
 " For God's sake save him ! " cried Thorold. " He is my own 
 nephew, and I will pay — " 
 
 " You will need all your money for yourself," said Siward the 
 "White, riding back. 
 
 " Are you Sir Ascelin of Ghent ? " 
 
 '' That am I, your host of old." 
 
 " I wish I had met you in better company. But friends we 
 are, and friends must be." 
 
 And he dismounted, and did his best for the wounded man, 
 promising to return and fetch him off before night, or send yeo- 
 men to do so. 
 
 As he pushed on through the wood, the Abbot began to see 
 signs of a fight ; riderless horses crashing through the copse, 
 wounded men straggling back, to be cut down without mercy 
 by the English. The war had been " a Voutranee " for a long 
 while. None gave or asked quarter. The knights might be 
 kept for ransom : they had money. The wretched men of the 
 lower classes, who had none, were slain : as they would have 
 slain the English. 
 
 Soon they heard the noise of battle ; and saw horsemen and 
 footmen pellmell, tangled in an abattis, from behind which archers 
 and cross-bowmen shot them down in safety. 
 
 Hereward dashed forward, with the shout of Torfrida ; and at 
 that the French, taken in the flank, fled, and were smitten as they 
 fled, hip and thigh. 
 
 Hereward bade them spare a fugitive, and bring him to him. 
 
 " I give you your life ; so run, and carry my message. That 
 is Taillebois's banner there forward, is it not?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then go after him, and tell him, — Hereward has the Abbot 
 of Burgh, and half a dozen knights, safe by the heels. And unless 
 Ivo clears the wood of his men by nightfall, I will hang every 
 one of them up for the crows before morning." 
 
 Ivo got the message, and having had enough fightii g for the 
 day, drew off, says the chronicler, for the sake of the Abbot and 
 his fellow-captives. 
 
 Two hours after the Abbot and the other prisoners were sit- 
 ting, unbound, but unarmed, in the forest encampment, waiting 
 
328 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 for a right good meal, with Torfrida bustling about t?.em, after 
 binding up the very few wounded among their own men. 
 
 Every courtesy was shown them ; and their hearts were lifted 
 up, as they beheld approaching among the trees great caldrons 
 of good soup ; forest salads ; red deer and roe roasted on the 
 wood embers ; spits of pheasants and partridges, larks and bunt- 
 ings, thrust off one by one by fair hands into the burdock leaves 
 whicli served as platters ; and last, but not least, jacks of ale and 
 wine, appearing mysteriously from a cool old stone quarry. Abbot 
 Thorold ate to his heart's content, complimented every one, vowed 
 he would forswear all Norman cooks and take to the greenwood 
 himself, and was as gracious and courtly as if he had been at the 
 new palace at Winchester. 
 
 And all the more for this reason, — that he had intended to 
 overawe the English barbarians by his polished Norman manners. 
 He found those of Hereward and Torfrida, at least, as polished 
 as his own. 
 
 " I am glad you are content, Lord Abbot," said Torfrida ; " I 
 trust you prefer dining with me to burning me, as you meant 
 to do." 
 
 " I burn such peerless beauty ! I injure a form made only for 
 the courts of kings ! Heaven and all saints, knighthood and all 
 chivalry, forbid. What Taillebois may have said, I know not ! 
 I am no more answerable for his intentions than I am for his 
 parentage, — or his success this day. Let churls be churls, and 
 wood-cutters wood-cutters. I at least, thanks to my ancestors, 
 am a gentleman." 
 
 ■ " And, as a gentleman, will of course contribute to the pleasure 
 of your hosts. It will surely please you to gratify us with one 
 Btave at least of that song, which has made your name famous 
 among all knights," holding out a harp. 
 
 " I blush : but obey. A harp in the greenwood ? A court in 
 the wilderness ! What joy ! " 
 
 And the vain Abbot took the harp, and said, — " These, if you 
 will allow my modesty to choose, are the staves on which I espe- 
 cially pride myself. The staves which Taillefer — you will par- 
 don my mentioning him — " 
 
 '■ Why pardon ? A noble minstrel he was, and a brave warrior, 
 though our foe. And often have I longed to hear him, little 
 thinking that I should hear instead the maker himself." 
 
 So said Hereward ; and the Abbot sang — those wondrous 
 staves, where Roland, left alone of all the Paladins, finds death 
 come on him fast. And on the Pyrensean peak, beneath the 
 pine, he lays himself, his " face toward the grotmd, and under 
 him his' sword and magic hornj that Charles, his lord, may say, 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 329 
 
 and all his folk, The gentle count, he died a conqueror " ; and then 
 " turns his eyes southward toward Spain, betakes himself to 
 remember many things ; of so many lands which he conquered 
 valiantly ; of pleasant France ; of the men of his lineage ; of 
 Charlemagne, his lord, who brought him up. He could not help 
 to weep and sigh, but yet himself he would not forget. He be- 
 wailed his sins, and prayed God's mercy: — True Father, who 
 ne'er yet didst lie, who raised St. Lazarus from death, and 
 guarded Daniel from the lions, guard my soul from all perils, for 
 the sins which in my life I did ! His right glove then he offered 
 to God ; St. Gabriel took it from his hand ; on his arm the chief 
 bowed down, with joined hands he went unto Ijis end. God sent 
 down his angel Cherubim and St. Michael, whom men call ' del 
 peril.' Together, with them, St. Gabriel, he came ; the soul of 
 the count they bore to Paradise." 
 
 And the Abbot ended, sadly and gently, without that wild 
 " Aoi ! " the war-cry with which he usually ends his staves. And 
 the wild men of the woods were softened and saddened by the 
 melody ; and as many as understood French, said, when he fin- 
 ished, " Amen ! so may all good knights die ! " 
 
 " Thou art a great maker. Abbot ! They told truths of thee. 
 Sing us more of thy great courtesy." 
 
 And he sang them the staves of the Olifant, the magic horn, — 
 how Roland would not sound it in his pride, and 'sounded it at 
 Turpin's bidding, but too late ; and how his temples burst with 
 that great blast, and Charles and all his peers heard it through 
 the gorges, leagues away in France. And then his " Aoi " 
 rang forth so loud and clear, like any trumpet blast, under the 
 oaken glades, that the wild men leaped to their feet, and shouted, 
 " Health to the gleeman ! Health to the Abbot Thorold ! " 
 
 " I have won them," thought the Abbot to himself. Strange 
 mixture that man must have been, if all which is told of him is 
 true ; a very typical Norman, compact of cunning and ferocity, 
 chivalry and poetry, vanity and superstition, and yet able enough 
 to help to conquer England for the Pope. 
 
 Then he pressed Hereward to sing, with many compliments ; 
 and Hereward sang, and sang again, and all his .men crowded 
 round him as the outlaws of Judaea may have crowded round Da- 
 vid in Carmel or Hebron, to hear, like children, old ditties which 
 they loved the better the oftener they heard them. 
 
 " No wonder that you can keep these knights together, if you 
 can charm them thus with song. Would that I could hear you 
 singing thus in William's hall." 
 
 " No more of that. Sir Abbot. The only music which I have 
 for William is the music of steel on steel." 
 
330 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Hereward answered sharply, because he was half of Thorold's 
 tnind. 
 
 " Now," said Torfrida, as it grew late, " we must ask our noble 
 guest for what he can give us as easily and well as he can song, 
 ■ — and that is news. We hear naught here in the greenwood, 
 and must throw one's self on the kindness of a chance visitor." 
 
 The Abbot leapt at the bait, and told them news, court gossip, 
 bringing in great folks' names and his own, as often and as fa- 
 miliarly mingled as he could.^ 
 
 " What of Richilda ? " asked Torfrida. 
 
 " Ever since young Arnoul was killed at Cassel — " 
 
 « Arnoul killed,?" shrieked Torfrida. 
 
 " Is it possible that you do not know ? " 
 
 " How should I know, shut up in Ely for — years it seems." 
 
 " But they fought at Cassel three months before you went to 
 Ely." 
 
 " Be it so. Only tell me. Arnoul killed ! " 
 
 Then the Abbot told, not without feeling, a fearful story. 
 
 Robert the Frison and Richilda had come to open war, and 
 Gerbod the Fleming, Earl of Clueter, had gone over from Eng- 
 land to help Robert. William had sent Fitz Osbem, Earl of 
 Hereford, the scourge and tyrant of the Welsh, to help Richilda. 
 Fitz Osbem had married her, there and then. She had asked 
 help of her liege lord, the King of France, and he had sent her 
 troops. Robert and Richilda had fought on St. Peter's day, 
 1071, — nearly two years before, at Bavinchorum, by Cassel. 
 
 Richilda had played the heroine, and routed Robert's left wing, 
 taken him prisoner, and sent him off to St. Omer. Men said 
 that she had done it by her enchantments. But her enchant- 
 ments betrayed her nevertheless. Fitz Osbern, her bridegroom, 
 fell dead. Young Arnoul had two horses killed under him. 
 Then Gerbod smote him to the ground, and Richilda and her 
 troops fled in horror. Richilda was taken, and exchanged for 
 the Frison ; at which the King of France, being enraged, had 
 come down and burnt St. Omer. Then Richilda, undaunted, had 
 raised fresh troops to avenge her son. Then Robert had met 
 them at Broqueroie by Mons, and smote them with a dreadful 
 slaughter.* Then Richilda had turned and fled wildly into a 
 convent; and, so men said, tortured herself night and day with 
 fearful penances, if by any means she might atone for her great 
 bins. 
 
 Torfrida heard, and laid her head upon her knees, and wept 
 Bo bitterly, that the Abbot entreated pardon for having pained 
 her so much. 
 
 * The place was called till late, and may be now, " The Hedges of Death." 
 
HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 331 
 
 The news had a deep and lasting effect on her. The thonght 
 of Richilda shivering and starving in the squalid darkness of a 
 convent, abode by her thenceforth. Should she ever find herself 
 atoning in like wise for her sorceries, — harmless as they had 
 been; for her ambitions, — just as they had been; for her 
 crimes ? But she had committed none. No, she had sinned in 
 many things: but she was not as Richilda. And yet in the 
 loneliness and sadness of the forest, she could not put Richilda 
 from before the eyes of her mind. 
 
 It saddened Hereward likewise. For Richilda he cared little. 
 But that boy. How he had loved him ! How he had taught 
 him to ride, and sing, and joust, and handle sword, and all the 
 art of war. How his own rough soul had been the better for 
 that love. How he had looked forward to the day when Arnoul 
 should be a great prince, and requite him with love. Now he 
 was gone. Gone ? Who was not gone, or going ? He seemed 
 to himself the last tree in the forest. When should his time 
 come, and the lightning strike him down to rot beside the rest? 
 But he tost the sad thoughts aside. He could nou afford to 
 nourish them. It was his only chance of life, to be meriy and 
 desperate. 
 
 " Well ! " said Hereward, ere they hapt themselves up for the 
 night. " We owe you thanks, Abbot TThoroId, for an evening 
 worthy of a king's court, rather than a holly-bush." 
 
 " I have won him over," thought the Abbot. 
 
 " So charming a courtier, — so sweet a minstrel, — so agree- 
 able a newsmonger, — could I keep you in a cage forever, and 
 hang you on a bough, I were but too happy : but you are too fine 
 a bird to sing in captivity. So you must go, I fear, and leave 
 us to the nightingales. And I will take for your ransom — " 
 
 Abbot Thorold's heart beat high. 
 
 " Thirty thousand silver marks." 
 
 " Thirty thousand fiends ! " 
 
 " My beau Sire, will you undervalue yourself ? Will you 
 degrade yourself? I took Abbot Thorold, from his talk, to be a 
 man who set even a higher value on himself than other men set 
 on him. What higher compliment can I pay to your vast worth, 
 than making your ransom high accordingly, after the spirit of 
 our ancient English laws ? Take it as it is meant, beau Sire ; 
 be proud to pay the money ; and we will throw you Sir Ascelin 
 into the bargain, as he seems a friend of Si ward's." 
 
 Thorold hoped that Hereward was drunk, and might forget, or 
 relent ; but he was so sore at heart that he slept not a wink that 
 night. But in the morning he found, to his sorrow, that Here- 
 ward had been as sober as himself. 
 
332 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 In fine, he had to pay the money ; and was a poor man all hi3 
 days. 
 
 " Aha ! Sir Ascelin," said Hereward apart, as he bade them 
 all farewell with many courtesies. " I think I have put a spoke 
 in your wheel about the fau' Alftruda." 
 
 " Eh ? How ? Most courteous victor ? " 
 
 " Sir Ascelin is not a very wealthy gentleman." 
 
 Ascelin laughed assent. 
 
 " Nudus intravi, nudus exeo — England ; and I fear now, this 
 mortal life likewise." 
 
 " But he looked to his rich uncle the Abbot, to further a cer- 
 tain marriage-project of his. And, of course, neither my friend 
 Gilbert of Ghent, nor my enemy William of Normandy, are 
 likely to give away so rich an heiress without some gratification 
 in return." 
 
 " Sir Hereward knows the world, it seems." 
 
 " So he has been told before. And, therefore, having no in- 
 tention that Sir AsceUn, however worthy of any and every fair 
 lady, should marry this one ; he took care to cut off the stream 
 at the fountain-head. If he hears that the suit is still pushed, he 
 may cut off another head beside the fountain's." 
 
 " There will be no need," said Ascelin, laughing again. " You 
 have very sufficiently ruined my uncle, and my hopes." 
 
 " My head ? " said he, as soon as Hereward was out of hear- 
 ing. " K I do not cut off thy head ere all is over, there is neither 
 luck nor craft left among Normans. I shall catch the Wake 
 sleeping some day, let him be never so Wakeful." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 HOW ALFTEUDA WROTE TO HEEEWAED. 
 
 The weary months ran on, from summer into winter, and 
 winter into summer again, for two years and more, and neither 
 Torfrida nor Hereward were the better for them. Hope de- 
 ferred maketh the heart sick : and a sick heart is but too apt 
 to be a peevish one. So there were fits of despondency, jars, 
 mutual recriminations. " If I had not taken your advice, I 
 should not have been here." " If I had not loved you so well, 
 I might have been very differently off," — and so forth. The 
 words were wiped away the next hour, perhaps the next minute, 
 by sacred kisses ; but they had been said, and would be recol- 
 lected, and perhaps said again. 
 
 Then, again, the " merry greenwood " was merry enough in 
 the summer tide, when shaughs were green, and 
 
 " The woodwele sang, and wonld not cease, 
 Sitting upon the spray, 
 So loud, it wakened Robin Hood 
 In the greenwood where he lay." 
 
 But it was a sad place enough, when the autumn fog crawled 
 round the gorse, and dripped off the hollies, and choked alike the 
 breath and the eyesight ; when the air sickened with the grave- 
 yard smell of rotting leaves, and the rain-water stood in the clay 
 holes over the poached and sloppy lawns. 
 
 It was merry enough, too, when they were in winter quarters 
 in friendly farm-houses, as long as the bright sharp frosts lasted, 
 and they tracked the hares and deer merrily over the frozen 
 snows ; but it was doleful enough in those same farm-houses in 
 the howling wet weather, when wind and rain lashed in through 
 unglazed window, and ill-made roof, and there were coughs and 
 colds and rheumatisms, and Torfrida ached from head to foot, 
 and once could not stand upright for a whole month together, 
 and every cranny was stuffed up with bits of board and rags, 
 keeping out light and air as well as wind and water ; and there 
 was little difference between the short day and the long night ; 
 and the men gambled and wrangled amid clouds of peat-reek, 
 over draughtboards and chessmen which they had carved for 
 
334 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 themselves, and Torfrida sat stitching and sewing, making and 
 mending, her eyes bleared with peat-smoke, her hands sore and 
 coarse from continual labor, her cheek bronzed, her face thin 
 and hollow, and all her beauty worn away for very trouble. 
 Then sometimes there was not enough to eat, and every one 
 grumbled at her ; or some one's clothes were not mended, and 
 she was grumbled at again. And sometimes a foraging party 
 brought home liquor, and all who could got drunk to drive dull 
 care away ; and Hereward, forgetful of all her warnings, got 
 more than was good for him likewise ; and at night she coiled 
 herself up in her furs, cold and contemptuous ; and Hereward 
 coiled himself up, guilty and defiant, and woke her again and 
 again with starlings and wild words in his sleep. And she felt 
 that her beauty was gone, and that he saw it ; and she fancied 
 him (perhaps it was only fancy) less tender than of yore ; and 
 then in very pride disdained to take any care of her person, 
 and said to herself, though she dare not say it to him, that if he 
 only loved her for her face, he did not love her at all. And 
 because she fancied him cold at times, she was cold likewise, and 
 grew less and less caressing, when for his sake, as well as her 
 own, she should have grown more so day by day. 
 
 Alas for them ! there are many excuses. Sorrow may be 
 a softening medicine at last, but at first it is apt to be a harden- 
 ing one; and that savage outlaw life which they were leading 
 can never have been a wholesome toe for any soul of man, and 
 its graces must have existed only in the brains of harpers and 
 gleemen. Away from law, from self-restraint, from refinement, 
 from elegance, from the Very sound of a church-going bell, they 
 were sinking gradually down to the level of the coarse men and 
 women whom they saw ; the worse and not the better parts of 
 both their characters were getting the upper hand ; and it was 
 but too possible that after a while the hero might sink into the 
 ruffian, the lady into a slattern and a shrew. 
 
 But in justice to them be it said, that neither of them had 
 complained of the other to any living soul. Their love had 
 been as yet too perfect, too sacred, for them to confess to another 
 (and thereby confess to themselves) that it could in any wise fail. 
 They had each idolized the other, and been too proud of their 
 idolatry to allow that their idol could crumble or decay. 
 
 And yet at last that point, too, was reached. One day they 
 were wrangling about somewhat, as they too often wrangled, 
 and Hereward in his temper let fall the words, " As I said to 
 Winter the other day, you grow harder and harder upon me." 
 
 Torfrida started and fixed on him wide, terrible, scornful eyes 
 " So you complain of me to your boon companions ? " 
 
HKREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 335 
 
 And she turned and went away without a word. A gulf had 
 opened between them. They hardly spoke to each other for a 
 week. 
 
 Hereward complained of Torfrida ? What if Torfrida should 
 complain of Hereward ? But to whom ? Not to the coarse 
 women round her ; her pride revolted from that thought ; — 
 and yet she longed for counsel, for sympathy, — to open her heart 
 but to one fellow-woman. She would go to the Lady Godiva 
 at Crowland, and take counsel of her, whether there was any 
 method (for so she put it to herself) of saving Hereward ; for 
 she saw but too clearly that he was fast forgetting all her teach- 
 ing, and falling back to a point lower than that even from which 
 she had raised him up. 
 
 To go to Crowland was not difficult. It was mid-winter. 
 The dikes were all frozen. Hereward was out foraging in the 
 Lincolnshire wolds. So Torfrida, taking advantage of his ab- 
 sence, proposed another foraging party to Crowland itself. She 
 wanted stuff for clothes, needles, thread, what not. A dozen 
 stout fellows volunteered at once to take her. The friendly 
 monks of Crowland would feast them royally, and send them 
 home heaped with all manner of good things ; while as for meet- 
 ing Ivo Taillebois's men, if they had but three to one against 
 them, there was a fair chance of killing a few, and carrying oflF 
 their clothes and weapons, which would be useful. So they 
 made a sledge, tied beef-bones underneath it, put Torfrida thereon, 
 well wrapped in deer and fox and badger skin, and then putting on 
 their skates, swept her over the fen to Crowland, singing like larks 
 along the dikes. 
 
 And Torfrida went in to Godiva, and wept upon her knees ; 
 and Godiva wept likewise, and gave her such counsel as she 
 could, — how if the woman will keep the men heroic, she must 
 keep herself not heroic only, but devout likewise ; how she her- 
 self, by that one deed which had rendered her name famous then, 
 and famous (though she never dreamt thereof) now, and it may be 
 to the end of time, — had once for all, tamed, chained, and as it 
 were converted, the heart of her fierce young lord ; and enabled 
 her to train him in good time into the most wise, most just, most 
 pious, of all King Edward's earls. 
 
