Book: Hereward, The Last of the English

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Which magnificent effusion being interpreted by Hereward for the
instruction of the ladies, procured for the red-headed bard more than one
handsome gift.

A sturdy voice arose out of the crowd.

"The fair lady, my Lord Count, and knights all, will need no champion as
far as I am concerned. When one sees so fair a pair together, what can a
knight say, in the name of all knighthood, but that the heavens have made
them for each other, and that it were sin and shame to sunder them?"

The voice was that of Gilbert of Ghent, who, making a virtue of necessity,
walked up to the pair, his weather-beaten countenance wreathed into what
were meant for paternal smiles.

"Why did you not say as much in Scotland, and save me all this trouble?"
pertinently asked the plain-spoken Scot.

"My lord prince, you owe me a debt for my caution. Without it, the poor
lady had never known the whole fervency of your love; or these noble
knights and yourself the whole evenness of Count Baldwin's justice."

Alftruda turned her head away half contemptuously; and as she did so, she
let her hand drop listlessly from Dolfin's grasp, and drew back to the
other ladies.

A suspicion crossed Hereward's mind. Did she really love the Prince? Did
those strange words of hers mean that she had not yet forgotten Hereward
himself?

However, he said to himself that it was no concern of his, as it certainly
was not: went home to Torfrida, told her everything that had happened,
laughed over it with her, and then forgot Alftruda, Dolfin, and Gilbert,
in the prospect of a great campaign in Holland.




CHAPTER XVII.

HOW HEREWARD TOOK THE NEWS FROM STANFORD BRIGG AND HASTINGS.


After that, news came thick and fast.

News of all the fowl of heaven flocking to the feast of the great God,
that they might eat the flesh of kings, and captains, and mighty men, and
horses, and them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both bond and
free.

News from Rome, how England, when conquered, was to be held as a fief of
St. Peter, and spiritually, as well as temporarily, enslaved. News how the
Gonfanon of St. Peter, and a ring with a bit of St. Peter himself enclosed
therein, had come to Rouen, to go before the Norman host, as the Ark went
before that of Israel.

Then news from the North. How Tosti had been to Sweyn, and bid him come
back and win the country again, as Canute his uncle had done; and how the
cautious Dane had answered that he was a much smaller man than Canute, and
had enough to hold his own against the Norsemen, and could not afford to
throw for such high stakes as his mighty uncle.

Then how Tosti had been to Norway, to Harold Hardraade, and asked him why
he had been fighting fifteen years for Denmark, when England lay open to
him. And how Harold of Norway had agreed to come; and how he had levied
one half of the able-bodied men in Norway; and how he was gathering a
mighty fleet at Solundir, in the mouth of the Sogne Fiord. Of all this
Hereward was well informed; for Tosti came back again to St. Omer, and
talked big. But Hereward and he had no dealings with each other. But at
last, when Tosti tried to entice some of Hereward's men to sail with him,
Hereward sent him word that if he met him, he would kill him in the
streets.

Then Tosti, who (though he wanted not for courage) knew that he was no
match for Hereward, went off to Bruges, leaving his wife and family
behind; gathered sixty ships at Ostend, went off to the Isle of Wight, and
forced the landsfolk to give him money and food. And then Harold of
England's fleet, which was watching the coast against the Normans, drove
him away; and he sailed off north, full of black rage against his brother
Harold and all Englishmen, and burned, plundered, and murdered, along the
coast of Lincolnshire, out of brute spite to the Danes who had expelled
him.

Then came news how he had got into the Humber; how Earl Edwin and his
Northumbrians had driven him out; and how he went off to Scotland to meet
Harold of Norway; and how he had put his hands between Harold's, and
become his man.

And all the while the Norman camp at St. Pierre-sur-Dive grew and grew;
and all was ready, if the wind would but change.

And so Hereward looked on, helpless, and saw these two great storm-clouds
growing,--one from north, and one from south,--to burst upon his native
land.

Two invasions at the same moment of time; and these no mere Viking raids
for plunder, but deliberate attempts at conquest and colonization, by the
two most famous captains of the age. What if both succeeded? What if the
two storm-clouds swept across England, each on its own path, and met in
the midst, to hurl their lightnings into each other? A fight between
William of Normandy and Harold of Norway, on some moorland in Mercia,--it
would be a battle of giants; a sight at which Odin and the Gods of
Valhalla would rise from their seats, and throw away the mead-horn, to
stare down on the deeds of heroes scarcely less mighty than themselves.
Would that neither might win! Would that they would destroy and devour,
till there was none left of Frenchmen or of Norwegians!

