Book: Hereward, The Last of the English

C >> Charles Kingsley >> Hereward, The Last of the English




Hereward went into Torfrida's bower.

"This is an evil business. The Danes are here, where they have no
business, instead of being off Scheldtmouth, as I entreated them. But go
we must, or be forever shamed. Now, true wife, are you ready? Dare you
leave home and kin and friends, once and for all, to go, you know not
whither, with one who may be a gory corpse by this day week?"

"I dare," said she.

So they went down to Calais by night, with Torfrida's mother, and all
their jewels, and all they had in the world. And their housecarles went
with them, forty men, tried and trained, who had vowed to follow Hereward
round the world. And there were two long ships ready, and twenty good
mariners in each. So when the Danes made the South Foreland the next
morning, they were aware of two gallant ships bearing down on them, with a
great white bear embroidered on their sails.

A proud man was Hereward that day, as he sailed into the midst of the
Danish fleet, and up to the royal ships, and shouted: "I am Hereward the
Berserker, and I come to take service under my rightful lord, Sweyn, king
of England."

"Come on board, then; we know you well, and right glad we are to have
Hereward with us."

And Hereward laid his ship's bow upon the quarter of the royal ship (to
lay alongside was impossible, for fear of breaking oars), and came on
board.

"And thou art Hereward?" asked a tall and noble warrior.

"I am. And thou art Swend Ulfsson, the king?"

"I am Earl Osbiorn, his brother."

"Then, where is the king?"

"He is in Denmark, and I command his fleet; and with me are Canute and
Harold, Sweyn's sons, and earls and bishops enough for all England."

This was spoken in a somewhat haughty tone, in answer to the look of
surprise and disappointment which Hereward had, unawares, allowed to pass
over his face.

"Thou art better than none," said Hereward. "Now, hearken, Osbiorn the
Earl. Had Swend been here, I would have put my hand between his, and said
in my own name, and that of all the men in Kesteven and the fens, Swend's
men we are, to live and die! But now, as it is, I say, for me and them,
thy men we are, to live and die, as long as thou art true to us."

"True to you I will be," said Osbiorn.

"Be it so," said Hereward. "True we shall be, whatever betide. Now,
whither goes Earl Osbiorn, and all his great meinie?"

"We purpose to try Dover."

"You will not take it. The Frenchman has strengthened it with one of his
accursed keeps, and without battering-engines you may sit before it a
month."

"What if I asked you to go in thither yourself, and try the mettle and the
luck which, they say, never failed Hereward yet?"

"I should say that it was a child's trick to throw away against a paltry
stone wall the life of a man who was ready to raise for you in
Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, five times as many men as you will lose
in taking Dover."

"Hereward is right," said more than one Earl. "We shall need him in his
own country."

"If you are wise, to that country you yourselves will go. It is ready to
receive you. This is ready to oppose you. You are attacking the Frenchman
at his strongest point instead of his weakest. Did I not send again and
again, entreating you to cross from Scheldtmouth to the Wash, and send me
word that I might come and raise the Fen-men for you, and then we would
all go north together?"

"I have heard, ere now," said Earl Osbiorn, haughtily, "that Hereward,
though he be a valiant Viking, is more fond of giving advice than of
taking it."

Hereward was about to answer very fiercely. If he had, no one would have
thought any harm, in those plain-spoken times. But he was wise; and
restrained himself, remembering that Torfrida was there, all but alone, in
the midst of a fleet of savage men; and that beside, he had a great deed
to do, and must do it as he could. So he answered,--

"Osbiorn the Earl has not, it seems, heard this of Hereward: that because
he is accustomed to command, he is also accustomed to obey. What thou wilt
do, do, and bid me do. He that quarrels with his captain cuts his own
throat and his fellows' too."

"Wisely spoken!" said the earls; and Hereward went back to his ship.

"Torfrida," said he, bitterly, "the game is lost before it is begun."

"God forbid, my beloved! What words are these?"

"Swend--fool that he is with his over-caution,--always the same!--has let
the prize slip from between his fingers. He has sent Osbiorn instead of
himself."

"But why is that so terrible a mistake?"