 And Torfrida said yes, and yes, and yes, and felt in her heart 
 that she knew all that already. Had not she, too, taught, entreated, 
 softened, civilized ? Had not she, too, spent her life upon a man. 
 and that man a wolf's-head and a landless outlaw, more utterly 
 than Godiva could ever have spent hers on one who lived lapped 
 in luxury and wealth and power ? Torfrida had done her best, 
 and she had failed, or at least fancied in her haste that she had 
 failed. 
 
336 HEUEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 What she wanted was, not counsel, but love. And she cljng 
 round the Lady Godiva, till the broken and ruined widow opened 
 all her heart to her, and tooli her in her arms, and fondled her 
 as if she had been a babe. And the two women spoke few words 
 after that, for indeed there was nothing to be said. Only at last, 
 " My child, my child," cried Godiva, " better for thee, body and 
 soul, to be here with me in the house of God; than there amid 
 evil spirits and deeds of darkness in the wild woods." 
 
 '• Not a cloister, not a cloister," cried Torfrida, shuddering, and 
 half struggling to get away. 
 
 " It is the only place, poor wilful child, the only place this side - 
 the grave, in which we wretched creatures, who for our sins are 
 women born, can find aught of rest or peace. By us sin came 
 into the world, and Eve's curse lies heavy on us to this day, and 
 our desire is to our lords, and they rule over us ; and when the 
 slave can work for her master no more, what better than to crawl 
 into the house of God, and lay down our crosses at the foot of 
 His cross and die ? You too will come here, Torfrida, some day, 
 I know it well. You too will come here to rest." 
 
 " Never, never," shrieked Torfrida, " never to these horrid 
 vaults. I will die in the fresh air ! I will be buried under the 
 green hollies ; and the nightingales as they wander up from my 
 own Provence, shall build and sing over my grave. Never, never ! " 
 murmured she to herself all the more eagerly, because something 
 within her said that it would come to pass. 
 
 The two women went into the church to Matins, and prayed 
 long and fervently. And at the early daybreak the party went 
 back laden with good things and hearty blessings, and caught 
 one of Ivo Taillebois's men by the way, and slew him, and got off 
 him a new suit of clothes in which the poor fellow was going court- 
 ing ; and so they got home safe into the Bruneswald. 
 
 But Torfrida had not found rest unto her soul. For the first time 
 in her life since she became the bride of Hereward, she had had 
 a confidence concerning him and unknown to him. It was to his 
 own mother, — true. And yet she felt as if she had betrayed him : 
 but then had he not betrayed her ? And to Winter of all men ? 
 
 It might have been two months afterwards that Martin Light- 
 foot put a letter into Torfrida's hand. 
 
 The letter was addressed to Hereward ; but there was nothing 
 strange in Martin's bringing it to his mistress. Ever since their 
 marriage, she had opened and generally answered the very few 
 epistles with which her husband was troubled. 
 
 She was going to open this one as a matter of course, when 
 glancing at the superscription she saw, or fancied she saw, that it 
 was in a woman's hand. She looked at it again. It was sealed 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 337 
 
 plainly with a woman's seal ; and she looked up at Martin Light 
 foot. She had remarked as he gave her the letter a sly signifi 
 cant look in his face. 
 
 " What doest thou know of this letter ? " she inquired sharply. 
 
 " That it is from the Countess Alftruda, whomsoever she may be." 
 
 A chill struck through her heart. True, Alftruda had written 
 before, only to warn Hereward of danger to his life, — and hers. 
 She might be writing again, only for the same purpose. But still, 
 she did not wish that either Hereward, or she, should owe Alf- 
 truda their lives, or anything. They had struggled on through 
 weal and woe without her, for many a year. Let them do so 
 without her still. That Alftruda had once loved Hereward she 
 knew well. Why should she not ? The wonder was to her that 
 every woman did not love him. But she had long since gauged 
 Alftruda's character, and seen in it a persistence like her own, 
 yet as she proudly hoped of a lower temper ; the persistence of 
 the base weasel, not of the noble hound : yet the creeping weasel 
 might endure, and win, when the hound was tired out by his own 
 gallant pace. And there was a something in the tone of Alf- 
 truda's last letter which seemed to tell her that the "weasel was 
 still upon the scent of its game. But she was too proud to mis- 
 trust Hereward, or rather, to seem to mistrust him. And yet — 
 how dangerous Alftruda might be as a rival, if rival she choose 
 to be. She was up in the world now, free, rich, gay, beautiful, a 
 favorite at Queen Matilda's court, while she — 
 
 " How came this letter into thy hands ? " asked she ^as care- 
 lessly, as she could. 
 
 " 1 was in Peterborough last night," said Martin, " concerning 
 little matters of my own, and there came to me in the street a 
 bonny young page with smart jacket on his back, smart cap on 
 his head, and smiles and bows, and ' You are one of Hereward's 
 men,' quoth he." 
 
 " ' Say that again, young jackanapes, ' said I, ' and I '11 cut 
 your tongue out,' whereat he took fright and all but cried. He 
 was very sorry, and meant no harm, but he had a letter for my 
 mastei-, and he heard I was one of his men. 
 
 " Who told him that ? " 
 
 "Well, one of the monks, he could not justly say which, or 
 would n't, and I, thinking the letter of more importance than my 
 own neck, ask him quietly into my friend's house. There he 
 pulls out this and five silver pennies, and I shall have five more 
 if I bring an answer back : but to none than Hereward must I 
 give it. With that I calling my friend, who is an honest woman, 
 and nigh as strong in the arms as I am, ask her to clap her hack 
 against the door, and pull out my axe." 
 
 15 y 
 
338 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 "'Now,' said I, 'I must know a little more about this letter 
 Tell me, knave, who gave it thee, or I'll split thy skull.' 
 
 " The young man cries and blubbers ; and says that it is the 
 Countess Alftruda, who is staying in the monastery, and that he 
 is her serving man, and that it is as much as my life is worth to 
 touch a hair of his head, and so forth, — so far so good. 
 
 " Then I asked him again, who told him I was my master's 
 man? — and he confessed that it was Herluin the prior, — he that 
 was Lady Godiya's chaplain of old, whom my master robbed of 
 his money when he had the cell of Bourne years agone. Very 
 well, quoth I to myself, that 's one more count on our score against 
 Master Herluin. Then I asked him how Herluin and the Lady 
 Alftruda came to know aught of each other ? and he said that 
 Bhe had been questioning all about the monastery without Abbot 
 Thorold's knowledge, for one that knew Hereward and favored 
 him well. That was all I could get from the knave, he cried so 
 for fright. So I took his money and his letter, warning him that 
 if be betrayed me, there were those would roast him alive 
 before he was done with me. And so away over the town wall, 
 and ran here five-and-twenty miles before breakfast, and thought 
 it better as you see to give the letter to my lady first." 
 
 "You have been officious," said Torfrida, coldly. "'Tis ad- 
 dressed to your master. Take it to him. Go." 
 
 Martin Lightfoot whistled and obeyed, while Torfrida walked 
 away proudly and silently with a beating heart. 
 
 Again Godiva's words came over her. Should she end in the 
 convent of Crowknd ? And suspecting, fearing, imagining all 
 sorts of baseless phantoms, she hardened her heart into a great 
 hardness. 
 
 Martin had gone with the letter, and Torfrida never heard any 
 more of it. 
 
 So Hereward had secrets which he would not tell to her. At 
 last! 
 
 That, at least, was a misery which she would not confide to 
 Lady Godiva, or to any soul on earth. 
 
 But a misery it was. Such a misery as none can delineate, 
 save those who have endured it themselves, or had it confided to 
 them by another. And happy are they to whom neither has be- 
 fallen. 
 
 She wandered on and into the wild-wood, and sat down by a 
 spring. She looked in it — her only mirror — at her wan, coarse 
 face, with wild black elf-locks hanging round it, and wondered 
 whether Alftruda, in her luxury and prosperity, was still so very 
 beautiful. Ah, that that fountain were the fountain of Jouvence, 
 the spring of perpetual youth, which all believed in those days to 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 339 
 
 exist somewhere, — how would she plunge into it, and be young 
 and iair once more ! 
 
 No ! she would not ! She had lived her life, and lived it well, 
 giillantly, lovingly, heroically. She had given that man her youth, 
 her beauty, her wealth, her wit. He should not have them a 
 second time. He had had his \\'ill of her. If he chose to throw 
 her away when he had done with her, to prove himself base at 
 last, unworthy of all her care, her counsels, her training, — dread- 
 ful -thought ! To have lived to keep that man for her own, and 
 just when her work seemed done, to lose him ! No, there was 
 worse than that. To have lived that she might make that man a 
 perfect knight, and just when her work seemed done, to see him 
 lose himself! 
 
 And she wept till she could weep no more. Then she washed 
 away her tears in that well. Had it been in Greece of old, that 
 well would have become a Sacred well thenceforth, and Torfrida's 
 tears have changed into forget-me-nots, and fringed its marge 
 with azure evermore. 
 
 Then she went back, calm, all but cold : but determined not to 
 betray herself, let him do what he would. Perhaps it was all a 
 mistake, a fancy. At least she would not degrade him, and her- 
 self, by showing suspicion. It would be dreadful, shameful to 
 herself, wickedly unjust to him, to accuse him, were he innocent 
 after all. 
 
 Hereward, she remarked, was more kind to her now. But it 
 was a kindness which she did not like. It was shy, faltering, as 
 of a man guilty and ashamed ; and she repelled it as much as she 
 dared, and then, once or twice, returned it passionately, madly, in 
 hopes — 
 
 But he never spoke a word of that letter. 
 
 After a dreadful month, Martin came mysteriously to her again. 
 She trembled, for she had remarked in him lately a strange 
 change. He had lost his usual loquacity and quaint humor; 
 and had fallen back into that sullen taciturnity, which, so she 
 heard, he had kept up in his youth. He, too, must know evil 
 which he dared not tell. 
 
 "There is another letter come. It came last night," said he. 
 
 " What is that to thee or me ? My lord has his state secrets. 
 Is it for us to pry into them ? Go ! " 
 
 " I thought — I thought — " 
 
 " Go, I say ! " 
 
 " That your ladyship might wish for a guide to Crowland." 
 
 " Crowland .' " almost shrieked Torfrida, for the thought of 
 Crowland had risen in her own wretched mind instantly and in 
 voluntarily. " Go, madman ! " 
 
340 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Martin went. Torfrida paced madly up and down the farm- 
 house. Then she settled herself into fierce despair. 
 
 There was a noise of trampling horses outside. The men were 
 arming and saddling, seemingly for a raid. 
 
 Hereward hurried in for his armor. When he saw Torfrida, 
 he blushed scarlet. 
 
 "You want your arms,'' said she, quietly; "let me fetch 
 them." 
 
 " No, never mind. I can harness myself; I am going south- 
 west, to pay Taillebois a visit. I am in a great hurry. I shall 
 be back in three days. Then — good by." 
 
 He snatched his arms off a perch, and hurried out again, drag- 
 ging them on. As he passed her, he offered to kiss her ; she put 
 him back, and helped him on with his armor, while he thanked 
 her confusedly. 
 
 " He was as glad not to kiss me, after all ! " 
 
 She looked after him as he stood, his hand on his horse's with- 
 ers. How noble he looked ! And a great yearning came over 
 her. To throw her arms round his neck once, and then to stab 
 herself, and set him free, dying, as she had lived, for him. 
 
 Two bonny boys were wrestling on the lawn, young outlaws 
 who had grown up in the forest with ruddy cheeks and iron 
 limbs. 
 
 " Ah, Winter ! " she heard him say, " had I had such a boy as 
 that! — " 
 
 She heard no more. She turned away, her heart dead within 
 her. She knew all that these words implied, in days when the 
 possession of land was everything to the free man ; and the pos- 
 session of a son necessary, to pass that land on in the ancestral 
 line. Only to have a son ; only to prevent the old estate passing, 
 with an heiress, into the hands of strangers, what crimes did not 
 men commit in those days, and find themselves excused for them 
 by public opinion. And now, — her other children (if she ever 
 had any) had died in childhood ; the little Torfrida, named after 
 herself, was all that she had brought to Hereward ; and he was 
 the last of his house. In him the race of Leofric, of Godiva, of 
 Earl Oslae, would become extinct ; and that girl would marry — 
 whom ? Whom but some French conqueror, — or at best some 
 English outlaw. In either case Hereward would have no de- 
 scendants for whom it was worth his while to labor or to fight. 
 What wonder if he longed for a son, — and not a son of hers, 
 the barren tree, — to pass his name down to future generations ? 
 It might be worth while, for that, to come in to the king, to re- 
 cover his lands, to — She saw it all now, and her heart was 
 dead within her. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 341 
 
 She spent that evening neither eating nor drinking, but sitting 
 over the log embers, her head upon her hands, and thinking over 
 all her past life and love, since she saw him, from the gable win- 
 dow, ride the first time into St. Omer. She went through it all, 
 with a certain stern delight in the self-torture, deliberately day 
 by day, year by year, — all its lofty aspirations, all its blissful 
 passages, all its deep disappointments, and found in it — so she 
 chose to fancy in the wilfulness of her misery — nothing but cause 
 '' for remorse. Self in all, vanity, and vexation of spirit ; for her- 
 self she had loved him ; for herself she had tried to raise him ; 
 for herself she had set her heart on man, and not on God. She 
 had sown the wind : and behold, she had reaped, the whirlwind. 
 She could not repent; she could not pray.. But oh! that she 
 could die. 
 
 She was unjust to herself, in her great nobleness. It was not 
 true, not half, not a tenth part true. 
 
 But perhaps it was good for her that it should seem true, for 
 that moment ; that she should be emptied of all earthly things 
 for once, if so she might be filled from above. At last she went 
 into the inner room to lie down and try to sleep. At her feet, 
 under the perch where Hereward's armor had hung, lay an open 
 letter. 
 
 She picked it up, surprised at seeing such a thing there, and 
 kneeling down, held it eagerly to the wax candle which was on a 
 spike at the bed's head. 
 
 She knew the handwriting in a moment. It was Alftruda's. 
 
 This, then, was why Hereward had been so strangely hurried. 
 He must have had that letter, and dropped it. 
 
 Her eye and mind took it all in, in one instant, as the lightning 
 flash reveals a whole landscape. And then her mind became as 
 dark as that landscape, when the flash is past. 
 
 It congratulated Hereward on having shaken himself free from 
 the fascination of that sorceress. It said that all was settled with 
 King William. Hereward was to come to Winchester. She 
 had the King's writ for his safety ready to send to him. The 
 King would receive him as his liegeman. Alftruda would receive 
 him as her husband. Archbishop Lanfranc had made difficulties 
 about the dissolution of the marriage with Torfrida : but gold 
 would do all things at Rome ; and Lanfranc was her very good 
 friend, and a reasonable man, — and so forth. 
 
 Men, and beasts likewise, when stricken with a mortal wound, 
 will run, and run on, blindly, aimless, impelled by the mere 
 instinct of escape from intolerable agony. And so did Torfrida. 
 Half undrest as she was, she fled forth into the forest, she knew 
 not whither, running as one does wrapt in fire : but the fire was 
 not without her, but within. 
 
342 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 She cast a passing glance at the girl who lay by her, sleeping 
 a pure and gentle sleep — " 
 
 " O that thou hadst but been a boy ! " Then she thought no 
 more of her, not even of Hereward : but all of which she was 
 conscious was a breast and brain bursting ; an intolerable choking, 
 from which she must escape. 
 
 She ran, and ran on, for miles. She knew not whether the 
 night was light or dark, warm or cold. Her tender feet might 
 have been ankle deep in snow. The branches over her head 
 might have been howling in the tempest, or dripping with rain. 
 She knew not, and heeded not. The owls hooted to each other 
 under the staring moon, but she heard them not. The wolves 
 glared at her from the brakes, and slunk off appalled at the white 
 ghostly" figure : but she saw them not. The deer stood at gaze 
 in the glades till she was close upon them, and then bounded into 
 the wood. She ran right at them, past them, heedless. She had 
 but one thought. To flee from the agony of a soul alone in the 
 universe with its own misery. 
 
 At last she was aware of a man close beside her. He had 
 been following her a long way, she recollected now ; but she had 
 not feared him, even heeded him. But when he laid his hand 
 upon her arm, she turned fiercely, but without dread. 
 
 She looked to see if it was Hereward. To meet him would 
 be death. If it were not he, she cared not who it was. It was 
 not Hereward; and she cried angrily, "Off! off!" and hur- 
 ried on. 
 
 " But you are going the wrong way ! The wrong way ! " said 
 the voice of Martin Lightfoot. 
 
 " The wrong way ! Fool, which is the right way for me, save 
 the path which leads to a land where all is forgotten ? " 
 
 "To Crowland! To Crowland ! To the minster! To the 
 monks ! That is the only right way for poor wretches in a world 
 like this. The Lady Godiva told you you must go to Crowland. 
 And now you are going. I too, I ran away from a monastery 
 when I was young ; and now I am going back. Come along ! " 
 
 " You are right ! Crowland, Crowland ; and a nun's cell till 
 death. Which is the way, Martin?" 
 
 " O a wise lady ! A reasonable lady ! But you will be cold 
 before you get thither. There will be a frost ere morn. So, 
 when I saw you run out, I caught up something to put over you." 
 
 Torfrida shuddered, as Mai-tin wrapped her in the white bear- 
 skin. 
 
 " No ! Not that ! Anything but that ! " and she struggled to 
 shake it off. 
 
 " Then you will be dead ere dawn. Folks that run wild in the 
 forest thus, for but one night, die ! " 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 343 
 
 •' V^ould God I could die ! " 
 
 ■' That shall be as He wills ; you do not die while Martin can 
 ksep you alive. Why, you are staggering already." 
 
 Martin caught her up in his arms, threw her over his shoulder 
 as if she had been a child, and hurried on, in the strength of 
 madness. 
 
 At last he stopped at a cottage door, set her down upon the 
 turf, and knocked loudly. 
 
 "Grimkel Tolison ! Grimkel, I say!" 
 
 And Martin burst the door open with his foot. 
 
 " Give me a horse, on your life," said he to the man inside. 
 " I am Martin, Hereward's man, upon my master's business." 
 
 " What is mine is Hereward's, God bless him," said the man, 
 struggling into a garment, and hurrying out to the shed. 
 
 " There is a ghost against the gate ! " cried he, recoiling. 
 
 " That is my matter, not yours. Get me a horse to put the 
 ghost upon." 
 
 Torfrida lay against the gate-post, exhausted now ; but quite 
 unable to think. Martin lifted her on to the beast, and led her 
 onward, holding her up again and again. 
 
 " You are tired. You had run four miles before I could make 
 you hear me." 
 
 " Would I had run four thousand." And she relapsed into 
 stupor. 
 
 They passed out of the forest, across open wolds, and at last 
 down to the river. Martin knew of a boat there. He lifted 
 her from the horse, turned him loose, put Torfrida into the boat, 
 and took the oars. 
 
 She looked up, and saw the roofs of Bourne shining white in 
 the moonlight. 
 
 And then she lifted up her voice, and shrieked three times : 
 " Lost ! Lost ! Lost ! " with such a dreadful cry, that the star- 
 lings whirred up from the reeds, and the wild-fowl rose clanging 
 oflF the meres, and the watch-dogs in Bourne and Mainthorpe 
 barked and howled, and folk told fearfully next morning how a 
 white ghost had gone down from the forest to the fen, and 
 wakened them with its unearthly cry. 
 
 The sun was high when they came to Crowland minster. Tor- 
 frida had neither spoken nor stirred ; and Martin, who in the 
 midst of his madness kept a strange courtesy and delicacy, had 
 aever disturbed her, save to wrap the bear-skin more closely over 
 her. 
 
 When they came to the bank, she rose, stepped out without his 
 help, and drawing the bear-skin closely round her, iind over her 
 head, walked straight up to the gate of the house of nuns. 
 
344 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 All men wondered at the white ghost ; but Martin walked be- 
 hind her, his left finger on his Ups, his right hand grasping his 
 little axe, with such a stern and serious face, and so fierce an 
 eye, that all drew back in silence, and let her pass. 
 
 The portress looked through the wicket. 
 
