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 from 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 him, 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 day.

Then those three went to Peterborough, and asked for Abbot 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 wept upon his neck, though he had not wept upon his mother's.

Then Brand held him at arms' 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 prophesied 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 adventures, 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 knights 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 God 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 as 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 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 Goldenbregh 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 English squire could be the rival and the leader of French and Flemish 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 Christendom, 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.

"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 forgiveness. 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 Hereward'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 English monk-made knights as spurious and adulterine, unworthy 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." [Footnote: Almost word for word from the "Life of Hereward."]

"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 he to himself.

"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 Egelric 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 courage 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 morning 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 full 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 oppressed, and the monks the servants of God.

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 better 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 his companions 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 off 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 surrounded with myth and mystery, Hereward 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 IVO 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, makes a Countess of her, and marries her up to some Norman coxcomb 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 difficult to make him, 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 father's 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 himself in Latin: "The bloodthirsty and deceitful man shall not live out half his days. Nevertheless my trust shall be in Thee, O 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 English swine. Hang him!" shouted he, as the by-standers fell on 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 shrill 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 still not uncommon in the fens,—a quilted leather coat, a double-bladed axe slung over his shoulder 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 his 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 Wrokesham Bridge last night."

"Set free! Are they not hanged and dead?"

"We—we dared not tell you. But he came upon us—"

"Single-handed, you cowards?"

"Sir, he is not a man, but a witch or a devil. He asked us what we did there. One of our men laughed at his long neck 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 Raher, Wulfric the Heron, of Wrokesham in Norfolk."

"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 Wrokesham 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 rebellion 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 of Crowland's, 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 horseman 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.

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'll 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 heart, 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 answered, 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 camest out of it?"

For Sir Robert had, like Edgar in Shakespear's Lear, "reserved himself a blanket, else had we all been shamed."

But very little more did either he, his lady, and his three children 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 Maupas, 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 again."

"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, 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 girl 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 family 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 proclaimed Prince Edgar King."

"A king of words! What care I, or you, as long as the Mamzer, God bless him! is a king of deeds?"

"They have done their deeds, though, too. Gospatrick and Marlesweyn are back out of Scotland. They attacked Robert de Comines [Footnote: Ancestor of the Comyns of Scotland.] at Durham, and burnt him in his own house. There 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 France as poor as we left it. Now, what am I expected to do? What says Gilbert of Ghent, the wise man of Lic—nic—what the pest do you call that outlandish place, which no civilized lips can pronounce?"

"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 will 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 fist,—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 virtues, they cannot deny this,—that thou art a most wise and valiant captain."

"That am I," quoth Taillebois, too much pleased with the praise to care about being tutoye 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 HEREWARD SAILED FOE ENGLAND ONCE AND FOR 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 Matilda 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 Flanders 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 proclaimed 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 throne first. And how will he do that? Will the men of the Danelagh, much less the Northumbrians, ever rally round an Atheling of Cerdic's 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 all.

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, more 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. Cuthbert 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, whatever befell, he still would hunt—in the forest of Dean.

And still Swend and his Danes had not sailed; and Hereward walked to and fro in his house, impatiently, and bided his time.

In July, Baldwin died. Arnoul, the boy, was Count of Flanders, 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, breathless, 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 Lincolnshire 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 long 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."

"Then, where is the king?"

"He is in Denmark, and I command his fleet; and with me are Canute and Harold, Sweyn's sons, and earls 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 paltry 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 Torfrida 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,—

"Osbiorn 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 Osbiorn,—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.

Then the earls bade him take Hereward's advice. But he 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 Ipswich, 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 Hereward 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.

At last they came to Yarmouth. Osbiorn 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. Osbiorn himself could not refuse so 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 HEREWARD 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 so ill that she could not even say her prayers. Packed uncomfortably 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 fancies. 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 alive with hoarse voices; and again and again she started from fitful slumber 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 least, 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 mumbling, her soft southern heart quite broken 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 weakness. And so it befell that, by the time they made the coast, she had (as the old chronicler says) "altogether conquered all womanly softness."

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; 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 them, 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? O, 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 my 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 shame"

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 God 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 first day, with right good news. There was not a Frenchman in the town. Neither was there, they said, in Spalding. Ivo Taillebois was still 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 Cambridge 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 summoned 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 whereof 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 Leofric 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 Leofric 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 hearers all the acts of giants and warriors out of the fables of the ancients or from faithful report, and commit them to writing, that he might keep England in mind thereof." Which Leofric was afterwards ordained priest, probably in Ely, by Bishop Egelwin 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 estates. So I must be seeing to the poor."

