Hereward, the Last of the English

Then the girl insisted, prayed, at last commanded them to take her to Crowland. And to Crowland they came.

Leofric left the girl at the nun’s house door, and went into the monastery, where he had friends enow, runaway and renegade as he was. As he came into the great court, whom should he meet but Martin Lightfoot, in a lay brother’s frock.

“Aha? And are you come home likewise? Have you renounced the Devil and this last work of his?”

“What work? What devil?” asked Leofric, who saw method in Martin’s madness. “And what do you here, in a long frock?”

“Devil? Hereward the devil. I would have killed him with my axe; but she got it from me, and threw it in among the holy sisters, and I had work to get it again. Shame on her, to spoil my chance of heaven! For I should have surely won heaven, you know, if I had killed the devil.”

After much beating, about, Leofric got from Martin the whole tragedy.

And when he heard it, he burst out weeping.

“O Hereward, Hereward! O knightly honor! O faith and troth and gratitude, and love in return for such love as might have tamed lions, and made tyrants mild! Are they all carnal vanities, works of the weak flesh, bruised reeds which break when they are leaned upon? If so, you are right, Martin, and there is naught left, but to flee from a world in which all men are liars.”

And Leofric, in the midst of Crowland Yard, tore off his belt and trusty sword, his hauberk and helm also, and letting down his monk’s frock, which he wore trussed to the mid-knee, he went to the Abbot’s lodgings, and asked to see old Ulfketyl.

“Bring him up,” said the good abbot, “for he is a valiant man and true, in spite of all his vanities; and may be he brings news of Hereward, whom God forgive.”

And when Leofric came in, he fell upon his knees, bewailing and confessing his sinful life; and begged the abbot to take him back again into Crowland minster, and lay upon him what penance he thought fit, and put him in the lowest office, because he was a man of blood; if only he might stay there, and have a sight at times of his dear Lady Torfrida, without whom he should surely die.

So Leofric was received back, in full chapter, by abbot and prior and all the monks. But when he asked them to lay a penance upon him, Ulfketyl arose from his high chair and spoke.

“Shall we, who have sat here at ease, lay a penance on this man, who has shed his blood in fifty valiant fights for us, and for St. Guthlac, and for this English land? Look at yon scars upon his head and arms. He has had sharper discipline from cold steel than we could give him here with rod; and has fasted in the wilderness more sorely, many a time, than we have fasted here.”

And all the monks agreed, that no penance should be laid on Leofric. Only that he should abstain from singing vain and carnal ballads, which turned the heads of the young brothers, and made them dream of naught but battles, and giants, and enchanters, and ladies’ love.

Hereward came back on the third day, and found his wife and daughter gone. His guilty conscience told him in the first instant why. For he went into the chamber, and there, upon the floor, lay the letter which he had looked for in vain.

No one had touched it where it lay. Perhaps no one had dared to enter the chamber. If they had, they would not have dared to meddle with writing, which they could not read, and which might contain some magic spell. Letters were very safe in those old days.

There are moods of man which no one will dare to describe, unless, like Shakespeare, he is Shakespeare, and like Shakespeare knows it not.

Therefore what Hereward thought and felt will not be told. What he did was this. He raged and blustered. He must hide his shame. He must justify himself to his knights; and much more to himself; or if not justify himself, must shift some of the blame over to the opposite side. So he raged and blustered. He had been robbed of his wife and daughter. They had been cajoled away by the monks of Crowland. What villains were those, to rob an honest man of his family while he was fighting for his country?

So he rode down to the river, and there took two great barges, and rowed away to Crowland, with forty men-at-arms.

And all the while he thought of Alftruda, as he had seen her at Peterborough.

And of no one else?

Not so. For all the while he felt that he loved Torfrida’s little finger better than Alftruda’s whole body, and soul into the bargain.

What a long way it was to Crowland. How wearying were the hours through mere and sea. How wearying the monotonous pulse of the oars. If tobacco had been known then, Hereward would have smoked all the way, and been none the wiser, though the happier, for it; for the herb that drives away the evil spirits of anxiety, drives away also the good, though stern, spirits of remorse.

But in those days a man could only escape facts by drinking; and Hereward was too much afraid of what he should meet in Crowland, to go thither drunk.

