"The prisoner, Sire," quoth the knight, trembling, "is—is—"

"You have not murdered him?"

"Heaven forbid! but—"

"He broke his bonds and escaped?"

"Gnawed them through, Sire, as we suppose, and escaped through the mire in the dark, after the fashion of these accursed frogs of Girvians."

"But did he tell you naught ere he bade you good morning?"

"He told as 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 side?"

"He that fought Richard 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 Azer 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 HEREWARD PLAYED THE POTTER; AND HOW HE CHEATED THE KING.

They 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 physicians, was supposed to do? [Footnote: The Cornish—the stoutest, tallest, and most prolific race of the South—live on hardly anything else but fish and vegetables.] 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 myself 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 little 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."

"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 himself.

"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 he 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 Swallow 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 thou 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 thee. 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."

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. Robin Hood himself may have trolled out many a time, in doggrel strain, how Hereward 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 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,—pansion,— 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 Hereward 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 ostentatious care.

"Thou canst sleep there on the rushes. I have naught to give thee to eat."

"Naught needs naught," said Hereward; threw himself down on 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 the 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 court of King William himself, while it drowned all men in preternatural slumber.

Hereward was very much frightened. He believed as devoutly 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 being 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. Felix 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 carried 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.

"And is this all?"

"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 like 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, clambering 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 curse 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 stooping 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 counted the tinkling sound.

"The ninth day,—the ninth day, and the king shall take Ely," said 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 fixedly 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 English. "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 I shall pay myself."

"What does he mean?"

"He came out of the isle ten days ago, nigh on to evening, and drove off 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 Earl 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 scullions 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 temper, 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 the kitchen to lecher, lick the platters), and all the foul-mouthed rascality of a great mediaeval household; and attacked Hereward cum fureis 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 likely 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 interpreter, "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, and here are you outraging them, and driving them mad and desperate, just that you may get a handle against them, and thus rob the poor wretches and drive them into the forest. From the lowest to the highest,—from Ivo Taillebois there down to you cook-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, speaking 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 drew 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 William 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, mercy, Lord King! 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 depend on the temper in which William returned. So he was thrust into an outhouse, and there locked 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.

"Hold 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 say.

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 burrow, 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.

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 Somersham is in Huntingdonshire, many a mile on the opposite side of Ely Isle.

And of all those knights that followed him, none 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, looking up at his horse's heaving flanks and wagging tail, and wondering 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 shalt 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 XXXI.

HOW THEY FOUGHT AGAIN AT ALDRETH.

Hereward 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 with 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 the women of Ely go rather in procession to St. Etheldreda's well, there above the fort at Aldreth, and pray St. Etheldreda to be with 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 fetters 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."

"There, there, say no more. How hard-hearted war makes even us women! There, help me to take off this rough sackcloth, and dress myself again."

Meanwhile William had moved his army again to Cambridge, and on to Willingham field, and there he began to throw up those "globos 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 fishermen 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 without 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 'globos' 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 exercise 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 terrible 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 one inspired, wiser and loftier than themselves.

And so it befell, that when the men marched down to Haddenham that afternoon, Torfrida rode at their head on a white charger, robed from throat to ankle in sackcloth, her fetters clanking on her limbs. But she called on the English to see in her the emblem of England, captive yet, unconquered, and to break her fetters and the worse fetters 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. Etheldreda 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 prophetess! We will 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 all 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 heavy 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 off, and great stones and heavy lances hurtled through the air.

"Back!" shouted Torfrida, raised almost to madness, by fasting, self-torture, and religious 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 her feet outside the fort.

"The cowards are fleeing already. Let your men go, Sir King!" shouted Taillebois.

"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, looking 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 William, 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 Frenchman and Englishman. Only twenty yards. Not only the arrows and arblast quarrels, but heavy hand-javelins, flew across every moment; every now and then 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 their comrades, who slipped, and splashed, and sank, holding out vain hands 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 stragglers 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 broomstick-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 jabbering 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 line of flame was leaping above the reed bed, crackling and howling 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 tried 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 bridle and dragged him, in spite of himself, through the cowering, 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 onwards, 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 between 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 off 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 again that blood-stained pass. The English 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 dying day.



CHAPTER XXXII.

HOW 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 mastermind 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 remnant 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 Ranaldsson, who was still in Ely, not only because he had promised 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 Egelwin, Abbot Thurstan, and the monks of Ely were in rebellion, not only against King William, but more or less against the Pope of Rome. They might be excommunicated. The minster lands might be taken away.

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 little 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 mutinied: 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 chronicler 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 especially 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 had 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 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 Gospatrick, why not to Edwin?"

"Because," laughed Hereward, "he wanted Waltheof, and he does not want you and Edwin. He can keep Mercia quiet without your help. Northumbria and the Fens he cannot without Waltheof's. They are a rougher set as you go east and north, as you should know already, and must have one of themselves over them 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 tyrant, as he looked on the fair face of him he had so loved, and so wronged; for they say he wept.