So sang Hereward, after his heathen fashion; and his housecarles applauded
the song. But Torfrida shuddered.

"And what will become of the poor English in the mean time?"

"They have brought it on themselves," said Hereward, bitterly. "Instead of
giving the crown to the man who should have had it,--to Sweyn of
Denmark,--they let Godwin put it on the head of a drivelling monk; and as
they sowed, so will they reap."

But Hereward's own soul was black within him. To see these mighty events
passing as it were within reach of his hand, and he unable to take his
share in them,--for what share could he take? That of Tosti Godwinsson
against his own nephews? That of Harold Godwinsson, the usurper? That of
the tanner's grandson against any man? Ah that he had been in England! Ah
that he had been where he might have been,--where he ought to have been
but for his own folly,--high in power in his native land,--perhaps a great
earl; perhaps commander of all the armies of the Danelagh. And bitterly he
cursed his youthful sins as he rode to and fro almost daily to the port of
Calais, asking for news, and getting often only too much.

For now came news that the Norsemen had landed in Humber: that Edwin and
Morcar were beaten at York; that Hardraade and Tosti were masters of the
North.

And with that, news that, by the virtue of the relics of St. Valeri, which
had been brought out of their shrine to frighten the demons of the storm,
and by the intercession of the blessed St. Michael, patron of Normandy,
the winds had changed, and William's whole armament had crossed the
Channel, landed upon an undefended shore, and fortified themselves at
Pevensey and Hastings.

And then followed a fortnight of silence and torturing suspense.

Hereward could hardly eat, drink, sleep, or speak. He answered Torfrida's
consolations curtly and angrily, till she betook herself to silent
caresses, as to a sick animal. But she loved him all the better for his
sullenness; for it showed that his English heart was wakening again, sound
and strong.

At last news came. He was down, as usual, at the port. A ship had just
come in from the northward. A man just landed stood on the beach
gesticulating, and calling in an unknown tongue to the bystanders, who
laughed at him, and seemed inclined to misuse him.

Hereward galloped down the beach.

"Out of the way, villains! Why man, you are a Norseman!"

"Norseman am I, Earl, Thord Gunlaugsson is my name, and news I bring for
the Countess Judith (as the French call her) that shall turn her golden
hair to snow,--yea, and all fair lasses' hair from Lindesness to
Loffoden!"

"Is the Earl dead?"

"And Harold Sigurdsson!"

Hereward sat silent, appalled. For Tosti he cared not. But Harold
Sigurdsson, Harold Hardraade, Harold the Viking, Harold the Varanger,
Harold the Lionslayer, Harold of Constantinople, the bravest among
champions, the wisest among kings, the cunningest among minstrels, the
darling of the Vikings of the North; the one man whom Hereward had taken
for his pattern and his ideal, the one man under whose banner he would
have been proud to fight--the earth seemed empty, if Harold Hardraade were
gone.

"Thord Gunlaugsson," cried he, at last, "or whatever be thy name, if thou
hast lied to me, I will draw thee with wild horses."

"Would God that I did lie! I saw him fall with an arrow through his
throat. Then Jarl Tosti took the Land-ravager and held it up till he died.
Then Eystein Orre took it, coming up hot from the ships. And then he died
likewise. Then they all died. We would take no quarter. We threw off our
mail, and fought baresark, till all were dead together." [Footnote: For
the details of this battle, see Skorro Sturleson, or the admirable
description in Bulwer's "Harold."]

"How camest thou, then, hither?"

"Styrkar the marshal escaped in the night, and I with him, and a few more.
And Styrkar bade me bring the news to Flanders, to the Countess, while he
took it to Olaf Haroldsson, who lay off in the ships."

"And thou shalt take it. Martin! get this man a horse. A horse, ye
villains, and a good one, on your lives!"

"And Tosti is dead?"

"Dead like a hero. Harold offered him quarter,--offered him his earldom,
they say: even in the midst of battle; but he would not take it. He said
he was the Sigurdsson's man now, and true man he would be!"

"Harold offered him?--what art babbling about? Who fought you?"

"Harold Godwinsson, the king."

"Where?"

"At Stanford Brigg, by York Town."

"Harold Godwinsson slew Harold Sigurdsson? After this wolves may eat
lions!"

"The Godwinsson is a gallant fighter, and a wise general, or I had not
been here now."

"Get on thy horse, man!" said he, scornfully and impatiently, "and gallop,
if thou canst."

"I have ridden many a mile in Ireland, Earl, and have not forgotten my
seat."