"But you cannot speak their tongue."

"Can I not? Do you think that in the face of coming to England 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 Castle 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 otherwise 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. That he therefore knew naught of the matter. That if Hereward 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 king.

To him came "Guenoch and Alutus Grogan, foremost in all 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 Douti and Outi, [Footnote: Named in Domesday-book (?).] the twins, alike in face and manners;" and Godric, the knight of Corby, nephew of the Count of Warwick; and Tosti of Davenesse, his kinsman; and Azer Vass, whose father had possessed Lincoln Tower; and Leofwin Moue, [Footnote: Probably the Leofwin who had lands in Bourne.]—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 honorable house of Pratt of Ryston), so called from his "Praet" or craft, "because he had oft escaped cunningly when taken by the enemy, having more than once killed his keepers;" and the steward 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 Ramsey 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, which 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. But honor to their very names! Honor to the last heroes of the old English race!

These valiant gentlemen, with the housecarles 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, like true Englishmen, knew nothing.

The art of war has changed little, if at all, by the introduction of gunpowder. The campaigns of Hannibal and Caesar 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 and 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 manoeuvring troops; to his care for their food and for their transport, possibly, also, to his training them in that art of fighting on horseback in which the men of Wessex, if not the Anglo-Danes 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 Normandy, 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 conquering against such strange odds, as enshrouded the guerilla captain in an atmosphere 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 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 Gilbert 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 Wulfric 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 Yare 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. How 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 staunch, 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 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 Ramsey, 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 English 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 Peterborough?"

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 Waltheof,—news, too, that he was between them and Lincoln.

"Then the sooner we are with him, the better, for he will find himself in trouble ere long, 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.

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 so 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 Hereward 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 was off, 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 the lad, raising his head and letting it fall again.

"It is the Atheling!" cried Leofric.

Hereward rose, and stood over the boy.

"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, apostrophizing the unconscious Atheling,—"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 henceforth, not with a straw malkin like thee, which the very crows 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, you know. Well, let us do it handsomely, 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 and all 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 husting, and anointed at York, as well as Winchester or London. 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 Siwardsson, 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 astonished 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 English 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 Siwardsson, who with his single axe kept the gate of York against all the army of the French; and who shall keep against them all England, 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 been gigantic, but for the too great length of neck and limb, which made him loose and slow in body, as he was somewhat loose and slow in mind. An old man's child, although 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 Hereward 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 roughly 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, raising forces in the name of the Atheling, when, as they were straggling 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 I sleep on his skin every night, and carry his picture in my banner 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 all 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 Frenchmen."

"Very nobly spoken. But those sons of Karl—and I think you said you had killed a kinsman of mine?"

"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. Guthlac and all saints forbid!" said Waltheof, crossing 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 Hereward. "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 Atheling, 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 Marlesweyn. 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 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 Mamzer."

"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 a man looks to the salvation of his own soul, he must needs think thereof seriously, at least."

"O, 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, Morcar'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."

"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 befallen 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 Ulfsson, 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 discipline, the knights wheeled round; the men-at-arms followed them; and Waltheof and the Atheling were left to themselves on Lincoln Heath.



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 Marlesweyn, and Earl Gospatrick with the men of Northumberland, riding and marching joyfully with an immense army"; not having the spirit of prophecy, or foreseeing 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 prudence; 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? He would have crowned Satanas himself, had he only proved himself king de facto—as he asserts himself to be de jure—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 Roman walls on which had floated the flag of Constantine the Great—were surely strong enough to keep out men without battering-rams, balistas, or artillery 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 Gospatrick 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 Aldred—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, commanding 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? O God! is it come to this?"

"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 window 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 Waltheof, 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 Roman 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 coward 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 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 William. 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 thoroughly he did his work whenever he had a chance.



CHAPTER XXV.

HOW HEREWARD FOUND A WISER MAN IN ENGLAND THAN HIMSELF.

There have been certain men so great, that he who describes them in words, much more pretends to analyze their inmost feelings, must be a very great man himself, or incur the accusation of presumption. And such a great man was William of Normandy,—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.