"We do not want a fleet of Vikings in England, to plunder the French and
English alike. We want a king, a king, a king!" and Hereward stamped with
rage. "And instead of a king, we have this Osbiorn,--all men know him,
greedy and false and weak-headed. Here he is going to be beaten off at
Dover; and then, I suppose, at the next port; and so forth, till the whole
season is wasted, and the ships and men lost by driblets. Pray for us to
God and his saints, Torfrida, you who are nearer to Heaven than I; for we
never needed it more."

And Osbiorn went in; tried to take Dover; and was beaten off with heavy
loss.

Then the earls bade him take Hereward's advice. But he would not.

So he went round the Foreland, and tried Sandwich,--as if, landing there,
he would have been safe in marching on London, in the teeth of the
_elite_ of Normandy.

But he was beaten off there, with more loss. Then, too late, he took
Hereward's advice,--or, rather, half of it,--and sailed north; but only to
commit more follies.

He dared not enter the Thames. He would not go on to the Wash; but he went
into the Orwell, and attacked Ipswich, plundering right and left, instead
of proclaiming King Sweyn, and calling the Danish folk around him. The
Danish folk of Suffolk rose, and, like valiant men, beat him off; while
Hereward lay outside the river mouth, his soul within him black with
disappointment, rage, and shame. He would not go in. He would not fight
against his own countrymen. He would not help to turn the whole plan into
a marauding raid. And he told Earl Osbiorn so, so fiercely, that his life
would have been in danger, had not the force of his arm been as much
feared as the force of his name was needed.

At last they came to Yarmouth. Osbiorn would needs land there, and try
Norwich.

Hereward was nigh desperate: but he hit upon a plan. Let Osbiorn do so, if
he would. He himself would sail round to the Wash, raise the Fen-men, and
march eastward at their head through Norfolk to meet him. Osbiorn himself
could not refuse so rational a proposal. All the earls and bishops
approved loudly; and away Hereward went to the Wash, his heart well-nigh
broken, foreseeing nothing but evil.




CHAPTER XXIII.

HOW HEREWARD GATHERED AN ARMY.


The voyage round the Norfolk coast was rough and wild. Torfrida was ill,
the little girl was ill; the poor old mother was so ill that she could not
even say her prayers. Packed uncomfortably under the awning on the poop,
Torfrida looked on from beneath it upon the rolling water-waste, with a
heart full of gloomy forebodings, and a brain whirling with wild fancies.
The wreaths of cloud were gray witches, hurrying on with the ship to work
her woe; the low red storm-dawn was streaked with blood; the water which
gurgled all night under the lee was alive with hoarse voices; and again
and again she started from fitful slumber to clasp the child closer to
her, or look up for comfort to the sturdy figure of her husband, as he
stood, like a tower of strength, steering and commanding, the long night
through.

Yes; on him she could depend. On his courage, on his skill. And as for his
love, had she not that utterly? And what more did woman need?

But she was going, she scarce knew whither; and she scarce knew for what.
At least, on a fearful adventure, which might have a fearful end. She
looked at the fair child, and reproached herself for a moment; at the poor
old mother, whining and mumbling, her soft southern heart quite broken by
the wild chill northern sea-breeze; and reproached herself still more. But
was it not her duty? Him she loved, and his she was; and him she must
follow, over sea and land, till death; and if possible, beyond death again
forever. For his sake she would slave. For his sake she would be strong.
If ever there rose in her a homesickness, a regret for leaving Flanders,
and much more for that sunnier South where she was born, he at least
should never be saddened or weakened by one hint of her sadness and
weakness. And so it befell that, by the time they made the coast, she had
(as the old chronicler says) "altogether conquered all womanly softness."

And yet she shuddered at the dreary mud-creek into which they ran their
ships, at the dreary flats on which they landed shivering, swept over by
the keen northeast wind. A lonely land; and within, she knew not what of
danger, it might be of hideous death.

But she would be strong. And when they were all landed, men, arms,
baggage, and had pitched the tents which the wise Hereward had brought
with them, she rose up like a queen, and took her little one by the hand,
and went among the men, and spoke:--

"Housecarles and mariners! you are following a great captain upon a great
adventure. How great he is, you know as well as I. I have given him
myself, my wealth, and all I have, and have followed him I know not
whither, because I trust him utterly. Men, trust him as I trust him, and
follow him to the death."

"That will we!"