"Thou hast, hast thou?" said Martin; "thou art Thord Gunlaugsson of
Waterford."

"That am I. How knowest thou me, man?"

"I am of Waterford. Thou hadst a slave lass once, I think; Mew: they
called her Mew, her skin it was so white."

"What's that to thee?" asked Thord, turning on him savagely.

"Why, I meant no harm. I saw her at Waterford when I was a boy, and
thought her a fair lass enough, that is all."

And Martin dropped into the rear. By this time they were at the gates of
St. Omer.

As they rode side by side, Hereward got more details of the fight.

"I knew it would fall out so. I foretold it!" said Thord. "I had a dream.
I saw us come to English land, and fight; and I saw the banners floating.
And before the English army was a great witchwife, and rode upon a wolf,
and he had a corpse in his bloody jaws. And when he had eaten one up, she
threw him another, till he had swallowed all."

"Did she throw him thine?" asked Martin, who ran holding by the stirrup.

"That did she, and eaten I saw myself. Yet here I am alive."

"Then thy dreams were naught."

"I do not know that. The wolf may have me yet."

"I fear thou art fey." [Footnote: Prophesying his own death.]

"What the devil is it to thee if I be?"

"Naught. But be comforted. I am a necromancer; and this I know by my art,
that the weapon that will slay thee was never forged in Flanders here."

"There was another man had a dream," said Thord, turning from Martin
angrily. "He was standing in the king's ship, and he saw a great witchwife
with a fork and a trough stand on the island. And he saw a fowl on every
ship's stem, a raven, or else an eagle, and he heard the witchwife sing an
evil song."

By this time they were in St. Omer.

Hereward rode straight to the Countess Judith's house. He never had
entered it yet, and was likely to be attacked if he entered it now. But
when the door was opened, he thrust in with so earnest and sad a face that
the servants let him pass, but not without growling and motions as of
getting their weapons.

"I come in peace, my men, I come in peace: this is no time for brawls.
Where is the steward, or one of the Countess's ladies? Tell her, madam,
that Hereward waits her commands, and entreats her, in the name of St.
Mary and all Saints, to vouchsafe him one word in private."

The lady hurried into the bower. The next moment Judith hurried out into
the hall, her fair face blanched, her fair eyes wide with terror.

Hereward fell on his knee.

"What is this? It must be bad news if you bring it."

"Madam, the grave covers all feuds. Earl Tosti was a very valiant hero;
and would to God that we had been friends!"

She did not hear the end of the sentence, but fell back with a shriek into
the women's arms.

Hereward told them all that they needed to know of that fratricidal
strife; and then to Thord Gunlaugsson,--

"Have you any token that this is true? Mind what I warned you, if you
lied!"

"This have I, Earl and ladies," and he drew from his bosom a reliquary.
"Ulf the marshal took this off his neck, and bade me give it to none but
his lady. Therefore, with your pardon, Sir Earl, I did not tell you that I
had it, not knowing whether you were an honest man."

"Thou hast done well, and an honest man thou shall find me. Come home, and
I will feed thee at my own table; for I have been a sea-rover and a Viking
myself."

They left the reliquary with the ladies, and went.

"See to this good man, Martin."

"That will I, as the apple of my eye."

And Hereward went into Torfrida's room.

"I have news, news!"

"So have I."

"Harold Hardraade is slain, and Tosti too!"

"Where? how?"

"Harold Godwinsson slew them by York."

"Brother has slain brother? O God that died on cross!" murmured Torfrida,
"when will men look to thee, and have mercy on their own souls? But,
Hereward, I have news,--news more terrible by far. It came an hour ago. I
have been dreading your coming back."

"Say on. If Harold Hardraade is dead, no worse can happen."

"But Harold Godwinsson is dead!"

"Dead! Who next? William of Normandy? The world seems coming to an end, as
the monks say it will soon." [Footnote: There was a general rumor abroad
that the end of the world was at hand, that the "one thousand years" of
prophecy had expired.]

"A great battle has been fought at a place they call Heathfield."

"Close by Hastings? Close to the landing-place? Harold must have flown
thither back from York. What a captain the man is, after all."

"Was. He is dead, and all the Godwinssons, and England lost."

If Torfrida had feared the effect of her news, her heart was lightened at
once as Hereward answered haughtily,--

"England lost? Sussex is not England, nor Wessex either, any more than
Harold was king thereof. England lost? Let the tanner try to cross the
Watling street, and he will find out that he has another stamp of
Englishmen to deal with."

"Hereward, Hereward, do not be unjust to the dead. Men say--the Normans
say--that they fought like heroes."