Sometimes he hoped that Torfrida might hold her purpose, and set him free to follow his wicked will. All the lower nature in him, so long crushed under, leapt up chuckling and grinning and tumbling head over heels, and cried,—Now I shall have a holiday!

Sometimes he hoped that Torfrida might come out to the shore, and settle the matter in one moment, by a glance of her great hawk’s eyes. If she would but quell him by one look; leap on board, seize the helm, and assume without a word the command of his men and him; steer them back to Bourne, and sit down beside him with a kiss, as if nothing had happened. If she would but do that, and ignore the past, would he not ignore it? Would he not forget Alftruda, and King William, and all the world, and go up with her into Sherwood, and then north to Scotland and Gospatrick, and be a man once more?

No. He would go with her to the Baltic or the Mediterranean. Constantinople and the Varangers would be the place and the men. Ay, there to escape out of that charmed ring into a new life!

No. He did not deserve such luck; and he would not get it.

She would talk it all out. She must, for she was a woman.

She would blame, argue, say dreadful words,—dreadful, because true and deserved. Then she would grow angry, as women do when they are most in the right, and say too much,—dreadful words, which would be untrue and undeserved. Then he should resist, recriminate. He would not stand it. He could not stand it. No. He could never face her again.

And yet if he had seen a man insult her,—if he had seen her at that moment in peril of the slightest danger, the slightest bruise, he would have rushed forward like a madman, and died, saving her from that bruise. And he knew that: and with the strange self-contradiction of human nature, he soothed his own conscience by the thought that he loved her still; and that, therefore—somehow or other, he cared not to make out how—he had done her no wrong. Then he blustered again, for the benefit of his men. He would teach these monks of Crowland a lesson. He would burn the minster over their heads.

“That would be pity, seeing they are the only Englishmen left in England,” said Siward the White, his nephew, very simply.

“What is that to thee? Thou hast helped to burn Peterborough at my bidding; and thou shalt help to burn Crowland.”

“I am a free gentleman of England; and what I choose, I do. I and my brother are going to Constantinople to join the Varanger guard, and shall not burn Crowland, or let any man burn it.”

“Shall not let?”

“No,” said the young man, so quietly, that Hereward was cowed.

“I—I only meant—if they did not do right by me.”

“Do right thyself,” said Siward.

Hereward swore awfully, and laid his hand on his sword-hilt. But he did not draw it; for he thought he saw overhead a cloud which was very like the figure of St. Guthlac in Crowland window, and an awe fell upon him from above.

So they came to Crowland; and Hereward landed and beat upon the gates, and spoke high words. But the monks did not open the gates for a while. At last the gates creaked, and opened; and in the gateway stood Abbot Ulfketyl in his robes of state, and behind him Prior, and all the officers, and all the monks of the house.

“Comes Hereward in peace or in war?”

“In war!” said Hereward.

Then that true and trusty old man, who sealed his patriotism, if not with his blood,—for the very Normans had not the heart to take that,—still with long and bitter sorrows, lifted up his head, and said, like a valiant Dane, as his name bespoke him: “Against the traitor and the adulterer—”

“I am neither,” roared Hereward.

“Thou wouldst be, if thou couldst. Whoso looketh upon a woman to—”

“Preach me no sermons, man! Let me in to seek my wife.”

“Over my body,” said Ulfketyl, and laid himself down across the threshold.

Hereward recoiled. If he had dared to step over that sacred body, there was not a blood-stained ruffian in his crew who dared to follow him.

“Rise, rise! for God’s sake, Lord Abbot,” said he. “Whatever I am, I need not that you should disgrace me thus. Only let me see her,—reason with her.”

“She has vowed herself to God, and is none of thine hence forth.”

“It is against the canons. A wrong and a robbery.”

Ulfketyl rose, grand as ever.

“Hereward Leofricsson, our joy and our glory once. Hearken to the old man who will soon go whither thine Uncle Brand is gone, and be free of Frenchmen, and of all this wicked world. When the walls of Crowland dare not shelter the wronged woman, fleeing from man’s treason to God’s faithfulness, then let the roofs of Crowland burn till the flame reaches heaven, for a sign that the children of God are as false as the children of this world, and break their faith like any belted knight.”

Hereward was silenced. His men shrunk back from him. He felt as if God, and the Mother of God, and St. Guthlac, and all the host of heaven, were shrinking back from him likewise. He turned to supplications, compromises,—what else was left?