"And, men, I am here among you, a weak woman, trying to be brave for his
sake--and for yours. Be true to me, too, as I have been true to you. For
your sake have I worked hard day and night, for many a year. For you I
have baked and brewed and cooked, like any poor churl's wife. Is there a
garment on your backs which my hands have not mended? Is there a wound on
your limbs which my hands have not salved? O, if Torfrida has been true to
you, promise me this day that you will be true men to her and hers; that
if--which Heaven forbid!--aught should befall him and me, you will protect
this my poor old mother, and this my child, who has grown up among you
all,--a lamb brought up within the lions' den. Look at her, men, and
promise me, on the faith of valiant soldiers, that you will be lions on
her behalf, if she shall ever need you. Promise me, that if you have but
one more stroke left to strike on earth, you will strike it to defend the
daughter of Hereward and Torfrida from cruelty and shame"

The men answered by a shout which rolled along the fen, and startled the
wild-fowl up from far-off pools. They crowded round their lady; they
kissed her hands; they bent down and kissed their little playmate, and
swore--one by God and his apostles, and the next by Odin and Thor--that
she should be a daughter to each and every one of them, as long as they
could grip steel in hand.

Then (says the chronicler) Hereward sent on spies, to see whether the
Frenchmen were in the land, and how folks fared at Holbeach, Spalding, and
Bourne.

The two young Siwards, as knowing the country and the folk, pushed
forward, and with them Martin Lightfoot, to bring back news.

Martin ran back all the way from Holbeach, the very first day, with right
good news. There was not a Frenchman in the town. Neither was there, they
said, in Spalding. Ivo Taillebois was still away at the wars, and long
might he stay.

So forward they marched, and everywhere the landsfolk were tilling the
ground in peace; and when they saw that stout array, they hurried out to
meet the troops, and burdened them with food, and ale, and all they
needed.

And at Holbeach, and at Spalding, Hereward split up the war-arrow, and
sent it through Kesteven, and south into the Cambridge fens, calling on
all men to arm and come to him at Bourne, in the name of Waltheof and
Morcar the earls.

And at every farm and town he blew the war-horn, and summoned every man
who could bear arms to be ready, against the coming of the Danish host
from Norwich. And so through all the fens came true what the wild-fowl
said upon the meres, that Hereward was come again.

And when he came to Bourne, all men were tilling in peace. The terror of
Hereward had fallen on the Frenchmen, and no man had dared to enter on his
inheritance, or to set a French foot over the threshold of that ghastly
hall, over the gable whereof still grinned the fourteen heads; on the
floor whereof still spread the dark stains of blood.

Only Geri dwelt in a corner of the house, and with him Leofric the
Unlucky, once a roistering housecarle of Hereward's youth, now a monk of
Crowland, and a deacon, whom Lady Godiva had sent thither that he might
take care of her poor. And there Geri and Leofric had kept house, and told
sagas to each other over the beech-log fire night after night; for all
Leofric's study was, says the chronicler, "to gather together for the
edification of his hearers all the acts of giants and warriors out of the
fables of the ancients or from faithful report, and commit them to
writing, that he might keep England in mind thereof." Which Leofric was
afterwards ordained priest, probably in Ely, by Bishop Egelwin of Durham;
and was Hereward's chaplain for many a year.

Then Hereward, as he had promised, set fire to the three farms close to
the Bruneswold; and all his outlawed friends, lurking in the forest, knew
by that signal that Hereward was come again. So they cleansed out the old
house: though they did not take down the heads from off the gable; and
Torfrida went about it, and about it, and confessed that England was,
after all, a pleasant place enough. And they were as happy, it may be, for
a week or two, as ever they had been in their lives.

"And now," said Torfrida, "while you see to your army, I must be doing;
for I am a lady now, and mistress of great estates. So I must be seeing to
the poor."

"But you cannot speak their tongue."

"Can I not? Do you think that in the face of coming to England and
fighting here, and plotting here, and being, may be, an earl's countess, I
have not made Martin Lightfoot teach me your English tongue, till I can
speak it as well as you? I kept that hidden as a surprise for you, that
you might find out, when you most needed, how Torfrida loved you."

"As if I had not found out already! O woman! woman! I verily believe that
God made you alone, and left the Devil to make us butchers of men."