 " I am Torfrida," said a voice of terrible calm. " I am come 
 to see the Lady Godiva. Let me in." 
 
 The portress opened, utterly astounded. 
 
 " Madam ? " said Martin eagerly, as Torfrida entered. 
 
 " What ? What ? " She seemed to waken from a dream. 
 " God bless thee, thou good and faithful servant " ; and she turned 
 again. 
 
 « Madam ? Say ! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 « Shall I go back and kill him ? " And he held out the little 
 axe. 
 
 Torfrida snatched it from his grasp with a shriek, and cast it 
 inside the convent door. 
 
 " Mother Mary and all saints ! " cried the portress, " your gar- 
 ments are in rags, madam ! " 
 
 " Never mind. Bring me garments of yours. I shall need 
 none other till I die ! " and she walked in and on. 
 
 " She is come to be a nun ! " whispered the portress to the next 
 sister, and she again to the next ; and they aU gabbled, and lifted 
 up their hands and eyes, and thanked all the saints of the calen- 
 dar, over the blessed and miraculous conversion of the Lady 
 Torfrida, and the wealth which she would probably bring to the 
 convent. , 
 
 Torfrida went straight on, speaking to no one, not even to the 
 prioress ; and into Lady Godiva's chamber. 
 
 There she dropped at the countess's feet, and laid her head 
 upon her knees. 
 
 " I am come, as you always told me I should do. But it has 
 been a long way hither, and I am very tired." 
 
 " My child ! What is this ? What brings you here ? " 
 
 " I am doing penance for my sins." 
 
 " And your feet all cut and bleeding." 
 
 " Are they ? " said Torfrida, vacantly. " I will tell you all 
 about it when I wake." 
 
 And she fell fast asleep, with her head in Godiva's lap. j 
 
 The countess did not speak or stir. She beckoned the good 
 -prioress, who had followed Torfrida in, to go away. She saw 
 that something dreadful had happened ; and prayed as she awaited 
 the news. 
 
 Torfrida slept for a full hour. Then she woke with a start. 
 
HEEEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 345 
 
 " Where am I ? Hereward ! " 
 
 Then followed a dreadful shriek, which made every nun in that 
 quiet house shudder, and thank God that she knew nothing of 
 those agonies of soul, which were the lot of the foolish virgins who 
 married and were given in marriage themselves, instead of wait- 
 ing with oil in their lamps for the true bridegroom. 
 
 " I recollect all now," said Torfrida. " Listen ! " And she 
 told the countess all, with speech so calm and clear, that Godiva 
 was awed by the power and spirit of that marvellous woman. 
 
 But she groaned in bitterness of soul. "Anything but this. 
 Eather death from him than treaqhery. This last, worst woe had 
 God kept in his quiver for me most miserable of women. And 
 now his bolt has fallen ! Hereward ! Hereward ! That thy 
 mother should wish her last child laid in his grave ! " 
 
 " Not so," said Torfrida, " it is well as it is. How better ? It 
 is his only chance for comfort, for honor, for life itself. He would 
 have grown a — I was growing bad and foul myself in that ugly 
 wilderness. Now he will be a knight once more among knights, 
 and win himself fresh honor in fresh fields. Let him marry her. 
 Why not? He can get a dispensation from- the Pope, and then 
 there will be no sin in it, you know. If the Holy Father cannot 
 make wrong right, who can ? Yes. It is very well as it is. And 
 I am very well where I am. Women ! bring me scissors, and 
 one of your nun's dresses. I am come to be a nun like you." 
 
 Godiva would have stopped her. But Torfrida rose upon her 
 knees, and calmly made a solemn vow, which, though canonically 
 void without her husband's consent, would, she well knew, never 
 be disputed by any there : and as for him, — " He has lost me ; 
 and forever. Torfrida never gives herself away twice." 
 
 " There 's carnal pride in those words, my poor child,'" said 
 Godiva. 
 
 " Cruel ! " said she, proudly. " When I am sacrificing myself 
 utterly for him." 
 
 " And thy poor girl ? " 
 
 " He will let her come hither," said Torfrida with forced calm. 
 " He will see that it is not fit that she should grow up with — 
 yes, he will send her to me — to us. And I shall live for her — 
 and for you. If you will let me be your bower woman, dress 
 you, serve you, read to you. You know that I am a pretty 
 'scholar. You will let me, mother? I may call you mother, 
 may I not ? " And Torfrida fondled the old woman's thin hands. 
 " For I do want so much something to love." 
 
 " Love thy heavenly bridegroom, the only love worthy of wo- 
 man ! " said Godiva, as her tears fell fast on Torfrida's head. 
 
 She gave a half-impatient toss. 
 15* 
 
346 HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 " That may come, in good time. As yet it is enough to do, if 
 I can keep down this devil here in my throat. Women, bring me 
 the scissors." 
 
 And Torfrida cut off her raven locks, now streaked with gray, 
 and put on the nun's dress, and became a nun thenceforth. 
 
 On the second day there came to Crowland Leofrio the priest, 
 and with him the poor child. 
 
 She had woke in the morning and found no mother. Leofric 
 and the other men searched the woods round, far and wide. The 
 girl mounted her horse, and would go with them. Then they 
 took a bloodhound, and he led them to Grimkel's hut. There 
 they heard of Martin. The ghost must have been Torfrida. Then 
 the hound brought them to the river. And they divined at once 
 that she was gone to Crowland, to Godiva ; but why, they could 
 not guess. 
 
 Then the girl insisted, prayed, at last commanded them to take 
 her to Crowland. And to Crowland they came. 
 
 Leofric left the girl at the nun's house door, and went into the 
 monastery, where he had friends enow, runaway and renegade as 
 he was. As he canje into the great court, whom should he meet 
 but Martin Lightfoot, in a lay brother's frock. 
 
 " Aha ? And are you come home likewise ? Have you re- 
 nounced the Devil and this last work of his ? " 
 
 " What work ? What devil ? " asked Leofric, who saw method 
 in Martin's madness. " And what do you here, in a long frock ? " 
 
 " Devil ? Hereward the devil. I would have killed him with 
 my axe ; but she got it from me, and threw it in among the holy 
 sisters, and I had work to get it again. Shame on her, to spoil 
 my chance of heaven ! For I should have surely won heaven, 
 you know, if I had killed the devil." 
 
 After much beating about, Leofric got from Martin the whole 
 tragedy. 
 
 And when he heard it, he burst out weeping. 
 
 " Hereward, Hereward ! O knightly honor ! faith and 
 troth and gratitude, and love in return for such love as might 
 have tamed lions, and made tyrants mild ! Are they all carnal 
 vanities, works of the weak flesh, bruised reeds which break when 
 they are leaned upon ? If so, you are right, Martin, and there 
 is naught left, but to flee from a world in which all men are 
 liars." 
 
 And Leofric, in the midst of Crowland Yard, tore off his belt 
 and trusty sword, his hauberk and helm also, and letting down his 
 monk's frock, which he wore trussed to the mid-knee, he went to 
 the Abbot's lodgings, and asked to see old Ulfketyl. 
 
 " Bring him up," said the good abbot, " for he is a valiant man 
 
HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 347 
 
 • and true, in spite of all his vanities; and may be he brings news 
 of Hereward, whom God forgive." 
 
 And when Leofric came in, he fell upon his knees, bewailing 
 and confessing his sinftil life ; and begged the abbot to take him 
 back again into Crowland minster, and lay upon him what penance 
 he thought fit, and put him in the lowest office, because he was a 
 man of blood ; if only he might stay there, and have a sight at 
 times of his dear Lady Torfrida, without whom he should surely 
 die. 
 
 So Leofric was received back, in full chapter, by abbot and 
 prior and all the monks. But when he asked them to lay a 
 penance upon him, Ulfketyl arose from his high chair and 
 spoke. 
 
 " Shall we, who have sat here at ease, lay a penance on this 
 man, who has shed his blood in fifty vahant fights for us, and 
 for St. Guthlac, and for this English land ? Look at yon scars 
 upon his head and arms. He has' had sharper discipline from 
 cold steel than we could give him here with rod ; and has fasted 
 in the wilderness more sorely, many a time, than we have fasted 
 here." 
 
 And all the monks agreed, that no penance should be laid on 
 Leofric. Only that he should abstain from singing vain and car- 
 nal ballads, which turned the heads of the young brothers, and 
 made them dream of naught but battles, and giants, and enchant- 
 ers, and ladies' love. 
 
 Hereward came back on the third day, and found his wife and 
 daughter gone. His guilty conscience told him in the first in- 
 stant why. For he went into the chamber, and there, upon the 
 floor, lay the letter which he had looked for in vain. 
 
 No one had touched it where it lay. Perhaps no one had 
 dared to enter the chamber. If they had, they would not have 
 dared to meddle with writing, which they could not read, and 
 which might contain some magic spell. Letters were very safe- 
 in those old days. 
 
 There are moods of man which no one will dare to describe, 
 unless, like Shakespeare, he is Shakespeare, and like Shake- 
 speare knows it not. 
 
 Therefore what Hereward thought and felt will not be told. 
 What he did was this. 
 
 He raged and blustered. He must hide his shame. He must 
 justify himself to his knights ; and much more to himself; or if 
 not justify himself, must shift some of the blame over to the 
 opposite side. So he raged and blustered. He had been robbed 
 of his wife and daughter. They had been cajoled away by the 
 monks of Crowland. What villains were those, to rob an honest 
 man of his family while be was fighting for his country ? 
 
348 HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 So he rode down to the river, and there took two great barges, 
 and rowed away to Crowland, with forty men-at-arms. 
 
 And all the while he thought of Alftruda, as he had seen her 
 at Peterborough. 
 
 And of ho one else ? 
 
 Not so. For all the while he felt that he loved Torfrida's 
 little finger better than Alfti-uda's whole body, and soul into 
 the bargain. 
 
 What a long way it was to Crowland. How wearying were 
 the hours through mere and sea. How wearying the monoto- 
 nous pulse of the oars. If tobacco had been known then, Here- 
 ward would have smoked all the way, and been none the wiser, 
 though the happier, for it ; for the herb that drives away the 
 evil spirits of anxiety, drives away also the good, though stem, 
 spirits of remorse. 
 
 But in those days a man could only escape facts by drinking; 
 and Hereward was too much afraid of what he should meet in 
 Crowland, to go thither drunk. 
 
 Sometimes he hoped that Torfrida might hold her purpose, 
 and set him free to follow his wicked will. All the lower na- 
 ture in him, so long crushed under, leapt up chuckling and grin- 
 ning and tumbling head over heels, and cried, — Now I shall 
 have a hohday ! 
 
 Sometimes he hoped that Torfrida might come out to the 
 shore, and settle the matter in one moment, by a glance of her 
 great hawk's eyes. If she would but quell him by one look ; 
 leap on board, seize the helm, and assume without a word the 
 command of his men and him ; steer them back to Bourne, and 
 sit down beside him with a kiss, as if nothing had happened. If 
 she would but do that, and ignore the past, would he not ignore 
 it ? Would he not forget Alftruda, and King William, and all 
 the world, and go up with her into Sherwood, and then north to 
 Scotland and Gospatrick, and be a man once more ? 
 
 No. He would go with her to the Baltic or the Mediter- 
 ranean. Constantinople and the Varangers would be the place 
 and the men. Ay, there to escape out of that charmed ring 
 into a new life ! 
 
 No. He did not deserve such luck ; and he would not get it. 
 She would talk it all out. She must, for she was a woman. 
 She would blame, argue, say dreadful words, — dreadful, because 
 true and deserved. Then she would grow angry, as women do 
 when they are most in the right, and say too much, — dreadful 
 words, which would be untrue and undeserved. Then he should 
 resist, recriminate. He would not stand it. He could not stand 
 it. No. He could never face her again. 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 349 
 
 Anrl yet if he had seen a man insult her, — if he had seen 
 her at that moment in peril of the slightest danger, the slightest, 
 bruise, he would have rushed forward like a madman, and died, 
 saving her from that bruise. And he knew that : and with the 
 strange self-contradiction of human nature, he soothed his own 
 conscience by the thought that he loved her still; and that, 
 therefore — somehow or other, he cared not to make out how 
 — he had done her no wrong. Then he blustered again, for the 
 benefit of his men. He would teach these monks of Crowland a 
 lesson. He would burn the minster over their heads. 
 
 " That would be pity, seeing they are the only Englishmen 
 left in-England," said Siward the White, his nephew, very simply, 
 
 "What is that to thee? Thou hast helped to burn Peter- 
 borough at my bidding ; and thou shalt help to bum Crowland." 
 
 " I am a free gentleman of England ; and what I choose, I do. 
 I and my brother are going to Constantinople to join the Varan- 
 ger guard, and shall not burn Crowland, or let any man burn it." 
 
 « Shall not let ? " 
 
 "No," said the young man, so quietly, that Hereward was 
 cowed. 
 
 "I — I only meant — if they did not do right by me." 
 
 " Do right thyself," said Siward. 
 
 Hereward swore awfully, and laid his hand on his sword-hilt. 
 But he did not draw it ; for he thought he saw overhead a cloud 
 which was very like the figure of St. Guthlac in Crowland win- 
 dow, and an awe fell upon him from above. 
 
 So they came to' Crowland ; and Hereward landed and beat 
 upon the gates, and spoke high words. But the monks did not 
 open the gates for a while. At last the gates creaked, and 
 opened ; and in the gateway stood Abbot Ulfketyl in his robes 
 of state, and behind him Prior, and all the officers, and all the 
 monks of the house. 
 
 " Comes Hereward in peace or in war ? " 
 
 " In war ! " said Hereward. 
 
 Then that true and trusty old man, who sealed his patriotism, 
 if not with his blood, — for the very Normans had not the heart 
 to take that, — still with long and bitter sorrows, lifted up his 
 head, and said, like a valiant Dane, as his name bespoke him : 
 " Against the traitor and the adulterer — " 
 
 " I am neither," roared Hereward. 
 
 •■' Thou wouldst be, if thou couldst. Whoso looketh upon a 
 woman to — : " 
 
 " Preach me no sermons, man ! Let me in to seek my wife." 
 
 "Over my body," said Ulfketyl, and laid himself down across 
 the threshold. 
 
350 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Hereward recoiled. If he had dared to step over that sacred 
 body, there was not a blood-stained ruffian in his crew who dared 
 to follow him. 
 
 " Eise, rise ! for God's sake, Lord Abbot," said he. " What- 
 ever I am, I need not that you should disgrace me thus. Only 
 let me see her, — reason with her." 
 
 " She has vowed herself to God, and is none of thine hence 
 forth." 
 
 " It is against the canons. A wrong and a robbery." 
 
 Ulf ketyl rose, grand as ever. 
 
 " Hereward Leofricsson, our joy and our glory once. Hearken 
 to the old man who will soon go whither thine Uncle Brand is 
 gone, and be free of Frenchmen, and of all this wicked world. 
 When the walls of Crowland dare not shelter the wronged woman, 
 fleeing from man's treason to God's faithfulness, then let the roofs 
 of Crowland bum till the flame reaches heaven, for a sign that 
 the children of God are as false as the children of this world, and 
 break their faith like any belted knight." 
 
 Hereward was silenced. His men shrunk back from him. He 
 felt as if God, and the Mother of God, and St. Guthlac, and all 
 the host of heaven, were shrinking back from him likewise. He 
 turned to supplications, compromises, — what else was left. 
 
 " At least you will let me have speech of her, or of my mother ? " 
 
 " They must answer that, not I." 
 
 Hereward sent in, entreating to see one, or both. 
 
 " Tell him," said Lady Godiva, " who calls himself my son, 
 that my sons were men of honor, and that he must have been 
 changed at nurse." 
 
 " Tell him," said Torfrida, " that I have lived my life, and am 
 dead. Dead. If he would see me, he will only see my corpse." 
 
 " You would not slay yourself ? " 
 
 " What is there that I dare not do ? You do not know Tor- 
 frida. He does." 
 
 And Hereward did ; and went back again like a man stunned. 
 
 After a while there came by boat to Crowland all Torfrida's 
 wealth : clothes, jewels : not a shred had Hereward kept. The 
 magic armor came with them. 
 
 Torfrida gave all to the abbey, there and then. Only the ar- 
 mor she wrapped up in the white bear's skin, and sent it back 
 to Hereward, with her blessing, and entreaty not to refuse that, 
 her last bequest. 
 
 Hereward did not refuse, for very shame. But for very shame 
 ho never wore that armor more. For very shame he never slept 
 again upon the white bear's skin, c n which he and his true love 
 had lain so many a year. 
 
HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 351 
 
 And Torfrida turned herself utterly to serve the Lady Godiva, 
 and to teach and train her child as she had never done before, 
 while she had to love Hereward, and to work day and night, with 
 her own fingers, for. all his men. All pride, all fierceness, all care 
 of self, had passed away from her. In penitence, humility, obe- 
 dience, and gentleness, she went on ; never smiling ; but never 
 weeping. Her heart was broken ; and she felt it good for herself 
 to let it break. 
 
 And Leofric the priest, and mad Martin Lightfoot, watched like 
 two dogs for her going out arid coming in ; and when she went 
 among the poor corrodiers, and nursed the sick, and taught the 
 children, and went to and fro upon her holy errands, blessing and 
 blessed, the two wild men had a word from her mouth, or a kiss 
 of her hand, and were happy all the day after. For they loved 
 her with a love mightier than ever Hereward had heaped upon 
 her ; for she had given him all : but she had given those two wild 
 men naught but the beatific vision of a noble woman. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 HOW HEREWAED LOST SWOED BEATN-BITEB. 
 
 « On account of which," says the chronicler, « many troubles 
 came to Hereward : because Torfrida was most wise, and of great 
 counsel in need. For afterwards, as he himself confessed, things 
 went not so well with him as they did in her time." 
 
 And the first thing that went ill was this. He was riding 
 through the Bruneswald, and behind him Geri, Wenoch, and 
 Matelgar, these three. And there met him in an open glade a 
 knight, the biggest man he had ever seen, on the biggest horse, 
 and five knights behind him. He was an Englishman, and not 
 a Frenchman, by his dress ; and Hereward spoke courteously 
 enough to him. But who he was, and what his business was in 
 the Bruneswald, Hereward thought that he had a right to ask. 
 
 " Tell me who thou art, who askest, before I tell thee who I 
 am who am asked, riding here on common land," quoth the 
 knight, surlily enough. 
 
 " I am Hereward, without whose leave no man has ridden the 
 Bruneswald for many a day." 
 
 " And I am Letwold the Englishman, who rides whither he 
 will in merry England, without care for any Frenchman upon 
 eart^." 
 
 " Frenchman ? "Why callest thou me Frenchman, man ? I 
 am Hereward." 
 
 " Then thou art, if tales be true, as French as Ivo Taillebois. 
 I hear that thou hagt left thy true lady, like a fool and a churl, 
 and goest to London, or Winchester, or the nether pit, — I care 
 not which, — to make thy peace with the Mamzer." 
 
 The man was a surly brute : but what he said was so true, that 
 Hereward's wrath arose. He had promised Torfrida many a 
 time, never to quarrel with an Englishman, but to endure all 
 things. Now, out of very spite to Torfrida's counsel, because it 
 was Torfrida's, and he had promised to obey it, he took up the 
 quarrel. 
 
 " If I am a fool and a churl, thou art a greater fool, to provoke 
 thine own death ; and a greater — " 
 
 " Spare your breath," said the big man, " and let me try Here- 
 ward, as I have many another." 
 
HEEEWAED THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 353 
 
 Whereon they dropped their lance-points, and rode at each 
 other like two mad bulls. ' And, by the contagion of folly com- 
 mon in the middle age, at each other rode Hereward's three 
 knights and Letwold's five. The two leaders found themselves 
 both rolling on the ground ; jumped up, drew their swords, and 
 hewed away at each other. Geri unhorsed bis man at the first 
 charge, and left him stunned. Then he turned on another, and 
 did the same by him. Wenoch and Matelgar each upset their 
 man. The fifth of Letwold's knights threw up his lance-point, 
 not liking his new company. Greri and the other two rode in on 
 the two chiefs, who were fighting hard, each under shield. 
 