"I never doubted that; but it makes me mad--as it does all Eastern and
Northern men--to hear these Wessex churls and Godwinssons calling
themselves all England."

Torfrida shook her head. To her, as to most foreigners, Wessex and the
southeast counties were England; the most civilized; the most Norman; the
seat of royalty; having all the prestige of law, and order, and wealth.
And she was shrewd enough to see, that as it was the part of England which
had most sympathy with Norman civilization, it was the very part where the
Norman could most easily gain and keep his hold. The event proved that
Torfrida was right: but all she said was, "It is dangerously near to
France, at least."

"It is that. I would sooner see 100,000 French north of the Humber, than
10,000 in Kent and Sussex, where he can hurry over supplies and men every
week. It is the starting-point for him, if he means to conquer England
piecemeal."

"And he does."

"And he shall not!" and Hereward started up, and walked to and fro. "If
all the Godwinssons be dead, there are Leofricssons left, I trust, and
Siward's kin, and the Gospatricks in Northumbria. Ah? Where were my
nephews in the battle? Not killed too, I trust?"

"They were not in the battle."

"Not with their new brother-in-law? Much he has gained by throwing away
the Swan-neck, like a base hound as he was, and marrying my pretty niece.
But where were they?"

"No man knows clearly. They followed him down as far as London, and then
lingered about the city, meaning no man can tell what: but we shall
hear--and I fear hear too much--before a week is over."

"Heavens! this is madness, indeed. This is the way to be eaten up one by
one! Neither to do the thing, nor leave it alone. If I had been there! If
I had been there--"

"You would have saved England, my hero!" and Torfrida believed her own
words.

"I don't say that. Besides, I say that England is not lost. But there were
but two things to do: either to have sent to William at once, and offered
him the crown, if he would but guarantee the Danish laws and liberties to
all north of the Watling street; and if he would, fall on the Godwinssons
themselves, by fair means or foul, and send their heads to William."

"Or what?"

"Or have marched down after him, with every man they could muster, and
thrown themselves on the Frenchman's flank in the battle; or between him
and the sea, cutting him off from France; or--O that I had but been there,
what things could I have done! And now these two wretched boys have fooled
away their only chance--"

"Some say that they hoped for the crown themselves.

"Which?--not both? Vain babies!" And Hereward laughed bitterly. "I suppose
one will murder the other next, in order to make himself the stronger by
being the sole rival to the tanner. The midden cock, sole rival to the
eagle! Boy Waltheof will set up his claim next, I presume, as Siward's
son; and then Gospatrick, as Ethelred Evil-Counsel's great-grandson; and
so forth, and so forth, till they all eat each other up, and the tanner's
grandson eats the last. What care I? Tell me about the battle, my lady, if
you know aught. That is more to my way than their statecraft."

And Torfrida told him all she knew of the great fight on Heathfield
Down--which men call Senlac--and the Battle of Hastings. And as she told
it in her wild, eloquent fashion, Hereward's face reddened, and his eyes
kindled. And when she told of the last struggle round the Dragon
[Footnote: I have dared to differ from the excellent authorities who say
that the standard was that of "A Fighting Man"; because the Bayeux
Tapestry represents the last struggle as in front of a Dragon standard,
which must be--as is to be expected--the old standard of Wessex, the
standard of English Royalty. That Harold had also a "Fighting Man"
standard, and that it was sent by William to the Pope, there is no reason
to doubt. But if the Bayeux Tapestry be correct, the fury of the fight for
the standard would be explained. It would be a fight for the very symbol
of King Edward's dynasty.] standard; of Harold's mighty figure in the
front of all, hewing with his great double-headed axe, and then rolling in
gore and agony, an arrow in his eye; of the last rally of the men of Kent;
of Gurth, the last defender of the standard, falling by William's sword,
the standard hurled to the ground, and the Popish Gonfanon planted in its
place,--then Hereward's eyes, for the first and last time for many a year,
were flushed with noble tears; and springing up he cried: "Honor to the
Godwinssons! Honor to the Southern men! Honor to all true English hearts!
Why was I not there to go with them to Valhalla?"

Torfrida caught him round the neck. "Because you are here, my hero, to
free your country from her tyrants, and win yourself immortal fame."

"Fool that I am, I verily believe I am crying."

"Those tears," said she, as she kissed them away, "are more precious to
Torfrida than the spoils of a hundred fights, for they tell me that
Hereward still loves his country, still honors virtue, even in a foe."

And thus Torfrida--whether from woman's sentiment of pity, or from a
woman's instinctive abhorrence of villany and wrong,--had become there and
then an Englishwoman of the English, as she proved by strange deeds and
sufferings for many a year.