“At least you will let me have speech of her, or of my mother?”

“They must answer that, not I.”

Hereward sent in, entreating to see one, or both.

“Tell him,” said Lady Godiva, “who calls himself my son, that my sons were men of honor, and that he must have been changed at nurse.”

“Tell him,” said Torfrida, “that I have lived my life, and am dead. Dead. If he would see me, he will only see my corpse.”

“You would not slay yourself?”

“What is there that I dare not do? You do not know Torfrida. He does.”

And Hereward did; and went back again like a man stunned.

After a while there came by boat to Crowland all Torfrida’s wealth: clothes, jewels: not a shred had Hereward kept. The magic armor came with them.

Torfrida gave all to the abbey, there and then. Only the armor she wrapped up in the white bear’s skin, and sent it back to Hereward, with her blessing, and entreaty not to refuse that, her last bequest.

Hereward did not refuse, for very shame. But for very shame he never wore that armor more. For very shame he never slept again upon the white bear’s skin, on which he and his true love had lain so many a year.

And Torfrida turned herself utterly to serve the Lady Godiva, and to teach and train her child as she had never done before, while she had to love Hereward, and to work day and night, with her own fingers, for all his men. All pride, all fierceness, all care of self, had passed away from her. In penitence, humility, obedience, and gentleness, she went on; never smiling; but never weeping. Her heart was broken; and she felt it good for herself to let it break.

And Leofric the priest, and mad Martin Lightfoot, watched like two dogs for her going out and coming in; and when she went among the poor corrodiers, and nursed the sick, and taught the children, and went to and fro upon her holy errands, blessing and blessed, the two wild men had a word from her mouth, or a kiss of her hand, and were happy all the day after. For they loved her with a love mightier than ever Hereward had heaped upon her; for she had given him all: but she had given those two wild men naught but the beatific vision of a noble woman.

CHAPTER XXXVII. – HOW HEREWARD LOST SWORD BRAIN-BITER

“On account of which,” says the chronicler, “many troubles came to Hereward: because Torfrida was most wise, and of great counsel in need. For afterwards, as he himself confessed, things went not so well with him as they did in her time.”

And the first thing that went ill was this. He was riding through the Bruneswald, and behind him Geri, Wenoch, and Matelgar, these three. And there met him in an open glade a knight, the biggest man he had ever seen, on the biggest horse, and five knights behind him. He was an Englishman, and not a Frenchman, by his dress; and Hereward spoke courteously enough to him. But who he was, and what his business was in the Bruneswald, Hereward thought that he had a right to ask.

“Tell me who thou art, who askest, before I tell thee who I am who am asked, riding here on common land,” quoth the knight, surlily enough.

“I am Hereward, without whose leave no man has ridden the Bruneswald for many a day.”

“And I am Letwold the Englishman, who rides whither he will in merry England, without care for any Frenchman upon earth.”

“Frenchman? Why callest thou me Frenchman, man? I am Hereward.”

“Then thou art, if tales be true, as French as Ivo Taillebois. I hear that thou hast left thy true lady, like a fool and a churl, and goest to London, or Winchester, or the nether pit,—I care not which,—to make thy peace with the Mamzer.”

The man was a surly brute: but what he said was so true, that Hereward’s wrath arose. He had promised Torfrida many a time, never to quarrel with an Englishman, but to endure all things. Now, out of very spite to Torfrida’s counsel, because it was Torfrida’s, and he had promised to obey it, he took up the quarrel.

“If I am a fool and a churl, thou art a greater fool, to provoke thine own death; and a greater—”

“Spare your breath,” said the big man, “and let me try Hereward, as I have many another.”

Whereon they dropped their lance-points, and rode at each other like two mad bulls. And, by the contagion of folly common in the middle age, at each other rode Hereward’s three knights and Letwold’s five. The two leaders found themselves both rolling on the ground; jumped up, drew their swords, and hewed away at each other. Geri unhorsed his man at the first charge, and left him stunned. Then he turned on another, and did the same by him. Wenoch and Matelgar each upset their man. The fifth of Letwold’s knights threw up his lance-point, not liking his new company. Geri and the other two rode in on the two chiefs, who were fighting hard, each under shield.

“Stand back!” roared Hereward, “and give the knight fair play! When did any one of us want a man to help him? Kill or die single, has been our rule, and shall be.”