 " Stand back ! " roared Hereward, " and give the knight fair 
 play 1 When did any one of us want a man to help him ? Kill 
 or die single, has been our rule, and shall be." 
 
 They threw up their lance-points, and stood round to see that 
 great fight Letwold's knight rode in among them, and stood 
 likewise ; and friend and foe looked on, as they might at a pair 
 of game-cocks. 
 
 Hereward had, to his own surprise and that of his fellows, met 
 his match. The sparks flew, the iron clanged ; but so heavy 
 were the stranger's strokes, that Hereward reeled again and 
 again. So sure was the guard of his shield, that Hereward • 
 could not wound him, hit where he woald. At last he dealt a 
 furious blow on the stranger's head. 
 
 " If that does not bring your master down ! " quoth Geii. 
 " By — , Brain-biter is gone ! " 
 
 It was too true. Sword Brain-biter's end was come. The 
 Ogre's magic blade had snapt off short by the handle. 
 
 " Your master is a true Englishman, by the hardness of his 
 brains," quoth Wenoch, as the stranger, reeling for a moment, 
 lifted up his head, and stared at Hereward in the face, doubtful 
 what to do. 
 
 " Will you yield, or fight on ? " cried he. 
 
 " Yield ? " shouted Hereward, rushing upon him, as a mastiff 
 might on a lion, and striking at his helm, though shorter than 
 him by a head and shoulders, such swift and terrible blows with 
 the broken hilt, as staggered the tall stranger. 
 
 " What are you at, forgetting what you have at your side ? " 
 roared jGeri. 
 
 Hereward sprang back. He had, as was his custom, a second 
 sword on his right thigh. 
 
 " I forget everything now," said he to himself angrily. 
 
 And that was too true. But he drew the second sword, and 
 sprang at his man once more. 
 
 The stranger tried, according to the chronicler, who probably 
 
354: HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 had it from one of the three by-standers, a blow which has cost 
 many a brave man his life. He struck right down on Hereward's 
 head. Hereward raised his shield, warding the stroke, and 
 threw in that cowp de Jarret, which there is no guarding, after 
 the downright blow has been given. The stranger dropped upon 
 his wounded knee. 
 
 " Yield," cried Hereward in his turn. 
 
 " That is not my fashion." And the stranger fought on, upon 
 his stumps, like Witherington in Chevy Chase. 
 
 Hereward, mad with the sight of blood, struck at him four or 
 five times. The stranger's shield was so quick that he could not 
 hit him, even on his knee. He held his hand, and drew back, 
 looking at his new rival. 
 
 " What the murrain are we two fighting about ? " said he at 
 last. 
 
 "I know not; neither care," said the other, with a grim chuckle. 
 " But if any man will fight me, him I fight, ever since I had 
 beard to my chin." 
 
 " Thou art the best man that ever I faced." 
 
 " That is like enough." 
 
 « What wilt thou take, if I give thee thy life ? " 
 
 " My way on which I was going. For I turn back for no 
 man alive on land." 
 
 " Then thou hast not had enough of me ? " 
 
 " Not by another hour." 
 
 " Thou must be bom of fiend, and not of man." 
 
 " Very like. It is a wise son knows his own father." 
 
 Hereward burst out laughing. 
 
 " Would to heaven I had had thee for my man this three years 
 since." 
 
 " Perhaps I would not have been thy man." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I have been my own man ever since I was born, 
 and am well content with myself for my master." 
 
 " Shall I bind up thy leg ? " asked Hereward, having no more 
 to say, and not wishing to kill the man. 
 
 " No. It will grow again, hke a crab's claw." 
 
 " Thou art a fiend." And Hereward turned away, sulky, and 
 half afraid. 
 
 " Very like. No man knows what a devil he is, till he tries." 
 
 " What dost mean ? " and Hereward turned angrily back. 
 
 " Fiends we are all, till God's grace comes." 
 
 " Little grace has come to thee yet, by thy ungracious tongue." 
 
 " Rough to men, may be gracious to women." 
 
 " What hast thou to do with women ? " asked Herewai-d^ 
 fiercely. 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 355 
 
 " I have a wife, and I love her." 
 
 " Thou art not like to get back to her to-day." 
 
 " I fear not, with this paltry scratch. I had looked for a cut, 
 from thee, would have saved me all fighting henceforth." 
 
 " What dost mean ? " asked Hereward, with an oath. 
 
 " That my wife is in heaven, and I would needs follow her." 
 
 Hereward got on his horse, and rode away. Never could he 
 find out who that Sir Letwold was, or how he came into the 
 Bruneswald. All he knew was, that he never had had such a 
 fight since he wore beard; and that he had lost Sword Brain.- 
 biter : from which his evil conscience augured that his luck had 
 turned, and that he should lose many things beside. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 HOW HEREWARD CAME IN TO THE KING. 
 
 After these things Hereward summoned all his men, and set 
 before them the hopelessness of any further resistance, and the 
 promises of amnesty, lands, and honors which William had offered 
 him, and persuaded them — and indeed he had good arguments 
 enough and to spare — that they should go and make their peace 
 with the King. 
 
 They were so accustomed to look up to his determination, that 
 when it gave way theirs gave way likewise. They were so ac- 
 customed to trust his wisdom, that most of them yielded at once 
 to his arguments. 
 
 That the band should break up, all agreed. A few of the more 
 suspicious, or more desperate, said that they could never trust the 
 Norman ; that Hereward himself had warned them again and 
 again of his treachery. That he was now going to do himself 
 what he had laughed at Gospatrick and the rest for doing ; what 
 had brought ruin on Edwin and Morcar ; what he had again and 
 again prophesied would bring ruin on Waltheof himself ere all 
 was over. 
 
 But Hereward was deaf to their arguments." He had said as 
 little to them as he could about Alftruda, for very shame ; but he 
 was utterly besotted on her. For her sake, he had determined 
 to run his head blindly into the very snare of which he had 
 warned others. And he had seared — so he fancied — his con- 
 science. It was Torfi'ida's fault now, not his. If she left him, — 
 if she herself freed him of her own will, — why, he was free, and 
 there was no more to be said about it. 
 
 And Hereward (says the chronicler) took Gwenoch, Geri, and 
 Matelgar, and rode south to the King. 
 
 Where were the two young Siwards ? It is not said. Proba- 
 bly they, and a few desperadoes, followed the fashion of so many 
 English in those sad days, — when, as sings the Norse skald, 
 
 " Cold heart snd bloody hand 
 Now rule English laud," — 
 
 und took ship for Constantinople, and enlisted in the Varanger 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 357 
 
 guard, and died full of years and honors, leaving fair-haired chil- 
 dren behind them, to become Varangers in their turn. 
 
 Be that as it may, Hereward rode south. But when he had 
 gotten a long way upon the road, a fancy (says the chronicler) 
 came over him. He was not going in pomp and glory enough. 
 It seemed mean for the once great Hereward to sneak into Win- 
 chester with three knights. Perhaps it seemed not over safe for 
 the once great Hereward to travel with only three knights. So 
 he went back all tlie way to camp, and took (says the chronicler) 
 " forty most famous knights, all big and tall of stature, and splen- 
 did, — if from nothing else, from their looks and their harness 
 alone." 
 
 So Hereward and those forty knights rode down from Peter- 
 borough, along the Roman road. For the Roman roads were 
 then, and for centuries after, the only roads in this land; and our 
 forefathers looked on them as the work of gods and giants, and 
 called them after the names of their old gods and heroes, — Irmen 
 Street, Watling Street, and so forth. 
 
 And then, like true Englishmen, our own forefathers showed 
 their respect for the said divine works, not by copying them, but 
 by picking them to pieces to pave every man his own court-yard. 
 Be it so. The neglect of new roads, the destruction of the old 
 ones, was a natural evil consequence of lopal self-government. 
 A cheap price, perhaps, after all, to pay for that power of local 
 self-government which has kept England free unto this day. 
 
 Be that as it may, down the Roman road Hereward went ; past 
 Alconbury Hill, of the old posting days ; past Wimpole Park, 
 then deep forest ; past "Hatfield, then deep forest likewise ; and 
 so to St. Alban's. And there they lodged in the minster ; for the 
 monks thereof were good English, and sang masses daily for King 
 Harold's soul. And the next day they went south, by ways which 
 are not so clear. 
 
 Just outside St. Alban's — Verulamium of the Romans (the 
 ruins whereof were believed to be full of ghosts, demons, and 
 magic treasures) — they turned, at St. Stephen's, to the left, off 
 the Roman road to London ; and by another Roman road struct 
 into the vast forest which ringed London round from northeast 
 to southwest. Following the upper waters of the Colne, which 
 ran through the woods on their left, they came to Watford, and 
 theri lurned probably to Rickmansworth. ^ No longer on the Ro- 
 man paved ways, they followed horse-tracks, between the forest 
 and the rich marsh-meadows of the Colne, as far as Denham, 
 and then struck into a Roman road again at the north end of 
 Langtey Park. From thence, over heathy commons, — ■ for that 
 western part of Buckinghamshire, its soil being light and some 
 
358 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 gravel, was little cultivated then, and hardly all cultivated now, — 
 they held on straight by Langley town into the "Vale of Thames. 
 
 Little they dreamed, as they rode down by Ditton Green, off 
 the heathy commons, past the poor, scattered farms, on_ to the 
 vast rushy meadows, while upon them was the dull weight of 
 disappointment, shame, all but despair; their race enslaved, their 
 country a prey to strangers, and all its future, like their own, a 
 lurid blank, — little they dreamed of what that vale would be 
 within eight hundred years, — the eye of England, and it may 
 be of the world; a spot which owns more wealth and peace, more 
 art and civilization, more beauty and more virtue, it may be, 
 than any of God's gardens which make fair this earth. Wind- 
 sor, on its crowned steep, was to them but a new hunting palace 
 of the old miracle-monger Edward, who had just ruined Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Eunnymede, a mile below them down the broad stream, was 
 but a horse-fen fringed with water-lilies, where the men of Wes- 
 sex had met of old to counsel, and to bring the country to this 
 pass. And as they crossed, by ford or ferry-boat, the shallows of 
 old Windsor, whither they had been tending all along, and struck 
 into the moorlands of Wessex itself, they were as men going into 
 an unknown wilderness : behind them ruin, and before them un- 
 known danger. 
 
 On through Windsor Forest, Edward the Saint's old hunting- 
 ground ; its bottoms choked with beech and oak, and birch and 
 alder scrub ; its upper lands vast flats of level heath ; along the 
 great trackway which runs along the lower side of Ghobham 
 Camp, some quarter of a mile broad, every rut and trackway as 
 fresh at this day as when the ancient Briton, finding that his 
 neighbor's essedum — chariot, or rather cart — had worn the ruts 
 too deep, struck out a fresh wandering line for himself across the 
 dreary heath. 
 
 Over the Blackwater by Sandhurst, and along the flats of 
 Hartford Bridge, where the old furze-grown ruts show the track- 
 way to this day. Down into the clayland forests of the Andreds- 
 weald, and up out of them again at Basing, on to the clean criisp 
 chalk turf ; to strike at Popham Lane the Roman road from Sil- 
 chester, and hold it over the high downs, till they saw far below 
 them the royal city of Winchester. 
 
 Itchen, silver as they looked on her- from above, but when they 
 came down to her, so clear that none could see where water ended 
 and where air began, hurried through the city in many a stream. 
 Beyond it rose the " White Camp," the " Venta Belgaruro," the 
 circular earthwork of white chalk on the high down. Within the 
 city rose the ancient minster church, built by Ethelwold, — an- 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 359 
 
 cient even then, — where slept the ancient kinga ; Kennulf, Eg- 
 bert, and Ethelwulf the Saxons ; and by them the Danes, Canute 
 the Great, and Hardacanute his son, and Norman Emma his wife, 
 and Ethelred's before him ; and the great Earl Godwin, who 
 seemed to Hereward to have died, not twenty, but two hundred 
 years ago ; — and it may be an old Saxon hall upon the little isle 
 whither Edgar had bidden bring the heads of all the wolves in 
 Wessex, where afterwards the bishops built Wolvesey Palace. 
 But nearer to them, on the down which sloped up to the west, 
 Btood an uglier thing, which they saw with curses deep and loud, 
 — the keep of the new Norman castle by the west gate. 
 
 Hereward halted his knights upon the down outside the north- 
 ern gate. Then he rode forward himself. The gate was open 
 wide ; but he did not care to go in. 
 
 So he rode into the gateway, and smote upon that gate with 
 his lance-but. But the porter saw the knights upon the down, 
 and was afraid to come out ; for he feared treason. 
 
 Then Hereward smote a second time ; but the porter did not 
 come out. 
 
 Then he took the lance by the shaft, and smote a third time. 
 And he smote so hard, that the lance-but flew to flinders against 
 Winchester Gate. 
 
 And at that started out two knights, who had come down from 
 the castle, seeing the meinie on the down, and asked, — 
 
 " Who art thou who knockest here so bold ? " 
 
 " Who I am any man can see by those splinters, if he knows 
 what men are left in England this day." 
 
 The knights looked at the broken wood, and then at each other. 
 Who could the man be who could beat an ash stave to flinders at 
 a single blow ? 
 
 " You are young, and do not know me ; and no shame to you. 
 Gro and tell William the King, that Hereward is come to put his 
 hands between the King's, and be the King's man henceforth." 
 
 " You are Hereward ? " asked one, half awed, half disbelieving 
 at Hereward's short stature. 
 
 " You are — I know not who. Pick up those splinters, and 
 take them to King William ; and say, ' The man who broke that 
 lance against the gate is here to make his peace with thee,' and 
 he will know who I am." 
 
 And so cowed wereCthese two knights with Hereward's royal 
 voice, and royal eye, and royal strength, that they went simply, 
 and did what he bade them. 
 
 And when King William saw the splinters, he was as joyful as 
 man could be, and said, — 
 
 " Send him to me, and tell him. Bright shines the sun to me 
 that lights Hereward into Winchester." 
 
360 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 "But, Lord King, he has with him a meinie of full forty 
 knights." 
 
 '" So much the better. I shall have the more valiant English- 
 men to help my valiant French." 
 
 So Hereward rode round, outside the walls, to "William's new 
 entrenched palace, outside the west gate, by the castle. 
 
 And then Hereward went in, and knelt before the Norman, 
 and put his hands between William's hands, and swore to be his 
 man. 
 
 " I have kept my word," said he, " which I sent to thee at 
 Eouen seven years agone. Thou art King of all England ; and 
 I am the last man to say so." 
 
 " And since thou hast said it, I am King indeed. Come with 
 me, and dine ; and to-morrow I will see thy knights." 
 
 And William walked out of the hall leaning on Hereward'a 
 shoulder, at which all the Normans gnashed their teeth with 
 envy. 
 
 " And for my knights, Lord King ? Thine and mine will mix, 
 for a while yet, like oil and water ; and I fear lest there be mur- 
 der done between them." 
 
 " Likely enough." 
 
 So the knights were bestowed in a " vill " near by ; " and the 
 next day the venerable king himself went forth to see those 
 knights, and caused them to stand, and march before him, both 
 with arms, and without. With whom being much delighted, he 
 praised them, congratulating them on their beauty and stature, 
 and saying that they must all be knights of fame in war." After 
 which Hereward sent them all home except two ; and waited till 
 he should marry Alftruda, and get back his heritage. 
 
 '' And when that happens," said William, " why should we not 
 have two weddings, beausire, as well as one ? I hear that you 
 have in Crowlaijd a fair daughter, and marriageable." 
 
 Hereward bowed. 
 
 " And I have found a husband for her suitable to her years, 
 and who may conduce to your peace and serenity." 
 
 Hereward bit his lip. To refuse was impossible in those days. 
 But — 
 
 " I trust that your Grace has found a knight of higher lineage 
 than him, whom, after so many honors, you honored with the 
 hand of my niece." 
 
 William laughed. It was not his interest to quarrel with Here- 
 ward. " Aha ! Ivo, the wood-cutter's son. I ask your pardon 
 for that, Sir Hereward. Had you been my man then, as you are 
 now, it might have been different." 
 
 " If a king ask my pardon, I can only ask his in return." 
 
HEEEWABD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 861 
 
 "You must be friends with Taillebois. He is a brave knight, 
 and a wise warrior." 
 
 " None ever doubted that." 
 
 " And to cover any little blots in his escutcheon, I have made 
 him an earl, as I may make you some day." 
 
 " Your Majesty, like a true king, knows how to reward. Who 
 is this knight whom you have chosen for my lass ? " 
 
 " Sir Hugh of Evermue, a neighbor of yours, and a man of 
 blood and breeding." 
 
 " I know him, and his lineage ; and it is very well. I humbly 
 thank your Majesty." 
 
 " Can I be the same man ? " said Hereward to himself, 
 bitterly. 
 
 And he was not the same man. He was besotted on Alftruda, 
 and humbled himself accordingly. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 HOW TOEFRIDA CONFESSED THAT SHE HAD BEEN INSPIRED 
 BY THE DEVIL. 
 
 After a few days, there came down a priest to Crowland, and 
 talked with Torfrida, in Archbishop Lanfranc's name. • 
 
 Whether Lanfranc sent him, or merely (as is probable) Alf- 
 truda, he could not have come in a more fit name. Torfrida knew 
 (with all the worid) how Lanfranc had arranged William the Nor- 
 man's uncanonical marriage, with the Pope, by help of Arch- 
 deacon Hildebrand (afterwards Pope himself) ; and had changed 
 his mind deftly to William's side when he saw that William might 
 be useful to Holy Church, and could enslave, if duly managed, 
 not only the nation of England to himself, but the clergy of Eng- 
 land to Rome. All this Torfrida, and the world, knew. And 
 therefore she answered : — 
 
 " Lanfranc ? I can hardly credit you : for I hear that he is a 
 good man, though hard. But he has settled a queen's marriage 
 suit ; so he may very well settle mine." 
 
 After which they talked together ; and she answered him, the 
 priest said, so wisely and well, that he never had met with a 
 woman of so clear a brain, or of so stout a heart. 
 
 At last, being puzzled to get that which he wanted, he touched 
 on the matter of her marriage with Hereward. 
 
 She wished it, he said, dissolved. She wished herself to enter 
 religion. 
 
 Archbishop Lanfranc would be most happy to sanction so holy 
 a desire, but there were objections. She was a married woman ; 
 and her husband had not given his consent. 
 
 " Let him give it, then." 
 
 There were still objections. He had nothing to bring against 
 her, which could justify the dissolution of the holy bond: un- 
 less — " 
 
 " Unless I bring some myself? " 
 
 " There have been rumors — I say not how true — of magic 
 and sorcery ! — " 
 
 Torfrida leaped up from her seat, and laughed such a laugh, 
 that the priest said in after years, it rung through his head as if 
 it had arisen out of the pit of the lost. 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 363 
 
 " So that is what you want, Churchman ! Then you shall have 
 it. Bring me pen and ink. I need not to confess to you. You 
 shall read my confession when it is done. I am a better scribe, 
 mind you, than any clerk between here and Paris." 
 
 She seized the pen and ink, and wrote ; not fiercely, as the 
 priest expected, but slowly and carefully. Then she gave it 
 the priest to read. 
 
 " Will that do. Churchman ? Will that free my soul, and that 
 of your French Archbishop ? " ' 
 
 And the priest read to himself. 
 