The knights and earls stood round, amazed and awed, as they saw iron tears ran down Pluto's cheek.

"How came this here, knaves?" thundered he at last.

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 Chester 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 bring the head to the king.

This, or something like it, was their story. But who could believe 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 before 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 Hereward sits in Ely?"

"Splendeur Dex!" said William, "them 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 [Footnote: 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, but from monks.]—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 religious, who are vowed to holy poverty, out of misery, videlicet, the oppression of barbarous customs, and maketh them households 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. [Footnote: The alleged profligacy and sensuality of the English Church before the Conquest rests merely on a few violent and vague expressions of the Norman monks who displaced them. No facts, as far as I can find, have ever been alleged. 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.]

"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 that William, Taillebois, Guader, Warrenne, short-spoken, hard-headed, hard-swearing warriors, could allow, complacently, a smooth churchman to dawdle on like this, counting 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 probably 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 convert 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 Isle of Ely,—those lands being, as is known, large, and of great value,—Quid plura? Why burden your exalted intellect by detailing 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!"

"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 William swore.

"I promised my soldiers to burn 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. Rough I may be, false was I never."

"That thou wert not," said William, who needed Taillebois much, and feared him somewhat; and remarked something meaning 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 daughter, 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,—Hereward's niece, Torfrida's niece."

"No pay, no play, saidst thou?—so say I. 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 thou mayest gnaw their bones."

"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 him 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.

"The 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 last," said William to himself, as they parted. "To murder these English nobles, to marry their daughters 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 Taillebois, 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 Torfrida?"

"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 woman's sharpshooting at fifteen score yards off, beside a deep stream between. No. The woman has courage,—and beauty, too, you say?"

"What of that, O Prince?" said the Italian. "Who more beautiful—if report be true—than those lost women who dance 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 curry favor.

"And this woman was no vulgar witch. That sort of personage 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 he is since he came into this English air, which changes some folks mightily," with a hardly disguised sneer at Ivo; "but in Flanders 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 served me as he has served many a better man before and since"

"Over thy horse's croup, eh?" said William.

"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 Richilda came to Bruges, Torfrida was always with her while Hereward was at the wars.

"The woman is a manifest and notorious witch," said the secretary.

"It seems so indeed," said William, with something like a sigh. And so were Torfrida's early follies 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 ransom, 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 instead, since your Majesty is in so gracious a humor?" said Ivo.

"Alftruda! Who is she? Ay, I recollect her. Young Dolfin'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."

"He is very kind, and we all owe him thanks," said Ivo, 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 husband."

"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 demands that she shall be given up forthwith to the ecclesiastical power, to be judged as she deserves."

"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 care 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 his life, on condition 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 punishment 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 he would keep it.

And so the matter ended.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

HOW THE MONKS OF ELY DID AFTER THEIR 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 provisions 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 treason, 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 beating heart. She heard words now incomprehensible. That men 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 cling to wealth,—struggle, 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.

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 effect. 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 Haddenham Hill.

The 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 in 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 violently towards 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 he had not returned till an hour since. Then he came back breathless, with the news that the French army was 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 King Ranald?"

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 Hereward, 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; I 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 island, 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 I alone brave St. Etheldreda's wrath?"

"Alwyn, the valiant, afraid of a dead girl!"

"Blaspheme not, Hereward! She may hear you at this moment! 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 say 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 Alwyn. "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! Hereward, 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 quickly 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.

She burst into an agony of weeping.

"My stars at least foretold me nothing but woe, since first I saw 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 low murmur from the men made them look up. They were near enough to the town to hear,—only too much. They heard the tramp 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 fostering 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 situation. 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 gallows 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. And the men, in the sudden delight of finding any place, any purpose, answered with a lusty cheer.

"Brave hearts," said Hereward. "We will live and die together like Englishmen."

"We will, we will, Viking."

"Where shall we stow the mare?" asked Geri, "the boats 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 Hereward'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 unto 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 themselves among the high reeds. There two of them—one Starkwolf 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 swords to shave each other's heads as well as they could. But at 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 Nene, 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, behold, ail 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 vengeance; 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 conquerors. 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 English 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 apostolic injunction, to submit to the powers that be, because they are ordained," &c. But they found the hand of the powers that be a very heavy one. Forty knights were billeted on them 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," beside 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 images of holy virgins of much furniture of gold and silver." [Footnote: 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 has manifest errors of fact; but valeat quantum.] So that poor St. Etheldreda had no finery in which to appear on festivals, and went in russet for many years after. The which money (according to another [Footnote: Stow's "Annals."]) 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 country; and shut him up in Abingdon. A few months after, the 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 immense 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.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

HOW HEREWARD 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 outlaws, 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 sleeping 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 hollins 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,"

and

"Swannes and fesauntes 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 under 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 cared less and less for

"The thornie wayes, the deep valleys, The snowe, the frost, the rayne, The colde, 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—

"Amonge the wylde dere, such an archere As men say that ye be, He may not fayle of good vitayle Where is so great plente: 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 I, belyye There lives not 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";—