They threw up their lance-points, and stood round to see that great fight. Letwold’s knight rode in among them, and stood likewise; and friend and foe looked on, as they might at a pair of game-cocks.

Hereward had, to his own surprise and that of his fellows, met his match. The sparks flew, the iron clanged; but so heavy were the stranger’s strokes, that Hereward reeled again and again. So sure was the guard of his shield, that Hereward could not wound him, hit where he would. At last he dealt a furious blow on the stranger’s head.

“If that does not bring your master down!” quoth Geri. “By—, Brain-biter is gone!”

It was too true. Sword Brain-biter’s end was come. The Ogre’s magic blade had snapt off short by the handle.

“Your master is a true Englishman, by the hardness of his brains,” quoth Wenoch, as the stranger, reeling for a moment, lifted up his head, and stared at Hereward in the face, doubtful what to do.

“Will you yield, or fight on?” cried he.

“Yield?” shouted Hereward, rushing upon him, as a mastiff might on a lion, and striking at his helm, though shorter than him by a head and shoulders, such swift and terrible blows with the broken hilt, as staggered the tall stranger.

“What are you at, forgetting what you have at your side?” roared Geri.

Hereward sprang back. He had, as was his custom, a second sword on his right thigh.

“I forget everything now,” said he to himself angrily.

And that was too true. But he drew the second sword, and sprang at his man once more.

The stranger tried, according to the chronicler, who probably had it from one of the three by-standers, a blow which has cost many a brave man his life. He struck right down on Hereward’s head. Hereward raised his shield, warding the stroke, and threw in that coup de jarret, which there is no guarding, after the downright blow has been given. The stranger dropped upon his wounded knee.

“Yield,” cried Hereward in his turn.

“That is not my fashion.” And the stranger fought on, upon his stumps, like Witherington in Chevy Chase.

Hereward, mad with the sight of blood, struck at him four or five times. The stranger’s shield was so quick that he could not hit him, even on his knee. He held his hand, and drew back, looking at his new rival.

“What the murrain are we two fighting about?” said he at last.

“I know not; neither care,” said the other, with a grim chuckle. “But if any man will fight me, him I fight, ever since I had beard to my chin.”

“Thou art the best man that ever I faced.”

“That is like enough.”

“What wilt thou take, if I give thee thy life?”

“My way on which I was going. For I turn back for no man alive on land.”

“Then thou hast not had enough of me?”

“Not by another hour.”

“Thou must be born of fiend, and not of man.”

“Very like. It is a wise son knows his own father.”

Hereward burst out laughing.

“Would to heaven I had had thee for my man this three years since.”

“Perhaps I would not have been thy man.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have been my own man ever since I was born, and am well content with myself for my master.”

“Shall I bind up thy leg?” asked Hereward, having no more to say, and not wishing to kill the man.

“No. It will grow again, like a crab’s claw.”

“Thou art a fiend.” And Hereward turned away, sulky, and half afraid.

“Very like. No man knows what a devil he is, till he tries.”

“What dost mean?” and Hereward turned angrily back.

“Fiends we are all, till God’s grace comes.”

“Little grace has come to thee yet, by thy ungracious tongue.”

“Rough to men, may be gracious to women.”

“What hast thou to do with women’?” asked Hereward, fiercely.

“I have a wife, and I love her.”

“Thou art not like to get back to her to-day.”

“I fear not, with this paltry scratch. I had looked for a cut from thee, would have saved me all fighting henceforth.”

“What dost mean?” asked Hereward, with an oath.

“That my wife is in heaven, and I would needs follow her.”

Hereward got on his horse, and rode away. Never could he find out who that Sir Letwold was, or how he came into the Bruneswald. All he knew was, that he never had had such a fight since he wore beard; and that he had lost sword Brainbiter: from which his evil conscience augured that his luck had turned, and that he should lose many things beside.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. – HOW HEREWARD CAME IN TO THE KING

After these things Hereward summoned all his men, and set before them the hopelessness of any further resistance, and the promises of amnesty, lands, and honors which William had offered him, and persuaded them—and indeed he had good arguments enough and to spare—that they should go and make their peace with the King.