 How Torfrida of St. Omer, born at Aries in Provence, confest 
 that from her youth up she had been given to the practice of dia- 
 bolic arts, and had at divers times and places used the same, both 
 alone and with Richilda, late Countess of Hainault. How, 
 wickedly, wantonly, and instinct with a malignant spirit, she had 
 compassed, by charms and spells, to win the^ love of Hereward. 
 How she had ever since kept in bondage him, and others whom 
 she had not loved with the same carnal love, but only desired to 
 make them useful to her own desire of power and glory, by the 
 same magical arts ; for which she now humbly begged pardon of 
 Holy Church, and of all Christian folk ; and, penetrated with com- 
 punction, desired only that she might retire into the convent of 
 Crowland. She asserted the marriage which she had so unlaw- 
 fully compassed to be nuU and void ; and prayed to be released 
 therefrom, as a burden to her conscience and soul, that she might 
 spend the rest of her life in penitence for her many enormous 
 sins. She submitted herself to the judgment of Holy Church, 
 only begging that this her free confession might be counted in 
 her favor and that she might not be put to death, as she deserved, 
 nor sent into perpetual imprisonment ; because her mother-in-law 
 according to the flesh, the Countess Godiva, being old and infirm, 
 had daily need of her ; and she wished to serve her menially as 
 long as she lived. After which, she put herself utterly upon the 
 judgment of the Church. And meanwhile, she desired and 
 prayed that she might be allowed to remain at large in the said 
 monastery of Crowland, not leaving the precincts thereof, without 
 special leave given by the Abbot and prioress in one case between 
 her and them reserved ; to wear garments of hair-cloth ; to fast 
 all the year on bread and water ; and to be disciplined with rods 
 or otherwise, at such times as the prioress should command, and 
 to such degree as her body, softened with carnal luxury, could 
 reasonably endure. And beyond — that, being dead to the world, 
 Grod might have mercy on her soul. 
 
 And she meant what she said. The madness of remorse and 
 disappointment, so common in the wild middle age, had come 
 over her ; and with it the twin madness of self-torture. 
 
364 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 The priest read, and trembled ; not for Torfrida : but for him- 
 self, lest she should enchant him after all. 
 
 " She must have been an awful sinner," said he to the monks 
 when he got safe out of the room ; " comparable only to the 
 witch of Endor, or the woman Jezebel, of whom St. John writea 
 in the Revelations." 
 
 " I do not know how you Frenchmen measure folks, when you 
 see them ; but to our mind she is, — for goodness, humility, and 
 patience comparablfc only to an angel of God," said Abbot 
 Ulfketyl. 
 
 " You Englishmen will have to change your minds on many 
 points, if you mean to stay here." 
 
 " We shall not change them, and we shall stay here," quoth 
 the Abbot. 
 
 " How ? You will not get Sweyn and his Danes to help you 
 a second time." 
 
 " No, we shall all die, and give you your wills, and you will not 
 have the heart to cast our bones into the fens ? " 
 
 " Not unless you intend to work miracles, and set up for saints, 
 like your Alphege Edmund." 
 
 " Heaven forbid that we should compare ourselves with them I 
 Only let us alone till we die." 
 
 " If you let us alone, and do not turn traitor meanwhile." 
 
 Abbot Ulfketyl bit his lip, and kept down the rising fiend. 
 
 " And now," said the priest, " deliver me over Torfrida the 
 younger, daughter of Hereward and this woman, that I may take 
 her to the King, who has found a fit husband for her." 
 
 " You will hardly get her." 
 
 " Not get her ? " 
 
 " Not without her mother's consent. The lass cares for naught 
 but her." 
 
 " Pish ! that sorceress ? Send for the girl." 
 
 Abbot Ulfketyl, forced in his own abbey, great and august 
 lord though he was, to obey any upstart of a Normsm priest who 
 came backed by the King and Lanfranc, sent for the lass. 
 
 The young outlaw came in, — hawk on fist, and its hood off, 
 for it was a pet, — short, sturdy, upright, brown-haired, blue-eyed, 
 ill-dressed, with hard hands and sun-burnt face, but with the 
 hawk-eye of her father, and her mother, and the hawks among 
 which she was bred. She looked the priest over from head tc 
 foot, till he was abashed. 
 
 " A Frenchman ! " said she, and she said no more. 
 
 The priest looked at her eyes, and then at the hawk's eyes. 
 They were disagreeably hke each other. He told his errand as 
 courteously as he could, for he was not a bad-hearted man for a 
 Norman priest. 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 365 
 
 The lass laughed him to scorn. The King's commands ? Sho 
 never saw a king in the greenwood, and cared for none. There 
 was no king in England now, since Sweyn Ulfsson sailed back to 
 Denmark. Who was this Norman William, to sell a free English 
 lass like a colt or a cow ? The priest might go back to the slaves 
 of Wessex, and command them if he could ; but in the fens, men 
 were free, and lasses too. 
 
 The priest was piously shocked and indignant ; and began to 
 argue. 
 
 She played with her hawk, instead of listening, and then was 
 marching out of the room. 
 
 " Tour mother," said he, " is a sorceress." 
 
 " You are a knave, or set on by knaves. You lie, and you 
 know you lie." And she turned away again. 
 
 " She has confessed it." 
 
 " You have driven her mad between you, till she will confess 
 anything. I presume you threatened to bum her, as some of 
 you did awhile back." And the young lady made use of words 
 equally strong and true. 
 
 The priest was not accustomed to the direct language of the 
 greenwood, and indignant on his own account, threatened, and 
 finally offered to use, force. Whereon there looked up into his 
 face such a demon (so he said) as he never had seen or dreamed 
 of, and said : " If you lay a finger on me, I will brittle you like 
 any deer." And therewith pulled out a saying-knife, about half 
 as long again as the said priest's hand, being very sharp, so he 
 deposed, down the whole length of one edge, and likewise down 
 his little finger's length of the other. 
 
 Not being versed in the terms of English venery, he asked 
 Abbot Ulfketyl what biittling of a deer might mean ; and being 
 informed that it was that operation on the carcass of a stag 
 which his countrymen called eventrer, and Highland gillies now 
 " gralloching," he subsided, and thought it best to go and consult 
 the young lady's mother. 
 
 She, to his astonishment, submitted at once and utterly. The 
 King, and he whom she had called her husband, were very 
 gracious. It was all well. She would have preferred, and the 
 Lady Godiva too, after their experience of the world and the 
 flesh, to have devoted her daughter to Heaven in the minster 
 there. But she was unworthy. Who was she, to train a bride 
 for Him who died on Cross ? She accepted this as part of her 
 penance, with thankfulness and humility. She had heard that 
 Sir Hugh of Evermue was a gentleman of ancient birth and 
 good prowess, and she thanked the King for his choice. Let the 
 priest tell her daughter that she commanded her to go with him 
 to Winchester. She did not wish to see her. She was stained 
 
366 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 with many crimes, and unworthy to approach a pure maiden- 
 Besides, it would only cause misery and tears. She was trying 
 to die to the world and to the flesh ; and she did not wish to 
 reawaken their power within her. Yes. It was very well. 
 Let the lass go with him." 
 
 " Thou art indeed a true penitent," said the priest, his human 
 heart softening him. 
 
 " Thou art very much mistaken," said she, and turned away. 
 
 The girl, when she' heard her mother's command, wept, 
 shrieked, and went. At least she was going to her father. And 
 from wholesome fear of that same saying-knife, the priest left 
 her in peace all the way to Winchester. 
 
 After which, Abhot tllfketyl went into his lodgings, and burst, 
 like a noble old nobleman as he was, into bitter tears of rage and 
 shame. 
 
 But Torfrida's eyes were as dry as her own sackcloth. 
 
 The priest took the letter back to Winchester, and showed it 
 — rit may be to Archbishop Lanfranc. But what he said, this 
 chronicler would not dare to say. For he was a very wise man, 
 and a very stanch and strong pillar of the Holy Roman Church. 
 Meanwhile, he was man enough not to require that anything 
 should be added to Torfrida's penance ; and that was enough to 
 prove him a man in those days, — at least for a churchman, — as 
 it proved Archbishop or St. Ailred to be, a few years after, in the 
 case of the nun of Watton, to be read in Gale's " Scriptores An- 
 glicania." Then he showed the letter to Alftruda. 
 
 And she laughed one of her laughs, and said, " I have her at last ! " 
 
 Then, as it befell, he was forced to show the letter to Queen 
 Matilda ; and she wept over it human tears, such as she, the no- 
 ble heart, had been forced to keep many a time before, and said, 
 "The poor soul! — You, Alftruda, woman! does Hereward know 
 of this?" 
 
 "No, madam," said Alftruda, not adding that she had taken 
 good care that he should not know. 
 
 " It is the best thing which I have heard of him. I should tell 
 him, were it not that I must not meddle with my lord's plans. 
 God grant him a good delivery, as they say of the poor souls in 
 jail. Well, madam, you have your will at last. God give you 
 grace thereof, for you have not given Him much chance as yet." 
 
 " Your majesty will honor us by coming to the wedding ? " 
 asked Alftruda, utterly unabashed. 
 
 Matilda the good looked at her with a face of such calm, child- 
 like astonishment, that Alftruda dropped her " fairy neck " at last, 
 and Rlunk out of the presence like a beaten cur. 
 
 William went to the wedding ; and swore horrible oaths that 
 they were the handsomest pair he had ever seen. And so Here- 
 
HEKEWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 367 
 
 w ard married Alftruda. How Holy Church settled the matter 
 is not said. But that Hereward married Alftruda, under these 
 very circumstances, may be considered a " historic fact," being 
 Touched for by Gairaar, and by the Peterborough Chronicler. 
 And doubtless Holy Church contrived that it should happen 
 •without sin, if it conduced to her own interest. 
 
 And little Torfrida — then, it seems, some sixteen years of age 
 — was married to Hugh of Evermue. She wept and struggled 
 as she was dragged into the church. 
 
 " But I do not want to be married. I want to go back to my 
 mother." 
 
 " The diabolic instinct may have descended to her," said the 
 priests, " and attracts her to the sorceress. We had best sprinkle 
 her with holy water." 
 
 So they sprinkled her with holy water, and used exorcisms. 
 Indeed, the case being an important one, the personages of rank, ' 
 they brought out from their treasures the apron of a certain vir- 
 gin saint, and put it round her neck, in hopes of driving out the 
 hereditary fiend. 
 
 " If I am led with a halter, I must needs go," said she, with 
 one of her mother's own flashes of wit, and went. " But Lady 
 Alftruda," whispered she, half-way up the church, " I never loved 
 him." 
 
 " Behave yourself before the King, or I will whip you till the 
 blood runs." 
 
 And so she would, and no one would have wondered in those 
 days. 
 
 " I will murder you if you do. But I never even saw him." 
 
 " Little fool ! And what are you going through, but what I 
 went through before you ? " 
 
 " You to say that ? " gnashed the girl, as another spark of her 
 mother's came out. " And you gaining what — " 
 
 " What I waited for for fifteen years," said Alftruda, coolly. 
 " If you have courage and cunning, like me, to wait for fifteen 
 years, you too may have your will likewise." 
 
 The pure child shuddered, and was married to Hugh of Ever- 
 mue, who is not said to have kicked her ; and was, according to 
 them of Crowland, a good friend to their monastery, and there- 
 fore, doubtless, a good man. Once, says wicked report, he offered 
 to strike her, as was the fashion in those chivalrous days. Where- 
 on she turned upon him like a tigress, and bidding him remember 
 tliat she was the daugliter of Hereward and Torfrida, gave him 
 such a beating that he, not wishing to draw sword upon her, sur- 
 rendered at discretion ; and they lived all their lives afterwards 
 as happily as most other married people in those times. 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 HOW HEREWAKD BEGAN TO GET HIS SOUL'S PUIOE. 
 
 And now behold Hereward at home again, fat with the wagej 
 of sin, and not knowing that they are death. 
 
 He is once more " Dominus de Brunune cum Marisco," " Lord 
 of Bourne with the fen, with all returns and liberties and all 
 other things adjacent to the same vill which are now held as a 
 barony from the Lord King of England." He has a fair young 
 wife, and with her farms and manors, even richer than his own. 
 He is still young, hearty, wise by experience, high in the king's 
 favor, and deservedly so. 
 
 Why should he not begin life again ? 
 
 Why not ? Unless it be true that the wages of sin are, not a 
 new life, but death. 
 
 And yet he has his troubles. Hardly a Norman knight or 
 baron round but has a blood-feud against him, for a kinsman 
 slain. Sir Aswart, Thorold the abbot's man, was not likely to 
 forgive him for turning him out of the three Mainthorpe manors, 
 which he had comfortably held for two years past, and sending 
 him back to lounge in the abbot's hall at Peterborough, without 
 a yard of land he could call his own. Sir Ascelin was not likely 
 to forgive him for marrying Alftruda, whom he had intended to 
 marry himself. Ivo Taillebois was not likely to forgive him for 
 existing within a hundred miles of Spalding, any more- than the 
 wolf would forgive the lamb for fouling the water below him. 
 Beside, had he (Ivo) not married Hereward's niece ? and what 
 more grievous offence could Hereward commit, than to be her 
 uncle, I'eminding Ivo of his own low birth by his nobility, and 
 too likely to take Lucia's part, whenever it should please Ivo to 
 beat or kick her ? Only " Gilbert of Ghent," the pious and il- 
 lustrious earl, sent messages of congratulation and friendship to 
 Hereward, it being his custom to sail with the wind, and worship 
 the rising sun — till it should decline again. 
 
 But more: hardly one of the Normans round, but, in the 
 conceit of their skin-deep yesterday's civilization, look on Here', 
 ward as a barbarian Englishman, who has his throat tattooed, 
 and wears a short coat, and prefers — tlie churl — to talk Eng 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE EIjIGLISH. 369 
 
 lish in his own hall, though he can talk as good French as they 
 when he is with them, heside three or four barbarian tongues if 
 he has need. 
 
 But more still : if they are not likely to bestow their love on 
 Hereward, Hereward is not likely to win love from them of his 
 own will. He is peevish, and wrathful, often insolent and quar- 
 relsome ; and small blame to him. The Normans are invadei-s 
 and tyrants, who have no business there, and should not be there, 
 if he had his way. And they and he can no more amalgamate 
 than fire and water. Moreover, he is a very great man, or has 
 been such once, and he thinks himself one still. He has been 
 accustomed to command men, whole armies ; and he will no 
 more treat these Normans as his equals, than they will treat 
 him as such. His own son-in-law, Hugh of Evermue, has to 
 take hard words, — thoroughly well deserved, it may be ; but all 
 the more unpleasant for that reason. 
 
 The truth was, that Hereward's heart was gnawed with shame 
 and remorse ; and therefore he fancied, and not without reason, 
 that all men pointed at him the finger of scorn. 
 
 He had done a bad, base, accursed deed. And he knew it. 
 Once in his life — for his other sins were but the sins of his age 
 — the Father of men seems (if the chroniclers say truth) to 
 have put before this splendid barbarian good and evil, saying, 
 Choose! And he knew that the evil was evil, and chose it 
 nevertheless. 
 
 Eight hundred years after, a still greater genius and general 
 had the same choice — as far as human cases of conscience can 
 be alike — put before him. And he chose as Hereward chose. 
 
 But as with Napoleon and Josephine, so it was with Hereward 
 and Torfrida. Neither throve after. 
 
 It was not punished by mii-acle. What sin is? It worked 
 out its own punishment ; that which it merited, deserved, or 
 earned, by its own labor. No man could commit such a sin 
 without shaking his whole character to the root. Hereward 
 tried to persuade himself that his was not shaken ; that he was 
 the same Hereward as ever. But he could not deceive himself 
 long. His conscience was evil. He was discontented with all 
 mankind, and with himself most of all. He tried to be good, — • 
 as good as he chose to be. If he had done wrong in one thing, 
 he might make up for it in others ; but he could not. 
 
 All his higher instincts fell from him one by one. He did 
 not like to think of good and noble things ; he dared not think 
 of them. He felt, not at first, but as the months rolled on, that 
 he was a changed man ; that God had left him. His old bad 
 habits began to return to him. Gradually he sank back into the 
 16* X 
 
370 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 very vices from which Torfrida had raised him sixteen years 
 before. He took to drinking again, to dull the malady of 
 thought; he excused himself to himself; he wished to forget 
 his defeats, his disappointment, the ruin of his country, the 
 splendid, past which lay behind him like a dream. True: but 
 he wished to forget likewise Torfrida fasting and weeping in 
 Crowland. He could not bear the sight of Crowland tower on 
 the far green horizon, the sound of Crowland bells booming over 
 the flat on the south-wind. He never rode down into the fens ; 
 he never went to see his daughter at Deeping, because Crowland 
 lay that way. He went up into the old Bruneswald, hunted all 
 day long through the glades where he and his merry men had 
 done their doughty deeds, and came home in the evening to get 
 drunk. 
 
 Then he lost his sleep. He sent down to Crowland, to Leofric 
 the priest, that he might come to him, and sing his sagas of the 
 old heroes, that he might get rest. But Leofric sent back for 
 answer that he would not come. 
 
 That night Alftruda heard him by her side in the still hours, 
 weeping silently to himself. She caressed him : but he gave no 
 heed to her. 
 
 " I believe," said she bitterly at last, " that you love Torfrida 
 still better than you do me." 
 
 And Hereward answered, like Mahomet in like case, " That 
 do I, by heaven. She believed in me when no one else in the 
 world did." 
 
 And the vain, hard Alftruda answered angrily ; and there was 
 many a fierce quarrel between them after that. 
 
 With his love of drinking, his love of boasting came back. 
 Because he could do no more great deeds — or rather had not 
 the spirit left in him to do more — he must needs, like a worn- 
 out old man, babble of the great deeds which he had done ; in- 
 sult and defy his Norman neigiibors ; often talk what tiiight be 
 easily caricatured into treason against King William himself. 
 
 There were great excuses for his follies, as there are for those 
 of every beaten man ; but Hereward was spent. He had lived 
 his life, and had no more life which he could live ; for every 
 man, it would seem, brings into the world with him a certain 
 capacity, a certain amount of vital force, in body and in soul ; 
 and when that is used up, the man must sink down into some 
 sort of second childhood, and end, like Hereward, very much 
 where he began ; unless the grace of God shall lift him up above 
 the capacity of the mere flesh, into a life literally new, ever- 
 renewing, ever-expanding, and eternal. 
 
 But the grace of God had gone away from Hereward, as it 
 goes away from all men who are unfaithful to their wives. 
 
HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 371 
 
 It was very pitiable. Let no man judge him. Life, to most, 
 is very hard work. There are those who endure to the end, and 
 are saved ; there are those, again, who do not endure : upon whose 
 souls may God have mercy. • 
 
 So Hereward soon became as intolerable to his Norman neigL- 
 bors as they were intolerable to him. 
 
 Whereon, according to the simple fashion of those primitive 
 times, they sought about for some one who would pick a quarrel 
 with Hereward, and slay him in fair fight. But an Archibald 
 Bell-the-Cat -was not to be found on every hedge. 
 
 But it befell that Oger the Breton, he who had Morcar's lands 
 round Bourne, came up to see after his lands, and to visit his 
 friend and fellow-robber, Ivo Taillebois. 
 
 Ivo thought the hot-headed Breton, who had already insulted 
 Hereward with impunity at Winchester, the fittest man for his 
 purpose ; and asked him, over his cups, whether he had settled 
 with that English ruffian about the Docton land ? 
 
 Now, King William had judged that Hereward and Oger 
 should hold that land between them, as he and Toli had done. 
 But when " two dogs," as Ivo said, " have hold of the same bone, 
 it is hard if they cannot get a snap at each other's noses." 
 
 Oger agreed to that opinion ; and riding into Bourne, made in- 
 quisition into the doings at Docton. And — scandalous injustice! — 
 he found that an old woman had sent six hens to Hereward, 
 whereof she should have kept three for him. 
 
 So he sent to demand formally of Hereward those three hens ; 
 and was unpleasantly disappointed when Hereward, instead of 
 offering to nght him, sent him them in an hour, and a lusty young 
 cock into the bargain, with this message, — That he hoped they 
 might increase and multiply ; for it was a shame of an honest 
 Englishman if he did not help a poor Breton churl to eat roast 
 fowls for the first time in his life, after feeding on nothing better 
 than furze-toppings, like his own ponies. 
 
 To which Oger, who, like a true Breton, believed himself de- 
 scended from King Arthur, Sir Tristram, and half the knights of 
 the Round Table, replied that his blood was to that of Hereward 
 as wine to peat-water ; and that Bretons used furze-toppings only 
 to scourge the backs of insolent barbarians. 
 
 To which Hereward replied, that there wei'e gnats enough pes- 
 tering him in the fens already, and that one more was of uo con- 
 sequence. 
 
 Wherefrom the Breton judged, as at Winchester, that Here- 
 ward had no lust to fight. 
 