"Where is that Norseman, Martin?" asked Hereward that night ere he went to
bed, "I want to hear more of poor Hardraade."

"You can't speak to him now, master. He is sound asleep this two hours;
and warm enough, I will warrant."

"Where?"

"In the great green bed with blue curtains, just above the kitchen."

"What nonsense is this?"

"The bed where you and I shall lie some day; and the kitchen which we
shall be sent down to, to turn our own spits, unless we mend our manners
mightily."

Hereward looked at the man. Madness glared in his eyes, unmistakably.

"You have killed him!"

"And buried him, cheating the priests."

"Villain!" cried Hereward, seizing him.

"Take your hands off my throat, master. He was only my father."

Hereward stood shocked and puzzled. After all, the man was "No-man's-man,"
and would not be missed; and Martin Lightfoot, letting alone his madness,
was as a third hand and foot to him all day long.

So all he said was, "I hope you have buried him well and safely?"

"You may walk your bloodhound over his grave, to-morrow, without finding
him."

And where he lay, Hereward never knew. But from that night Martin got a
trick of stroking and patting his little axe, and talking to it as if it
had been alive.




CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW EARL GODWIN'S WIDOW CAME TO ST. OMER.


It would be vain to attempt even a sketch of the reports which came to
Flanders from England during the next two years, or of the conversation
which ensued thereon between Baldwin and his courtiers, or Hereward and
Torfrida. Two reports out of three were doubtless false, and two
conversations out of three founded on those false reports.

It is best, therefore, to interrupt the thread of the story, by some small
sketch of the state of England after the battle of Hastings; that so we
may, at least, guess at the tenor of Hereward and Torfrida's counsels.

William had, as yet, conquered little more than the South of England:
hardly, indeed, all that; for Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and the
neighboring parts, which had belonged to Sweyn, Harold's brother, were
still insecure; and the noble old city of Exeter, confident in her Roman
walls, did not yield till two years after, in A.D. 1068.

North of his conquered territory, Mercia stretched almost across England,
from Chester to the Wash, governed by Edwin and Morcar, the two fair
grandsons of Leofric, the great earl, and sons of Alfgar. Edwin called
himself Earl of Mercia, and held the Danish burghs. On the extreme
northwest, the Roman city of Chester was his; while on the extreme
southeast (as Domesday book testifies), Morcar held large lands round
Bourne, and throughout the south of Lincolnshire, besides calling himself
the Earl of Northumbria. The young men seemed the darlings of the
half-Danish northmen. Chester, Coventry, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester,
Stamford, a chain of fortified towns stretching across England, were at
their command; Blethyn, Prince of North Wales, was their nephew.

Northumbria, likewise, was not yet in William's hands. Indeed, it was in
no man's hands, since the free Danes, north of the Humber, had expelled
Tosti, Harold's brother, putting Morcar in his place, and helped that
brother to slay him at Stanford Brigg. Morcar, instead of residing in his
earldom of Northumbria, had made one Oswulf his deputy; but he had rivals
enough. There was Gospatrick, claiming through his grandfather, Uchtred,
and strong in the protection of his cousin Malcolm, King of Scotland;
there was young Waltheof, "the forest thief," who had been born to Siward
Biorn in his old age, just after the battle of Dunsinane; a fine and
gallant young man, destined to a swift and sad end.

William sent to the Northumbrians one Copsi, a Thane of mark and worth, as
his procurator, to expel Oswulf. Oswulf and the land-folk answered by
killing Copsi, and doing, every man, that which was right in his own eyes.

William determined to propitiate the young earls. Perhaps he intended to
govern the centre and north of England through them, as feudal vassals,
and hoped, meanwhile, to pay his Norman conquerors sufficiently out of the
forfeited lands of Harold, and those who had fought by his side at
Hastings. It was not his policy to make himself, much less to call
himself, the Conqueror of England. He claimed to be its legitimate
sovereign, deriving from his cousin, Edward the Confessor; and whosoever
would acknowledge him as such had neither right nor cause to fear.
Therefore he sent for the young earls. He courted Waltheof, and more,
really loved him. He promised Edwin his daughter in marriage. Some say it
was Constance, afterwards married to Alan Fergant of Brittany; but it may,
also, have been the beautiful Adelaide, who, none knew why, early gave up
the world, and died in a convent. Be that as it may, the two young people
saw each, and loved each other at Rouen, whither William took Waltheof,
Edwin, and his brother; as honored guests in name, in reality as hostages,
likewise.

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