Meanwhile went round through all the fens, and north into the Bruneswold,
and away again to Lincoln and merry Sherwood, that Hereward was come
again. And Gilbert of Ghent, keeping Lincoln Castle for the Conqueror, was
perplexed in mind, and looked well to gates and bars and sentinels; for
Hereward sent him at once a message, that forasmuch as he had forgotten
his warning in Bruges street, and put a rascal cook into his mother's
manors, he should ride Odin's horse on the highest ash in the Bruneswold.

On which Gilbert of Ghent, inquiring what Odin's horse might be, and
finding it to signify the ash-tree whereon, as sacred to Odin, thieves
were hanged by Danes and Norse, made answer,--

That he Gilbert had not put his cook into Bourne, nor otherwise harmed
Hereward or his. That Bourne had been seized by the king himself, together
with Earl Morcar's lands in those parts, as all men knew. That the said
cook so pleased the king with a dish of stewed eel-pout, which he served
up to him at Cambridge, and which the king had never eaten before, that
the king begged the said cook of him Gilbert and took him away; and that
after, so he heard, the said cook had begged the said manors of Bourne of
the king, without the knowledge or consent of him Gilbert. That he
therefore knew naught of the matter. That if Hereward meant to keep the
king's peace, he might live in Bourne till Doomsday, for aught he,
Gilbert, cared. But that if he and his men meant to break the king's
peace, and attack Lincoln city, he Gilbert would nail their skins to the
door of Lincoln Cathedral, as they used to do by the heathen Danes in old
time. And that, therefore, they now understood each other.

At which Hereward laughed, and said that they had done that for many a
year.

And now poured into Bourne from every side brave men and true,--some great
holders dispossessed of their land; some the sons of holders who were not
yet dispossessed; some Morcar's men, some Edwin's, who had been turned out
by the king.

To him came "Guenoch and Alutus Grogan, foremost in all valor and
fortitude, tall and large, and ready for work," and with them their three
nephews, Godwin Gille, "so called because he was not inferior to that
Godwin Guthlacsson who is preached much in the fables of the ancients,"
"and Douti and Outi, [Footnote: Named in Domesday-book (?).] the twins,
alike in face and manners;" and Godric, the knight of Corby, nephew of the
Count of Warwick; and Tosti of Davenesse, his kinsman; and Azer Vass,
whose father had possessed Lincoln Tower; and Leofwin Moue, [Footnote:
Probably the Leofwin who had lands in Bourne.]--that is, the scythe, so
called, "because when he was mowing all alone, and twenty country folk set
on him with pitchforks and javelins, he slew and wounded almost every one,
sweeping his scythe among them as one that moweth"; and Wluncus the
Black-face, so called because he once blackened his face with coal, and
came unknown among the enemy, and slew ten of them with one lance; and
"Turbertin, a great-nephew (surely a mistake) of Earl Edwin"; and Leofwin
Prat (perhaps the ancestor of the ancient and honorable house of Pratt of
Ryston), so called from his "Praet" or craft, "because he had oft escaped
cunningly when taken by the enemy, having more than once killed his
keepers;" and the steward of Drayton; and Thurkill the outlaw, Hereward's
cook; and Oger, Hereward's kinsman; and "Winter and Linach, two very
famous ones;" and Ranald, the butler of Ramsey Abbey,--"he was the
standard-bearer"; and Wulfric the Black and Wulfric the White; and Hugh
the Norman, a priest; and Wulfard, his brother; and Tosti and Godwin of
Rothwell; and Alsin; and Hekill; and Hugh the Breton, who was Hereward's
chaplain, and Whishaw, his brother, "a magnificent" knight, which two came
with him from Flanders; and so forth;--names merely of whom naught is
known, save, in a few cases, from Domesday-book, the manors which they
held. But honor to their very names! Honor to the last heroes of the old
English race!

These valiant gentlemen, with the housecarles whom, more or fewer, they
would bring with them, constituted a formidable force, as after years
proved well. But having got his men, Hereward's first care was, doubtless,
to teach them that art of war of which they, like true Englishmen, knew
nothing.

The art of war has changed little, if at all, by the introduction of
gunpowder. The campaigns of Hannibal and Caesar succeeded by the same
tactics as those of Frederic or Wellington; and so, as far as we can
judge, did those of the master-general of his age, William of Normandy.