 The next day he met Hereward going out to hunt, and was 
 confirmed in his opinion when Hereward lilted his cap to him 
 
372 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 most courteously, saying that he was not aware before that hia 
 neighbor was a gentleman of such high blood. 
 
 " Blood ? Better at lea.=it than thine, thou bare-legged Saxon, 
 who has dared to call me churl. So you must needs have your 
 throat cut ? I took you for a wiser man." 
 
 " Many have taken me for that which I am not. If you will 
 harness yourself, I will do the same ; and we will ride up into 
 the Bruneswald, and settle this matter in peace." 
 
 " Three men on each side to see fair play," said the Breton. 
 
 And up into the Bruneswald they rode ; and fought long with- 
 out advantage on either side. 
 
 Hereward was not the man which he had been. His nerve 
 was gone, as well as his conscience ; and all the dash and fury of 
 his old onslaughts gone therewith. 
 
 He grew tired of the fight, not in body, but in mind ; and more 
 than once drew back. 
 
 " Let us stop this child's play," said he, according to the chroni- 
 cler ; " what need have we to fight here all day about nothing ? " 
 
 Whereat the Breton fancied him already more than half-beaten, 
 and attacked more furiously than ever. He would be the first 
 man on earth who ever had had the better of the great out- 
 law. He would win himself eternal glory, as the champion of all 
 England. 
 
 But he had mistaken his man, and his indomitable English 
 pluck. " It was Hereward's fashion, in fight and war," says the 
 chronicler, "always to ply the man most at the last." And so 
 found the Breton ; for Hereward suddenly lost patience, and rush- 
 ing on him with one of his old shouts, hewed at him again 
 and again, as if his arm would never tire. 
 
 Oger gave back, would he or not. In a few moments his sword- 
 arm dropt to his side, cut half through. 
 
 " Have you had enough, Sir Tristram the younger ? " quoth 
 Hereward, wiping his sword, and walking moodily away. 
 
 Oger went out of Bourne with his arm in a sling, and took 
 counsel with Ivo Taillebois. Whereon they two mounted, and 
 rode to Lincoln, and took counsel with Gilbert of Ghent. 
 
 The fruit of which was this. That a foitnight after Gilbert 
 rode into Bourne with a great meinie, full a hundred strong, and 
 with him the sheriff and the king's writ ,- and arrested Hereward on 
 a charge of speaking evil of the king, breaking his peace, com- 
 passing the death of his faithful lieges, and various other wicked, 
 traitorous, and diabolical acts. 
 
 Hereward was minded at first to fight and die. But Gilbert, 
 lyho — to do him justice — wi-hed no harm to his ancient squire, 
 reasoned with him. Why should he destroy not only himself, but 
 
HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 37S 
 
 perhaps his people likewise ? Why should he throw away his 
 last chance ? The king was not so angry as he seemed; and if 
 Hereward would but be reasonable, the matter might be arrariged 
 As it was, he was not to be put to strong prison. He was to be 
 in the custody of Robert of Herepol, Chatelain of Bedford, who, 
 Hereward knew, was a reasonable and courteous man. The king 
 had asked him, Gilbert, to take charge of Hereward. 
 
 " And what said you ? " 
 
 " That I had rather have in my pocket the seven devils that 
 came out of St. Mary Magdalene ; and that I would not have 
 thee within ten miles of Lincoln town, to be Earl of all the 
 Danelagh. So I begged him to send thee to Sir Robert, just be- 
 cause I knew him to be a mild and gracious man." 
 
 A year before, Hereward would have scorned the proposal; 
 and probably, by one of his famous stratagems, escaped tliere and 
 then out of the midst of all Gilbert's men. But his spirit was 
 broken ; indeed, so was the spirit of every Englishman ; and he 
 mounted his horse sullenly, and rode alongside of Gilbert, un- 
 armed for the first time for many a year. 
 
 " You had better have taken me," said Sir Ascelin aside to the 
 weeping Alftruda. 
 
 " I ? helpless wretch that I am ! What shall I do for my own 
 safety, now he is gone ? " 
 
 " Let me come and provide for it." 
 
 " Out ! wretch ! traitor ! " cried she. 
 
 " There is nothing very traitorous in succoring distressed 
 ladies," said Ascelin. " If I can be of the least service to Alf- 
 truda the peerless, let her but send, and I fly to do her bidding." 
 
 So they rode off. 
 
 Hereward went through Cambridge and Potton like a man 
 stunned, and spoke never a word. He could not even think, till 
 he heard the key turned on him in a room — not a small or dole- 
 ful one — in Bedford keep, and found an iron shackle on his leg, 
 fastened to the stone bench on which he sat. 
 
 Robert of Herepol had meant to leave his prisoner loose. But 
 there were those in Gilbert's train who told him, and with truth, 
 that if he did so, no man's life would be safe. That to brain the 
 jailer with his own keys, and then twist out of his bowels a line 
 wherewith to let himself down from the top of the castle, would 
 be not only easy, but amusing, to the famous " Wake." 
 
 So Robert consented to fetter him so far, but no further ; and 
 begged his pardon again and again as he did it, pleading the pain* 
 fill necessities of his office. 
 
 But Hereward heard him not. He sat in stupefied despair. A 
 great black cloud had covered all heaven and earth, and entered 
 
374 HEREWAKD, THE LAST OK THE ENGLISH. 
 
 into his brain through every sense, till his mind, as he said after, 
 wards, was like hell, with the fire gone out. 
 
 A jailer came in, he knew not how long after, bringing a good 
 meal, and wine. He came cautiously toward the prisoner, and 
 when still beyond the length of his chain, set the food down, and 
 thrust it toward him with a stick, lest Hereward should leap on 
 him and wring his neck. 
 
 But Hereward never even saw him or the food. He sat there 
 all day, all night, and nearly all the next day, and hardly moved 
 hand or foot. The jailer told Sir Robert in the evening that he 
 thought the man was mad, and would die. 
 
 So good Sir Eobert went up to him, and spoke kindly and 
 hopefully. But all Hereward answered was, that he was very 
 well. That he wanted nothing. That he had always heard well 
 of Sir Robert. That he should like to get a little sleep : but that 
 sleep would not come. 
 
 The next day Sir Robert came again early, and found him sit- 
 ting in the same place. 
 
 " He was very well," he said. " How could he be otherwise ? 
 He was just where he ought to be. A man could not be better 
 than in his right place." 
 
 Whereon Sir Robert gave him up for mad. 
 
 Then he bethought of sending him a harp, knowing the fame 
 of Hereward's music and singing. " And when he saw the harp," 
 the jailer said, " he wept ; but bade take the thing away. And 
 so sat still where he was." 
 
 In this state of dull despair he remained for mtmy weeks. At 
 last he woke up. 
 
 There passed through and by Bedford large bodies of troops, 
 going as it were to and from battle. The clank of arms stirred 
 Hereward's heart as of old, and he sent to Sir Robert to ask what 
 was toward. ' 
 
 Sir Robert, " the venerable man," came to him joyfully and at 
 once, glad to speak to an illustrious captive, whom he looked on 
 as an injured man ; and told him news enough. 
 
 Taillebois's warning about Ralph Guader and Waltheof had 
 not been needless. Ralph, as the most influential of the Bretons, 
 was on no good terms with the Normans, save with one, and that 
 one of the most powerful, — Fitz-Osbern, Earl of Hereford. His 
 sister Ralph was to have married ; but William, for reasons un- 
 known, forbade the match. The two great earls celebrated the 
 wedding in spite of William, and asked Waltheof as a guest. And 
 at Exning, between the fen and Newmarket Heath, — 
 
 " Was that bride-ale 
 Which was man's bale." 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OP THE ENGLISH. 375 
 
 For there was matured the plot which Ivo and others had long 
 seen brewing. William had made himself hateful to all men by 
 his cruelties and tyrannies ; and indeed his government was grow- 
 ing more unrighteous day by day. Let them drive him out of 
 England, and part the land between them. Two should be dukes, 
 the third king paramount. 
 
 " Waltheof, I presume, plotted drunk, and repented sober, when 
 too late. The wittol ! He should have been a monk." 
 
 "' Repented he has, if ever he was guilty. For he fled to Arch- 
 bishop Lanfranc, and confessed to him so much, that Lanfranc 
 declares Irim innocent, and has sent him on to William in Nor- 
 mandy." 
 
 " O kind priest ! true priest ! To s§nd his sheep into the wolf's 
 mouth." 
 
 " You forget, dear sire, that William is our king." 
 " I can hardly forget that, with this pretty ring upon my ankle. 
 But after my experience of how he has kept faith with me, what 
 can I expect for Waltheof the wittol, save that which I have fore- 
 told many a time? " 
 
 " As for you, dear sire, the king has been misinformed concern- 
 ing you. I have sent messengers to reason with him again and 
 again ; but as long as Taillebois, Warrenne, and Robert Malet 
 had his ear, of what use were my poor words ? " 
 "And what said they?" 
 
 " That there would be no peace in England if you were loose." 
 " They lied. I am no boy, like Waltheof. I know when the 
 game is played out. And it is played out now. Thg French- 
 man is master, and I know it well. Were I loose to-morrow, 
 and as great a fool as Waltheof, what could I do, with, it may be, 
 some forty knights and a hundred men-at-arms, against all Wil- 
 liam's armies ? But how goes on this fool's rebellion ? If I had 
 been loose I might have helped to crush it in the bud." 
 " And you would have done that against Waltheof? " 
 " Why not against him ? He is but bringing more misery'on 
 England. Tell that to Wilham. Tell him that if he sets me 
 free, 1 will be the first to attack Waltheof, or whom he will. 
 There are no English left to fight against," said he, bitterly, " for 
 Waltheof is none now." 
 " He shall know your words when he returns to England." 
 " What, is he abroad, and all this evil going on ? " 
 " In Normandy. But the English have risen for the King in 
 Berefordshire, and beaten Earl Roger ; and Odo of Bayeux and 
 Bishop Mowbray are on their way to Cambridge, where they 
 hope to give a good account of Earl Ralph ; and that the English 
 may help them there." 
 
376 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 '• And thoy shall ! They hate Ralph Guader as much as I do. 
 Can you send a message for me ? " 
 
 "Whither?" 
 
 "To Bourne in the Bruneswald; and say to Hereward's men, 
 wherever they are, Let them rise and arm, if they love Hereward, 
 and down to Cambridge, to be the foremost at Bishop Odo's side 
 against Ralph Guader, or Waltheof himself. Send ! send ! 
 that I were free ! " 
 
 " Would to Heaven thou wert free, my gallant sir ! " said the 
 good man. 
 
 From that day Hereward woke up somewhat. He_ was still a 
 broken man, querulous, peevish ; but the hope of freedom and the 
 hope of battle woke him up. If he could but get to his men ! 
 But his melancholy returned. His men — some of them at least 
 ■ — went down to Odo at Cambridge, and did good service. Gua- 
 der was utterly routed, and escaped to Norwich, and thence to 
 Brittany, — his home. The bishops punished their prisoners, the 
 rebel Normans, with horrible mutilations. 
 
 " The wolves are beginning to eat each other," said Hereward 
 to himself. But it was a sickening thought to him, that his men 
 had been fighting and he not at their head. 
 
 After a while there came to Bedford Castle two witty knaves. 
 One was a cook, who " -came to buy milk," says the chronicler ; 
 the other seemingly a gleeman. They told stories, jested, harped, 
 sang, drank, and pleased much the garrison and Sir Robert, who 
 let them hang about the place. 
 
 They asked next, whether it were true that the famous Here- 
 ward was there ? If so, might a man have a look at him ? 
 
 The jailer said that many men might have gone to see him, so 
 easy was Sir Robert to him. But he would have no man ; and 
 none dare enter save Sir Robert and he, for fear of their lives. 
 But he would ask him of Herepol. 
 
 The good knight of Herepol said, " Let the rogues go in ; they 
 may amuse the poor man." 
 
 So they went in, and as soon as they went, he^new them. One 
 was Martin Lightfoot, the other Leofric the Unlucky. 
 
 " Who sent you ? " asked he surlily, turning his face away. 
 
 " She." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " We know but one she, and she is at Crowland." 
 
 " She sent you ? and wherefore ? " 
 
 " That we might sing to you, and make you merry." 
 
 Hereward answered them with a terrible word, and turned his 
 face to the wall, groaning, and then bade them sternly to go. 
 
 So they went, for the time. 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 377 
 
 The jailer told this to Sir Robert, who saw all, being a kind- 
 hearted man. 
 
 " From his poor first wife, eh ? Well, there can be no harm 
 in that. Nor if they came from this Lady Alftruda either, for 
 that matter ; let them go in and out when they will." 
 
 " But they may be spies and traitors." 
 
 " Then we can but hang them." 
 
 Robert of Herepol, it would appear from the chronicle, did not ■ 
 much care whether they were spies or not. 
 
 So the men went to and fro, and often sat with Hereward. 
 But he forbade them sternly to mention Torfrida's name. 
 
 Alftruda sent to him meanwhile, again and again, messages of 
 passionate love and sorrow, and he listened to them as sullenly as 
 he did to his two servants, and sent no answer back. And so sat 
 more weary months, in the very prison, it may be in the very 
 room, in which John Bunyan sat nigh six hundred years after : 
 but in a very different frame of mind. 
 
 One day Sir Robert was going up the stairs with another 
 knight, and met the two coming down. He was talking to that 
 knight earnestly, indignantly : and somehow, as he passed Leofrio 
 and Martin he thought fit to raise his voice, as if in a great 
 wrath. 
 
 " Shame to all honor and chivalry ! good saints in heaven, 
 what a thing is human fortune ! That this man, who had once a 
 gallant army at his back, should be at this moment going like a 
 sheep to the slaughter, to Buckingham Castle, at the mercy of his 
 worst enemy, Ivo Taillebois, of all men in the world. If there 
 were a dozen kniglits left of all those whom hei used to heap with 
 wealth and honor, worthy the name of knights, they would catch 
 us between here and Stratford, and make a free man of their 
 lord." 
 
 So spake — or words to that effect, according to the Latin 
 chronicler, who must have got them from Leofric himself — the 
 good knight of Herepol. 
 
 " Hillo, knaves ! " said he, seeing the two, " are you here eaves- 
 dropping ? out of the castle this instant, on your lives." 
 
 Which hint those two witty knaves took on the spot. 
 
 A few days after, Hereward was travelling toward Bucking- 
 ham, chained upon a horse, with Sir Robert and his men, and a 
 goodly company of knights belonging to Ivo. Ivo, as the story 
 runs, seems to have arranged with Ralph Pagnel at Buckingham 
 to put him into the keeping of a creature of his own. And how 
 easy it was to put out a man's eyes, or starve him to death, in a 
 Norman keep, none knew better than Hereward. 
 
 But he was past fear or sorrow. A dull heavy cloud of de- 
 
378 HEEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 spair had settled down upon his soul. Black with sin, his heart 
 could not pray. He had hardened himself against all heaven 
 and earth, and thought, when he thought at all, only of his 
 wrongs : but never of his sins. 
 
 They passed through a forest, seemingly somewhere near what 
 is Newport Pagnel, named after Ralph, his would-be jailer. 
 
 Suddenly from the trees dashed out a body of knights, and at 
 their head the white-bear banner, in Ranald of Ramsey's hand. 
 
 " Halt ! " shouted Sir Robert ; " we are past the half-way stone. 
 Earl Tvo's and Earl Ralph's men are answerable now for the 
 prisoner." 
 
 " Treason ! " shouted Ivo's men, and one would have struck 
 Hereward through with his lance ; but Winter was too quick for 
 him, and bore him from his saddle ; and then dragged Hereward 
 out of the fight. 
 
 The Normans, surprised while their helmets were hanging at 
 their saddles, and their arms not ready for battle, were scattered 
 at once. But they returned to the attack, confident in their own 
 numbers. 
 
 They were over confident. Hereward's fetters were knocked 
 off; and he was horsed and armed, and, mad with freedom and 
 battle, fighting like himself once more. 
 
 Only as he rode to and fro, thrusting and hewing, he shouted 
 to his men to spare Sir Robert, and all his meinie, crying that he 
 was the savior of his life ; and when the fight was Over, and all 
 Ivo's and Ralph's men who were not slain had ridden for their 
 lives into Stratford, he shook liands with that venerable knight, 
 giving him innumerable thanks and courtesies for his honorable 
 keeping ; and begged him to speak well of him to the king. 
 
 And so these two parted in peace, and Hereward was a free 
 man. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 HOW EARL WALTHEOF WAS MADE A SATNT. 
 
 A FEW months after, there sat in Abbot Thorold 's lodgings in 
 Peterborough a select company of Normans, talking over affairs 
 of state after their supper. 
 
 . " Well, earls and gentlemen," said the Abbot, as he sipped his 
 wine, " the cause of our good king, which is happily the cause of 
 Holy Church, goes well, I think. We have much to be thankful 
 for when we review the events of the past year. We have finished 
 the rebels ; Roger de Brefeuil is safe in prison, Ralpli Guader 
 unsafe in Brittany, and Waltheof more than unsafe in — the 
 place to which traitors descend. We have not a manor left which 
 i-i not in loyal Norman hands ; we have not an English monk left 
 who has not been scourged and starved into holy obedience ; not an 
 English saint for whom any man cares a jot, since Guerin de Lire 
 preached down St. Adhelm, the admirable primate disposed of St. 
 Alphege's martyrdom, and some other wise man — I am ashamed 
 to sSiy that I forget who — proved that St. Edmund of Suffolk was 
 merely a barbarian knight, who was killed fighting with Danes 
 only a little more heathen than himself. We have had great 
 labors and great sufferings since we landed in this barbarous isle 
 upon our holy errand ten years since ; but, under the shadow of 
 the gonfalon of St. Peter, we have conquered, and may sing 
 'Dominus Illuminatio mea,' with humble and tliankful hearts." 
 
 " I don't know that," said Ascelin, " my Lord Uncle ; I shall 
 never sing ' Dominus Illuminatio ' till I see your coffers illumi- 
 nated once more by those thirty thousand marks." 
 
 " Or I," said Oger le Breton, "till I see myself safe in that bit 
 of land which Hereward holds wrongfully of me in Locton." 
 
 " Or I," said Ivo Taillebois, " till I see Hereward's head on 
 Bourne gable, where he stuck up those Norman's heads seven 
 years ago. But what the Lord Abbot means by saying that we 
 have done with English saints I do not see, for the villains of 
 Crowland have just made a new one for themselves " 
 
 " A new one ? " 
 
 " I tell you truth and fact ; I will tell you all. Lord Abbot ; 
 and you shall judge whether it is not enough to drive an honest 
 
"80 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 man mad to see such things going on under his nose. Men say 
 of me that I am rougli, and swear and blaspheme. I put it to 
 you, Lord Abbot, if Job would not have cursed if he had been Lord 
 of Spalding ? You know that the king let these Crowland monks 
 have Waltheof'sbody?" 
 
 " Yes, I thought it an unwise act of grace. It would have 
 been wiser to leave him, as he desired, out on the down, in 
 ground unconsecrate." 
 
 " Of course, of course ; for what has happened ? " 
 
 " That old traitor, Ulf ketyl, and his monks bring the body to 
 Crowland, and bury it as if it had been the Pope's. In a 
 week they begin to spread their lies, — that Wallheof was inno- 
 cent ; that Archbishop Lanfranc himself said so." 
 
 " That was the only act of human weakness which I have ever 
 known the venerable prelate commit," said Thorold. 
 
 " That these Normans at Winchester were so in the traitor's 
 favor, that the king had to have him out and cut off his head in 
 the gray of the morning, ere folks were up and about ; that the 
 fellow was so holy that he past all his time in prison in weeping 
 and praying, and said over the whole Psalter every day, because 
 his mother had taught it him, — I wish she had taught him to be 
 an honest man; — and that^when his head was on the block he said 
 all the Paternoster, as far as Lead us not into temptation, and 
 then off went liis head ; whereon, his head being off, finished the 
 prayer with — you know best what comes next. Abbot ? " 
 
 " Deliver us from evil, Amen ! What a manifest lie ! The 
 traitor was not permitted, it is plain, to ask for that which could 
 never be granted to him ; but his soul, unworthy to be delivered 
 from evil, entered instead into evil, and howls forever in the 
 pit." 
 