They were so accustomed to look up to his determination, that when it gave way theirs gave way likewise. They were so accustomed to trust his wisdom, that most of them yielded at once to his arguments. That the band should break up, all agreed. A few of the more suspicious, or more desperate, said that they could never trust the Norman; that Hereward himself had warned them again and again of his treachery. That he was now going to do himself what he had laughed at Gospatrick and the rest for doing; what had brought ruin on Edwin and Morcar; what he had again and again prophesied would bring ruin on Waltheof himself ere all was over.

But Hereward was deaf to their arguments. He had said as little to them as he could about Alftruda, for very shame; but he was utterly besotted on her. For her sake, he had determined to run his head blindly into the very snare of which he had warned others. And he had seared—so he fancied—his conscience. It was Torfrida’s fault now, not his. If she left him,—if she herself freed him of her own will,—why, he was free, and there was no more to be said about it.

And Hereward (says the chronicler) took Gwenoch, Geri, and Matelgar, and rode south to the King.

Where were the two young Siwards? It is not said. Probably they, and a few desperadoes, followed the fashion of so many English in those sad days,—when, as sings the Norse scald,

   “Cold heart and bloody hand    Now rule English land,”—

and took ship for Constantinople, and enlisted in the Varanger guard, and died full of years and honors, leaving fair-haired children behind them, to become Varangers in their turn.

Be that as it may, Hereward rode south. But when he had gotten a long way upon the road, a fancy (says the chronicler) came over him. He was not going in pomp and glory enough. It seemed mean for the once great Hereward to sneak into Winchester with three knights. Perhaps it seemed not over safe for the once great Hereward to travel with only three knights. So he went back all the way to camp, and took (says the chronicler) “forty most famous knights, all big and tall of stature, and splendid,—if from nothing else, from their looks and their harness alone.”

So Hereward and those forty knights rode down from Peterborough, along the Roman road. For the Roman roads were then, and for centuries after, the only roads in this land; and our forefathers looked on them as the work of gods and giants, and called them after the names of their old gods and heroes,—Irmen Street, Watling Street, and so forth.

And then, like true Englishmen, our own forefathers showed their respect for the said divine works, not by copying them, but by picking them to pieces to pave every man his own court-yard. Be it so. The neglect of new roads, the destruction of the old ones, was a natural evil consequence of local self-government. A cheap price, perhaps, after all, to pay for that power of local self-government which has kept England free unto this day.

Be that as it may, down the Roman road Hereward went; past Alconbury Hill, of the old posting days; past Wimpole Park, then deep forest; past Hatfield, then deep forest likewise; and so to St. Alban’s. And there they lodged in the minster; for the monks thereof were good English, and sang masses daily for King Harold’s soul. And the next day they went south, by ways which are not so clear.

Just outside St. Alban’s—Verulamium of the Romans (the ruins whereof were believed to be full of ghosts, demons, and magic treasures)—they turned, at St. Stephen’s, to the left, off the Roman road to London; and by another Roman road struck into the vast forest which ringed London round from northeast to southwest. Following the upper waters of the Colne, which ran through the woods on their left, they came to Watford, and then turned probably to Rickmansworth. No longer on the Roman paved ways, they followed horse-tracks, between the forest and the rich marsh-meadows of the Colne, as far as Denham, and then struck into a Roman road again at the north end of Langley Park. From thence, over heathy commons,—for that western part of Buckinghamshire, its soil being light and some gravel, was little cultivated then, and hardly all cultivated now,—they held on straight by Langley town into the Vale of Thames.

Little they dreamed, as they rode down by Ditton Green, off the heathy commons, past the poor, scattered farms, on to the vast rushy meadows, while upon them was the dull weight of disappointment, shame, all but despair; their race enslaved, their country a prey to strangers, and all its future, like their own, a lurid blank,—little they dreamed of what that vale would be within eight hundred years,—the eye of England, and it may be of the world; a spot which owns more wealth and peace, more art and civilization, more beauty and more virtue, it may be, than any of God’s gardens which make fair this earth. Windsor, on its crowned steep, was to them but a new hunting palace of the old miracle-monger Edward, who had just ruined England. Runnymede, a mile below them down the broad stream, was but a horse-fen fringed with water-lilies, where the men of Wessex had met of old to counsel, and to bring the country to this pass. And as they crossed, by ford or ferry-boat, the shallows of old Windsor, whither they had been tending all along, and struck into the moorlands of Wessex itself, they were as men going into an unknown wilderness: behind them ruin, and before them unknown danger.