 " But all the rest may be true," said Oger ; " and yet that bo 
 no reason why these monks should say it." 
 
 " So I told them, and threatened them too ; for, not content 
 with making him a martyr, they are making him a saint." 
 
 " Impious ! Who can do that, save the Holy Father ? " said 
 Thorold. 
 
 " You had best get your bishop to look to them, then, for they 
 are carrying blind beggars and mad girls by the dozen to be 
 cured at the man's tomb, that is all. Their fellows in the cell at 
 Spalding went about to take a girl that had ^fits off one of my 
 manors, to cure her ; but that I stopped with a good hqrsewhip." 
 
 " And rightly." 
 
 " And gave the monks a piece of my mind, and drove them 
 clean out of their cell home to Crowland." 
 
 What a piece of Ivo's mind on this occasion might be, let 
 Ingulf describe. 
 
HEKriWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 381 
 
 ■'Against our monastery and all the people of Crowlanrl ho 
 was, by the instigation of the Devil, raised to such an extreme 
 pitch of fury, that he would follow their animals in the marshes 
 with his dogs, drive them to a great distance down in the lakes, 
 mutilate some in the tails, others in the ears, while often, by 
 breaking the backs and legs of the beasts of burden, he rendered 
 them utterly useless. Against our cell also (at Spalding) and 
 our brethren, his neighbors, the prior and monks, who dwelt all 
 day within his presence, he rages with tyrannical and frantic fury, 
 lamed their oxen and horses, daily impounded their sheep and 
 poultry, striking down, killing, and slaying their swine and pigs ; 
 while at the same time the servants of the prior were oppressed 
 in the Earl's court with insupportable exactions, were often as- 
 saulted in the highways with swords and staves, and sometimes 
 killed." 
 
 " Well," went on the injured Earl, " this Here ward gets news 
 of me, — and news too, I don't know whence, but true enough 
 it is, — that I had sworn to drive Ulf ketyl out of Crowland by 
 writ from king and bishop, and lock him up as a minister at the 
 other end of England." 
 
 " You will do but right. I will send a knight off to the king 
 this day, telling him all, and begging him to send us up a trusty 
 Norman as abbot of Crowland, that we may have one more 
 gentleman in the land fit for our company." 
 
 " You must kill Hereward first. For, as I was going to say, 
 he sent word to me ' that the monks of Crowland were as the 
 apple of his eye, and Abbot Ulfketyl to him as more than a 
 father ; and that if I dared to lay a finger on them or their 
 property, he would cut my head off.'" 
 
 " He has promised to cut my head off likewise," said Ascelin. 
 " Earl, knights, and gentlemen, do you not think it wiser that we 
 should lay our wits together once and for all, and cut off his." 
 
 " But who will catch the Wake sleeping.' " said Ivo, laughing. 
 
 " That will I. I have my plans, and my intelligencers." 
 
 And so those wicked men took counsel together to slay Here- 
 ward. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 HOW HEEEWARD GOT THE BEST OF HIS SOUL'S PRICE. 
 
 In those days a messenger came riding post to Bourne. The 
 Countess Judith wished to visit the tomb of her late husband, 
 Earl Waltheof ; and asked hospitality on her road of Hereward 
 and Alftruda. 
 
 Of course she would come with a great train, and the trouble 
 and expense would be great. But the hospitality of those days, 
 when money was scarce, and wine scarcer still, was unbounded, 
 and a matter of course ; and Alftruda was overjoyed. No doubt, 
 Judith was the most unpopular person in England at that mo- 
 ment ; called by all a traitress and a fiend. But she was an old 
 acquaintance of Alftruda's ; she was the hing's niece ; she was 
 immensely rich, not only in manors of her own, but in manors, 
 as Domesday-book testifies, about Lincolnshire and the counties 
 round, which had belonged to her murdered husband, — which 
 she had too probably received as the price of her treason. So 
 Alftruda looked to her visit as to an honor which would enable 
 her to hold her head high among the proud Norman dames, who 
 despised her as the wife of an Englishman. 
 
 Hereward looked on the visit in a different light. He called 
 Judith ugly names, not undeserved ; and vowed that if she 
 entered his house by the front door he would go out at the back. 
 '• Tortrida prophesied," he said, " that she would betray her 
 husband, and she had done it." 
 
 " Torfrida prophesied ? Did she prophesy that I should betray 
 you likewise ? " asked Alftruda, in a tone of bitter scorn. 
 
 '' No, you handsome fiend : will you do it ? " 
 
 '' Yes ; I am a handsome fiend, am I not ? " and she bridled 
 up her magnificent beauty, and stood over him as a snake stands 
 over a mouse. 
 
 " Yes ; you are handsome, — beautiful : I adore you." 
 
 " And yet you will not do what I wish ? " 
 
 " What you wish ? What would I not do for you ? what have 
 I not done for you ? " 
 
 " Then receive Judith. And now, go hunting, and bring ma 
 in game. I want deer, roe, fowls ; anything and everything 
 from the greatest to the smallest. Go and hunt." 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 383 
 
 And Hereward trembled, and went. 
 
 There are flowers whose scent is so luscious that silly children 
 will plunge their heads among them, drinking in their odor, to 
 the exclusion of all fresh air. On a sudden sometimes comes a 
 revulsion of the nerves. The sweet odor changes in a^ moment 
 to a horrible one ; and the child cannot bear for years after the 
 scent which has once disgusted it by over-sweetness. 
 
 And so had it happened to Hereward. He did not love Alf- 
 truda now : he loathed, hated, dreaded her. And yet he could 
 not take his eyes for a moment off her beauty. He watched 
 every movement of her hand, to press it, obey it. He would 
 have preferred instead of hunting, simply to sit and watch her go 
 about the house at her work. He was spell-bound to a thing 
 which he regarded with horror. 
 
 But he was told to go and hunt ; and he w^ent, with all his 
 men, and sent home large supplies for the larder. And as he 
 hunted, the free, fresh air of the forest comforted him, the free 
 forest life came back to him, and he longed to be an outlaw once 
 more, and hunt on forever. He would not go back yet, at least 
 to face that Judith. So he sent back the greater part of his men 
 with a story. He was ill ; he was laid up at a farm-house far 
 away in the forest, and begged the countess to excuse his absence. 
 He had sent fresh supplies of game, and a goodly company of 
 his men, knights and housecarles, who would escort her royally 
 to Crowland. 
 
 Judith cared little for his absence ; he was but an English 
 barbarian. Alftruda was half glad to have him out of the way, 
 lest his now sullen and uncertain temper should break out ; and 
 bowed herself to the earth before Judith, who patronized her to 
 her heart's content, and offered her slyly insolent condolences on 
 being married to a barbarian. She hei'self could sympathize, 
 — who more ? 
 
 Alftruda might have answered with scorn that she was an 
 Adeliza, and of better English blood than Judith's Norman 
 blood ; but she had her ends to gain, and gained them. 
 
 For Judith was pleased to be so dehghted with her that she 
 kissed her lovingly, and said with much emotion that she re- 
 quired a friend who would support her through her coming trial ; 
 and who better than one who herself had suffered so much? 
 Would she accompany her to Crowland? 
 
 Alftruda was overjoyed, and away they went. 
 
 And to Crowland they came ; and to the tomb in the minster, 
 whereof men said already that the sacred corpse within worked 
 miracles of healing. 
 
 And Judith, habited in \yidow's weeds, approached tlie tomb, , 
 
384 PEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 and laid on it, as a peace-ofFwaig to the manes of the dead, 
 a splendid pall of silk and gold. 
 
 A fierce blast came howling off the fen, screeched through the 
 minster towers, swept along the dark aisles; and then, so say 
 the chroniclers, caught up the pall from off the tomb, and hurled 
 it far away into a corner. 
 
 " A miracle ! " cried all the monks at once ; and honestly 
 enough, like true Englishmen as they were. 
 
 " The Holy heart refuses the gift. Countess," said old Ulfketyl 
 in a voice of awe. 
 
 Judith covered her face with her hands, and turned away 
 trembling, and walked out, while all looked upon her as a thing 
 accursed. 
 
 Of her subsequent life, her folly, her wantonness, her disgrace, 
 her poverty, her wanderings, her wretched death, let others tell. 
 
 But these Normans believed that the curse of Heaven was 
 upon her from that day. And the best of them believed like- 
 wise that Waltheof's murder was the reason that William, her 
 uncle, prospered no more in life. 
 
 " Ah, saucy sir," said Alftruda to Ulfketyl, as she went out, 
 " there is one waiting at Peterborough now who will teach thee 
 manners, — Ingulf of Fontenelle, Abbot, in thy room." 
 
 " Does Hereward know that ? " asked Ulfketyl, looking keenly 
 at her. 
 
 " What is that to thee ? " said she, fiercely, and ilung out of 
 the minster. But Hereward did not know. There were many 
 things abroad of which she told him nothing.. 
 
 They went back and were landed at Deeping town, and mak- 
 ing their way along the King Street, or old Roman road, to 
 Bourne. Thereon a man met them, running. They had best 
 stay where they were. The Frenchmen were out, and there 
 was fighting up in Bourne. 
 
 Alt' truda's knights wanted to push on, to see after the Bourne 
 folk ; Judith's knights wanted to push on to help the French : 
 and the two parties were ready to fight each other. There was 
 a great tumult. The ladies had much ado to still it. 
 
 Alftruda said that it might be but a countryman's rumor ; that, 
 at least, it was shame to quarrel with their gue>ts. Afr last it 
 was agreed that two knights should gallop on into Bourne, and 
 bring back news. 
 
 But those knights never came back. So the whole body 
 moved on Bourne, and there they found out the news for them- 
 selves. 
 
 Hereward had gone home as soon as they had departed, and 
 sat down to eat and drink. His manner was sad and strange. 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 383 
 
 He drank much at the midday meal, and then lay down to sleep, 
 Betting guards as usual. 
 
 After a while he leapt up with a shriek and a shudder. 
 
 They ran to him, asking whether he was ill. 
 
 " 111 ? No. Yes. Ill at heart. I have had a dream, — an 
 Ugly dream. I thought that all the men I ever slew on earth 
 came to me with their wounds all gaping, and cried at me, 
 Our luck then, thy luck now.' Chaplain ! is there not a 
 verse somewhere, — Uncle Brand' said it to me on his death- 
 bed, — ' Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood 
 be shed'?" 
 
 " Surely the master is fey," whispered Guenock in fear to the 
 chaplain. ''Answer him out of Scripture." 
 
 "Text? None such that I know of," quoth Priest Ailward, 
 a graceless fellow who had taken Leofric's place. " If that 
 were the law, it would be but few honest men that would die in 
 their beds. Let us drink, and drive girls' fancies out of our 
 heads." 
 
 S6 they drank again ; and Hereward fell asleep once more. 
 
 ." It is thy turn to watch. Priest," said Guenock to Ailward. 
 " So keep the door well, for I am worn out with hunting," and 
 so fell asleep. 
 
 Ailward shuflBed into his harness, and went to the door. The 
 wine was heady; the sun was hot. In a few minutes he was 
 asleep likewise. 
 
 Hereward slept, who~ can tell how long ? But at last there 
 was a bustle, a heavy fall ; and waking with a start, he sprang 
 up. He saw Ailward lying dead across the gate, and above him 
 a crowd of fierce faces, some of which he knew too well. He 
 saw Ivo Tailkbois ; he saw Oger ; he saw his fellow-Breton, Sir 
 Raoul de Dol ; he saw Sir Ascelin ; he saw Sir Aswa, Thorold's 
 man ; he saw Sir Hugh of Evermue, his own son-in-law ; and 
 with them he saw, or seemed to see, the Ogre of Cornwall, and 
 O'Brodar of Ivark, and Dirk Hammerhand of Walcheren, and 
 many another old foe long underground ; and in his ear rang the 
 text, — " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be 
 shed." And Hereward knew that his end was come. 
 
 There was no time to put on mail or helmet. He saw the old 
 sword and shield hang on a perch, and tore them down. As he 
 girded the sword on Winter sprang to his side. 
 
 " I have three lances, — two for me and one for you, and we 
 Kin hold the door against twenty." 
 
 " Till they lire the house over our heads. Shall Hereward die 
 like a wolf in a cave ? Forward, all Hereward's men ! " 
 
 And he rushed out upon his fate. No man followed him, s;ive 
 17 X 
 
386 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Winter. The rest, disperst, unarmed, were running hither and 
 thither helplessly. 
 
 " Brotliers in arms, and brothers in Valhalla! " shouted Winter 
 as he rushed after him. 
 
 A knight was running to and' fro in the Court, shouting Here- 
 ward's name. " Where is the villain ? Wake ! We have caught 
 thee asleep at last." 
 
 " I am out," quoth Hereward, as the man almost stumbled 
 against him ; " and this is in." 
 
 And through shield, hauberk, and body, as says Gaima, went 
 Hereward's javelin, while all drew back, confounded for the mo- 
 ment at that mighty stroke. 
 
 " Felons ! " shouted Hereward, " your king has given me hi* 
 truce ; and do you dare break my house, and kill my folk ? Is 
 that your Norman law ? And is this your Norman honor ? — To 
 take a man unawares over his meat ? Come on, traitors all, and 
 get -what you can of a naked man ;* you will buy it dear — Guard 
 my back, Winter ! " 
 
 And he ran right at the press of knights ; and the fight began. 
 
 " He gored them like a wood-wild boar, 
 As long as that lance might endure,'* 
 says Gaimar. 
 
 ** And when that lance di^ break in hand, 
 Full fell enough he smote with brand." 
 
 And as he hewed on silently, with grinding teeth and bard, glit 
 tering eyes, of whom did he think ? Of Alftruda ? 
 
 Not so. But of that pale {?''ost, with great black hollow eyes, 
 who sat in Crowland, with thin bare feet, and sackcloth on her 
 tender limbs, watching, praying, longing, loving, uncomplaining. 
 That ghost had been for many a month the background of all his 
 thoughts and dreams. It was so clear before his mind's eye now, 
 that, unawares to himself, he shouted Torfrida ! as he struck, and 
 struck the harder at the sound of his old baltle-cry. 
 
 And now he is all wounded and be-bled ; and Winter, who has 
 fought back to back with him, has fallen on his face ; and Here 
 ward stands alone, turning from side to side, as he sweeps his 
 Bword right and left till the forest rings with the blows, but stag- 
 gering as he turns. Within a ring of eleven corpses he stands. 
 Who will go in and make the twelfth ? 
 
 A knight rushes in, to fall headlong down, cloven through the 
 helm : but Hereward's blade snaps short, and he hurls it away as 
 his foes rush in with a shout of joy. He tears his shield from his 
 left arm, and with it, says Gaimar, brains two more. 
 
 * L e. without armor. 
 
HKEEWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 8S7 
 
 ^ But the end is come. Taillebois and Evermue are behind 
 him now; four lances are through his back, and bear him down 
 to his knees. 
 
 "Cut off his head, Breton!" shouted Ivo. Raoul de Doi 
 • ushed forward, sword in hand. At that cry Hereward lifted up 
 his dying head. One stroke more ere it was all done forever. 
 
 And with ja shout of " Torfrida ! " which made the Bruneswald 
 ring, he hurled the shield full in the Breton's face, and fell forward 
 dead. 
 
 The knights drew their lances from that terrible corpse slowly 
 and with caution, as men who have felled a bear, yet dare not 
 step within reach of the seemingly lifeless paw. 
 
 " The dog died hard," said Ivo. " Lucky for us that Sir Asce- 
 lin had news of his knights being gone to Crowland. If he had 
 had them to back him, we had not done this deed to-day." 
 
 " I will make sure," said Ascelin, as he struck off the once fair 
 and golden head. 
 
 " Ho, Breton," cried Ivo, " the villain is dead. Get up, man, 
 and see for yourself. What ails him ? " 
 
 But when they lifted up Raoul de Dol his brains were running 
 down his face ; and all men stood astonished at that last mighty 
 stroke. 
 
 " That blow,'' said Ascelin, " will be sung hereafter by minstrel 
 and maiden as the last blow of the last Englishman. Knights, 
 we have slain a better knight than ourselves. If there had been 
 three more such men in this realm, they would have driven us 
 and King William back again into the sea." 
 
 So said Ascelin ; those words of his, too, were sung by many a 
 jougleur, Norman as well as English, in the times that were to 
 come. 
 
 " Likely enough," said Ivo ; " but that is the more reason why 
 we should set that head of his up over the hall-door, as a warning 
 to these English churls that their last man is dead, and their last 
 stake thrown and lost." 
 
 So perished '' the last of the English.'' 
 
 It was the third day. The Normans were drinking in the hall 
 of Bourne, casting lots among themselves who should espouse tlie 
 fair Alftruda, who sat weeping within over the headless corpse ; 
 when in the afternoon a servant came in, and told them iiow a 
 barge full of monks had come to the shore, and that they seemed 
 to be monks from Crowland. Ivo Taillebois bade drive them 
 back again into the barge with whips. But Hugh of Evermue 
 spoke up. 
 
 " I am lord and master in Bourne this day, and if Ivo have a 
 ciuarrel against St. Guthlac, I have none. This Ingulf of Fonte- 
 
388 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 nelle, the new abbot who has come thither since old Ulfketyl was 
 sent to prison, is a loyal man, and a friend of King William's, 
 and my friend he shall be till he behaves himself as my foe. Let 
 *hem come up in peace." 
 
 Taillebois growled and cursed : but the monks came up. and 
 alo the hall; and at their head Ingulf himself, to receive whom 
 uiU men rose, save Taillebois. . 
 
 " I come," said Ingulf, in most courtly French, " noble knights, 
 to ask a boon and in the name of the Most Merciful, on behalf of 
 a noble and unhappy lady. Let it be enough to have avenged 
 yourself on the living. Gentlemen and Christians war not against 
 the dead." 
 
 " No, no. Master Abbot ! " shouted Taillebois ; " Waltheof is 
 enough to keep Crowland in miracles for the present. You shall 
 not make a martyr of another Saxon churl. He wants the 
 barbarian's body, knights, and you will be fools if you let him 
 have it." 
 
 " Churl ? barbarian ? " said a haughty voice ; and a nun stepped 
 forward who had stood just behind Ingulf. She was clothed 
 entirely in black. Her bare feet were bleeding from the -stones ; 
 her hand, as she lifted it, was as thin as a skeleton's. 
 
 She threw back her veil, and showed to the knights what had 
 been once the famous beauty of Torfrida. * 
 
 But the beauty was long past away. Her hair was white aa 
 snow ; her cheeks were fallen in. Her hawk-like features were 
 all sharp and hard. Only in their hollow sockets burned still. the 
 great black eyes, so fiercely that all men turned uneasily from 
 her gaze. 
 
 " Churl ? barbarian ? " she said, slowly and quietly, but with 
 an intensity which was more terrible tlian rage. " Who gives 
 such names to one who wiis as much better born and better bred 
 tliiin those who now sit here, as he was braver and more terrible 
 than they ? The base wood-cUtter's son ? The upstart who would 
 have been honored had he taken service as yon dead man's 
 gi'oom ? " 
 
 " Talk to me so, and my stirrup leathers shall make acquaint- 
 ance with your sides," said Taillebois. 
 
 " Keep them for your wife. Churl ? Barbarian ? There is 
 not a man within this hall who is not a barbarian compared with 
 him. Which of you touched the harp lilie him ? Which of you, 
 like him, could move all hearts with song? Which of you knows 
 all tongues from Lapland to Provence? Which of }ou has been 
 the joy of ladies' bowers, the counsellor of earls and heroes, the 
 rival of a mighty king? Wliich of you will compare yourself 
 with h:m, — whom you dared not even strike, you and youi 
 
HEREWABD, THE LAST- OF THE ENGLISH. 389 
 
 robber crew, fairly in front, but skulked round him till he fell 
 pecked to death by you, as Lapland Skratlings peck to death the 
 bear. Ten years ago he swept this hall of such as you, and- hung 
 their heads upon yon gable outside ; and were he alive but one 
 five minutes again, this hall would be right cleanly swept again ! 
 Give me his body, — or bear forever the name of cowards, and 
 Torfrida's curse." 
 
 And she fixed her terrible eyes first on one, and then on 
 another, calling them by name. 
 
 " Ivo Taillebois, — basest of all — " 
 
 " Take the witch's accursed eyes off me ! " and he covered his 
 face with his hands. "I shall be overlooked, — planet struck. 
 Hew the witch down ! Take her away ! " 
 
 " Hugh of Evermue, — the dead man's daughter is yours, and 
 the dead man's lands. Are not these remembrances enough of 
 •'im ? Are you so fond of his memory that you need his corpse 
 ^kewise ? " 
 
 " Give it her ! Give it her ! " said he, hanging down his head 
 like a rated cur. 
 
 " Ascelin of Lincoln, once Ascelin of Ghent, — there was a 
 time when you would have done — what would you not ? — for 
 one glanoe.of Torfrida's eyes. — Stay. Do not deceive yourself, 
 fair sir, Torfrida means to ask no favor of you, or of living man. 
 But she commands you. Do the thing she bids, or with one 
 glance of her eye she sends you childless to your grave." 
 
 "•Madam ! Lady Torfrida ! What is there I would not do for 
 you ? What have I done now, save avenge your great wrong?" 
 
 Torfrida made no answer, but fixed steadily on him eyes 
 which widened every moment. 
 
 " But, madam," — and he turned shrinking from the fancied 
 spell, — " what would you have ? The — the corpse ? It is in 
 the keeping of — of another lady.'' 
 
 " So ? " said Torfrida, quietly. " Leave her to me " ; and she 
 swept past them all, and flung open the bower door at their backs, 
 discovering Alftruda sitting- by the dead. 
 
 The ruffians were so utterly appalled, not only by the false 
 powers of magic, but by veritable powers of majesty and elo- 
 quence, that they let her do what she would. 
 
 " Out ! " cried she, using a short and terrible epithet. " Out, 
 siren, with fairy's face and tail of fiend, and leave the husband 
 with his wife ! " 
 
 Alftruda looked up, shrieked ; and then, with the sudden pas- 
 sion of a weak nature, drew a little knife, and sprang up. 
 
 Ivo made a coarse jest. The Abbot sprang in : " For the sake 
 of all holy things, let there be no more murder here ! " 
 
390 - HEREWAKD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Torfrida smiled, and fixed her snake's eye upon her wretched 
 rival. 
 
 " Out ! woman, and choose thee a new husband among these 
 French gallants, ere I blast thee from head to foot with the lep- 
 rosy of Na,aman the Syrian." 
 
 Alftruda shuddered, and fled shrieking into an inner room. 
 
 " Now, knights, give me — that which hangs outside." 
 
 Ascelin hurried out, glad to escape. In a minute he returned. 
 
 The head was already taken down. A tall lay brother, the 
 moment he had seen it, had climbed the gable, snatched it away, 
 and now sat in a corner of the yard, holding it on his knees, talk- 
 ing to it, chiding it, as if it had been alive. "When men had 
 offered to take it, he had drawn a battle-axe from under his frock, 
 and threatened to brain all comers. And the monks had warned 
 off Ascelin, saying that the man was mad, and had Berserk fits 
 of superhuman strength and rage. 
 
 " He will give it me ! " said Torfrida, and went out. 
 
 " Look at that gable, foolish head," said the madman. " Ten 
 years agone, you and I took down from thence another head. 
 foolish head, to get yourself at last up into that same place ' 
 Why would you not be ruled by her, you foolish golden head ? " 
 
 " Martin ! " said Torfrida. 
 
 " Take-it and comb it, mistress, as you used to do. Comb oul 
 the golden locks again, fit to shine across the battle-field. She 
 has let them get all tangled into elf-knots, that lazy slut within." 
 
 Torfrida took it from his hands, dry-eyed, and went in. 
 
 Then the monks silently took up the bier, and all went forth, 
 and down the hill toward the fen. They laid the corpse within 
 the barge, and slowly rowed away. 
 
 And on by Porsand and by Asendyke, 
 By winding reaches on, and shining meres 
 Between gray reed-ronds and green alder-beds, 
 A dirge of monks and wail .of women rose 
 In vain to Heaven for the last Englishman; 
 Then died far off withia the boundless mist. 
 And left the Norman master of the land. 
 
 So Torfrida took the corpse home to Crowland, and buried it 
 in the choir, near the blessed murtyr St. Waltheof ; after which 
 she did not die, but lived on many years,* spending all day in 
 nursing and feeding the Countess Godiva, and lying all night on 
 Hereward's tomb, and praying that he might find grace and mercy 
 in that day. 
 
 And at last Godiva died ; and they took her away and buried 
 her with great pomp in her own minster church of Coventry. 
 
 * If Ingulf can be trusted, Torfrida died about A. D. 1085. 
 
HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 391 
 
 And after that Torfrkla died likewise ; because she had nothing 
 left for which to live. And they laid her in Hereward's grave, 
 and their dust is mingled to this day. 
 
 And Leofric the priest lived on to a good old age, and above 
 all things he remembered the deeds and the sins of his master, 
 and wrote them in a book, and this is what remains thereof 
 
 But when Martin Lightfootdied, no man has said; for no man 
 in those days took account of such poor churls and running serv- 
 ing-men. 
 
 And Hereward's comrades were all scattered abroad, some 
 maimed, some blinded, some witli tongues cut out, to beg by the 
 ■wayside, or crawl into convents, and then die ; while their sisters 
 and daughters, ladies born and bred, were the slaves of grooms 
 and scullions from beyond the sea. 
 
 And so, as sang Thorkel Skallason, — 
 
 " Cold heart and bloody hand * 
 Now rule English land." 
 
 And after that things waxed even worse and worse, for sixty 
 years and more ; all through the reigns of the two Williams, and 
 of Henry Beauclerc, and of Stephen ; till men saw visions and por- 
 tents, and thought that the foul fiend was broken loose on earth. 
 And they whispered oftener and ofteiier that the soul of Here- 
 ward haunted the Bruneswald, where he loved to hunt the dun 
 deer and the roe. And in the Bruneswald, when Henry of Poi- 
 tou was made abbot,t nien saw — let no man think lightly of the 
 marvel which we are about to relate, for it was well known all 
 over the country — upon the Sunday, when men sing, " Exsurge 
 quare, O Domine,'' many hunters hunting, black, and tall, and 
 loathly, and their hounds were black and ugly with wide eyes, and 
 they rode on black horses and black bucks. And they saw them 
 in the very deer-park of the town of Peterborough, and in all the 
 woods to Stamford ; and the monks heard the blasts of the horns 
 which they blew in the night. Men of truth kept watch upon 
 thera, and said that there might be well about twenty or thirty 
 horn-blowers. This was seen and heard all that Lent until Easter, 
 and the Norman monks of Peterborough said how it was Here- 
 ward, doomed to wander forever with Apollyon and all his crew, 
 because he had stolen the riches of the Golden Borough : but the 
 poor folk knew better, and said that the mighty outlaw was re- 
 joicing in the chase, blowing his horn for Englishmen to rise 
 against the French ; and therefore it was that he was seen first 
 on " Arise, O Lord " Sunday. 
 
 But they were so sore trodden down that they could mjver 
 
 * Laiiig's Heimskriiin;lo. 
 
 t Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 1127. 
 
392 HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 rise ; for the French * had filled the land full of castles. " The; 
 greatly oppressed the wretched people by making them work a 
 these castles ; and when the castles were finished, they filled then 
 with devils and evil men. They took those whom they su.^pectei 
 of having any goods, both men and women, and they put thera ii 
 prison for their gold and silver, and tortured them with pains un 
 speakable, for never were any martyrs tormented as these were 
 They hung some by their feet, and smoked thera with foul smoke 
 some by the thumbs, or by the head, and put burning things oi 
 their feet. They put a knotted string round their heads, am 
 twisted it till it went into the brain. They put them in dungeon; 
 wherein were adders, and snakes, and toads, and thus wore tlysn 
 out. Some they put into a crucet-house, — that is, into a ches 
 that was short and narrow, and they put sharp stones therein, anc 
 crushed the man so that they broke all his bones. There wen 
 hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in many of the castles 
 which two or three men had enough to do to carry. This SacheU' 
 tege was made thus : It was fastened to a beam, having a sharj 
 iron to go round a man's throat and neck, so that he might nc 
 ways sit, nor lie, nor sleep, but he must bear all the iron. Manj 
 thousands they wore out with hunger. . . . They were continuallj 
 levying a tax from the towns, which they called Truserie, and 
 when the wretched townsfolk had no more to give, then burnt 
 they all the towns, so that well mightest thou walk a whole day's 
 journey or ever thou shouldest see a man settled in a town, or its 
 lands tilled. . . . 
 
 " Then was corn dear, and flesh, and cheese, and butter, for there 
 was none in the land. Wretched men starved with hunger. 
 Some lived on alms who had been once rich. Some fled the 
 country. Never was there more misery, and never heathens act- 
 ed worse than these." 
 
 For now the sons of the Church's darlings, of the Crusaders 
 whom the Pope had sent, beneath a gonfalon blessed by him, to 
 destroy the liberties of England, turned, by a just retribution, 
 upon that very Norman clergy who had abetted all their iniqui- 
 ties in the name of Rome. " They spared neither church nor 
 churchyard, but took all that was valuable therein, and then 
 burned the church and all together. Neither did they spare the 
 lands of bishops, nor of abbots, nor of priests ; but they robbed 
 the monks and clergy, and every man plundered his neighbor 
 as much as he could. If two or three men came riding to a town, 
 all the townsfolk fled before them, and thought that they were 
 robbers. The bishops and clergy were forever cursing them ; 
 but this to them \i»as nothing, for they were all accursed and for- 
 
 * Ariglu-Siixoii CUrouiolc, A. D. 1137. 
 
flEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 393 
 
 Bworn and reprobate. The earth bare no corn : j ou might as 
 well have tilled the sea, for all the land was ruined by such deeds, 
 and it was said openly that Christ and his saints slept." 
 
 And so was avenged the blood of Harold and his brothers, of 
 Edwin and Morcar, of Waltheof and Hereward. 
 
 And those who had the spirit of Herewai'd in them fled to the 
 merry greenwood, and became bold outlaws, with Robin Hood, 
 Scarlet, and John, Adam Bell, and Clym of the Cleugh, and 
 William of Cloudeslee ; and watched with sullen joy the Norman 
 robbers tearing in pieces each other, and the Church who had blest 
 their crime. 
 
 And they talked and sung of Hereward, and all his doughty 
 deeds, over the hearth in lone farm-houses, or in the outlaw's lodge 
 beneath the hollins green ; and all the burden of their song was, 
 " Ah that Hereward were alive again ! " for they knew not that 
 Hereward was alive forevermore ; that only his husk and shell 
 lay mouldering there in Crowland choir ; that above them, and 
 around them, and in them, destined to raise them out of that 
 bitter bondage, and mould them into a great nation, and the 
 parents of still greater nations in lands as yet unknown, brooded 
 the immortal spirit of Hereward, now purged from all earthly 
 dross, even the spirit of Freedom, which can never die. 
 
 17* 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 HOW DEEPING FEN WAS DRAINED. 
 
 Ill war and disorder, ruin and death, cannot last forever. 
 They are by their own nature exceptional and suicidal, and spend 
 themselves with what they feed on. And then the true laws of 
 God's universe, peace and order, usefulness and life, will reassert 
 themselves, as they have been waiting all along to do, hid in God's 
 presence from the strife of men. 
 
 And even so it was with Bourne. 
 
 Nearly eighty years after, in the year of Grace 1155, there 
 might have been seen sitting, side by side and hand in hand, upon 
 a sunny bench on the Bruneswald slope, in the low December 
 sun, an old knight and an old lady, the master and mistress of 
 Bourne. 
 
 Much had changed since Hereward's days. The house below 
 had been raised a whole story. There were fresh herbs and 
 flowers in the garden, unknown at the time of the Conquest. 
 But the great change was in the fen, especially away toward 
 Deeping on the southern horizon. 
 
 Where had been lonely meres, foul watercourses, stagnant slime, 
 there were now great dikes, rich and fair corn and grass lands, 
 rows of pure white cottages. The newly-drained land swarmed 
 with stocks of new breeds : horses and sheep from Flanders, cattle 
 from Normandy ; for Richard de Rulos was the first — : as far as 
 history tells — of that noble class of agricultural squires, who 
 are England's blessing and England's pride. 
 
 " For this Richard de Rulos," says Ingulf, or whoever wrote in 
 his name, " who had married the daughter and heiress of Hugh of 
 Ev.ermue, Lord of Bourne and Deepin;:, b;'ing a man of agri- 
 cultural pursuits, got permission from the monks of Crowland, 
 for twenty marks of silver, to enclose as much as he would of the 
 common marshes. So he shut out the Welland by a strong em- 
 bankment, and building thereon numerous tenements and cottages, 
 in a short time he formed a large ' vill,' marked out gardens, and 
 cultivated fields ; while, by shutting out the river, he found in the 
 meadow land, which had been lately deep lakes and impassable 
 marshes (wherefore the place was called Deepiug, the deep 
 
HEEEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 395 
 
 meadow), most fertile fields and desirable lands, and out of 
 sloughs and bogs accur^sed made quiet a garden of pleasaunce." 
 
 So there the good man, the beginner of the good work of cen- 
 turies, sat looking out over the fen, and listening to the music 
 which came on the southern breeze — above the low of the 
 kine, and the clang of the wild-fowl settling down to rest — from 
 the bells of Crowland minster far away. 
 
 They were not the same bells which tolled for Hereward and 
 Torfrida. Those had run down in molten streams upon that fatal 
 night when Abbot Ingulf leaped out of bed to see the vast wooden 
 sanctuary wrapt in one sheet of roaring flame, from the careless- 
 ness of a plumber who had raked the ashes over his fire in the 
 bell-tower, and left it to smoulder through the night. 
 
 Then perished all the riches of Crowland ; its library too, of more 
 than seven hundred volumes, with that famous Nadir or Orrery, 
 the like whereof was not in all England, wherein the seven 
 planets were represented, each in their proper metals. And even 
 worse, all the charters of the monastery perished, a loss which in- 
 volved the monks thereof in centuries of lawsuits, and compelled 
 them to become as industrious and skilful forgers of documents 
 as were to be found in the minsters of the middle age. 
 
 But Crowland minster had been rebuilt in greater glory than 
 ever, by the help of the Norman gentry round. Abbot Ingulf, 
 finding that St. Guthlac's plain inability to take care of himself 
 had discredited him much in the fen-men's eyes, fell back, Nor- 
 man as he was, on the virtues of the holy martyr, St. Waltheof, 
 whose tomb he opened with due reverence, and found the body 
 as whole and uncorrupted as on the day on which it was buried : 
 and the head united to the body, while a fine crimson line around 
 the neck was the only sign remaining of his decollation. 
 
 On seeing which Ingulf " could not contain himself for joy : 
 and interrupting the response which the brethren were singing, 
 with a loud voice began the hymn ' Te Deum Laudamus,' on 
 which the chanter taking it up, enjoined the rest of the brethren 
 to sing it." After which Ingulf — who had never seen Waltheof 
 in life, discovered that it was none other than he whom he h;id 
 seen in a vision at Fontenelle, as an earl mo-^t gorgeously arrayed, 
 with a tore of gold about his neck, and with him an abbot, two 
 bishops, and two saints, thetwo former being Usfran and Ausbert, 
 the abbots, St. Wandresigil of Fontenelle, and the two saints, of 
 course St. Guthiac and St. Neot. 
 
 Whereon, crawling on his hands and knees, he kijsed the face 
 of the holy martyr, and " perceived such a sweet odor proceeding 
 from the holy body, as he never remembered to have smelt, either 
 in the palace of the king, or in Syria with all its aromatic herbs." 
 
396 HEREWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Quid plura ? What more was needed for a convent of burnt 
 out monks ? St. SValtheof was translated in state to the sidi 
 of St. Guthlac ; and the news of this translation of the hoi; 
 martyr being spread throughout the country, multitudes of th 
 faithful flocked daily to the tomb, and offering up their vow 
 there, tended in a great degree " to resuscitate our monastery." 
 
 But more. The virtues of St. Waltlieof were too great no 
 to turn themselves, or be turned, to some practical use. So il 
 not in the days of Ingulf, at least in those of Abbot Joffrid whi 
 came after him, St. Waltheof began, says Peter of Blois, ti 
 work wonderful deeds. " The blind received their sight, tb 
 deaf their hearing, the lame their power of walking, and thi 
 dumb their power of speech ; while each day troops innumerabli 
 of other sick persons were arriving by every road, as to the ver 
 fountain of their safety, . . . and by the offerings of the pilgrim 
 who came flocking in from every part, the revenues of thi 
 monastery were increased in no small degree." 
 
 Only one wicked Norman monk of St. Alban's, Audwin b; 
 name, dared to dispute the sanctity of the martyr, calling him i 
 wicked traitor who had met with his deserts. In vain did Abbo 
 Joffrid, himself a Norman from St. Evroult, expostulate witi 
 the inconvenient blasphemer. He launched out into invectivi 
 beyond measure ; till on the spot, in presence of the said father 
 he was seized with such a stomach-ache, that he went home t( 
 St. Alban's, and died in a few days ; after which all went wel 
 with Crowland, and the Norman monks who worked the Englisl 
 martyr to get money out of the English whom they had en 
 slaved. 
 
 And yet, — so strangely mingled for good and evil are thi 
 works of men, — that lying brotherhood of Crowland setup, ii 
 those very days, for pure love of learning and of teaching learn 
 ing, a little school of letters in a poor town hard by, which be 
 came, under their auspices, the University of Cambridge. 
 
 So the bells of Crowland were restored, more melodious thai 
 ever ; and Richard of Rulos doubtless had his share in thei: 
 restoration. And that day they were ringing with a will, an( 
 for a good" reason ; for that day had come the news, that Henrj 
 Plantagenet was crowned king of England. 
 
 " ' Lord,' " said the good old knight, " ' now lettest thou thy ser 
 vant depart in peace.' This day, at last, he sees an English kinj 
 head the English people." 
 
 " God grant," said the old lady, " that he may be such a Ion 
 to Eiljgland as thou hast been to Bourne," 
 
 " If he will be, — and better A\r will he be, by God's grace 
 from what I hear of him, than ever I liav(; been, — he mus 
 
HEKEWAED, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. 397 
 
 learn that which I learnt from thee, — to understand these Eng- 
 lishmen, and know what stout and trusty prudhomraes they are 
 all, down to the meanest serf, when once one can humor their 
 sturdy independent tempers." 
 
 " And he must learn, too, the lesson which thou didst teach mc, 
 when I would have liad thee, in the pride of youth, put on the 
 magic armor of my ancestors, and win me fame in every tourna- 
 ment and battle-field Blessed be the day when Richard of 
 Rules said to me, ' If others dare to be men of war, I dare more ; 
 for I dare to be a man of peace. Have patience with me, and I 
 will win for thee and for myself a renown more lasting, before 
 God and man, than ever was won with lance ! ' Do you remem- 
 ber those words, Richard mine ? " 
 
 The old man leant his head upon his hands. " It may be that 
 not those words, but the deeds which God has caused to follow 
 them, may, by Christ's merits, bring us a short purgatory and a 
 long heaven." 
 
 " Amen. Only whatever grief we may endure in the next 
 life for our sins, may we endure it as we have the griefs of this 
 life, hand in hand." 
 
 " Amen, Torfrida. There is one thing more to do before we 
 die. The tomb in Crowland. Ever since the fire . blackened it, 
 it has seemed to me too poor and mean to cover the dust which 
 once held two such noble souls. Let us send over to Normandy 
 for fair white stone of Caen, and let carve a tomb worthy of thy 
 grandparents." 
 
 " And what shall we write thereon ? " 
 
 " What but that which is there already ? ' Here lies the last 
 of the English.' " 
 
 " Not so. We will write, — ' Here lies thS last of the old 
 English.' But upon thy tomb, when thy time comes, the monks 
 of Crowland shall write, — ' Here lies the first of the new Eng- 
 lish ; who, by the inspiration of God, began to drain the Fens.' " 
 
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