But of those tactics the English knew nothing. Their armies were little
more than tumultuous levies, in which men marched and fought under local
leaders, often divided by local jealousies. The commissariats of the
armies seem to have been so worthless, that they had to plunder friends as
well, as foes as they went along; and with plunder came every sort of
excess: as when the northern men marching down to meet Harold Godwinsson,
and demand young Edwin as their earl, laid waste, seemingly out of mere
brute wantonness, the country round Northampton, which must have been in
Edwin's earldom, or at least in that of his brother Morcar. And even the
local leaders were not over-well obeyed. The reckless spirit of personal
independence, especially among the Anglo-Danes, prevented anything like
discipline, or organized movement of masses, and made every battle
degenerate into a confusion of single combats.

But Hereward had learned that art of war, which enabled the Norman to
crush, piecemeal, with inferior numbers, the vast but straggling levies of
the English. His men, mostly outlaws and homeless, kept together by the
pressure from without, and free from local jealousies, resembled rather an
army of professional soldiers than a country _posse comitatus_. And
to the discipline which he instilled into them; to his ability in marching
and manoeuvring troops; to his care for their food and for their
transport, possibly, also, to his training them in that art of fighting on
horseback in which the men of Wessex, if not the Anglo-Danes of the East,
are said to have been quite unskilled,--in short, to all that he had
learned, as a mercenary, under Robert the Frison, and among the highly
civilized warriors of Flanders and Normandy, must be attributed the fact,
that he and his little army defied, for years, the utmost efforts of the
Normans, appearing and disappearing with such strange swiftness, and
conquering against such strange odds, as enshrouded the guerilla captain
in an atmosphere of myth and wonder, only to be accounted for, in the mind
of Normans as well as English, by the supernatural counsels of his
sorceress wife.

But Hereward grew anxious and more anxious, as days and weeks went on, and
yet there was no news of Osbiorn and his Danes at Norwich. Time was
precious. He had to march his little army to the Wash, and then transport
it by boats--no easy matter--to Lynn in Norfolk, as his nearest point of
attack. And as the time went on, Earl Warren and Ralph de Guader would
have gathered their forces between him and the Danes, and a landing at
Lynn might become impossible. Meanwhile there were bruits of great doings
in the north of Lincolnshire. Young Earl Waltheof was said to be there,
and Edgar the Atheling with him; but what it portended, no man knew.
Morcar was said to have raised the centre of Mercia, and to be near
Stafford; Edwin to have raised the Welsh, and to be at Chester with
Alfgiva, his sister, Harold Godwinsson's widow. And Hereward sent spies
along the Roman Watling Street--the only road, then, toward the northwest
of England--and spies northward along the Roman road to Lincoln. But the
former met the French in force near Stafford, and came back much faster
than they went. And the latter stumbled on Gilbert of Ghent, riding out of
Lincoln to Sleaford, and had to flee into the fens, and came back much
slower than they went.

At last news came. For into Bourne stalked Wulfric the Heron, with axe and
bow, and leaping-pole on shoulder, and an evil tale he brought.

The Danes had been beaten utterly at Norwich. Ralph de Guader and his
Frenchmen had fought like lions. They had killed many Danes in the assault
on the castle. They had sallied out on them as they recoiled, and driven
them into the river, drowning many more. The Danes had gone down the Yare
again, and out to sea northward, no man knew whither. He, the Heron,
prowling about the fenlands of Norfolk to pick off straggling Frenchmen
and looking out for the Danes, had heard all the news from the landsfolk.
He had watched the Danish fleet along the shore as far as Blakeney. But
when they came to the isle, they stood out to sea, right northwest. He,
the Heron, believed that they were gone for Humber Mouth.

After a while, he had heard how Hereward was come again and sent round the
war-arrow, and thought that a landless man could be in no better company;
wherefore he had taken boat, and come across the deep fen. And there he
was, if they had need of him.

"Need of you?" said Hereward, who had heard of the deed at Wrokesham
Bridge. "Need of a hundred like you. But this is bitter news."

And he went in to ask counsel of Torfrida, ready to weep with rage. He had
disappointed, deceived his men. He had drawn them into a snare. He had
promised that the Danes should come. How should he look them in the face?

"Look them in the face? Do that at once--now--without losing a moment.
Call them together and tell them all. If their hearts are staunch, you may
do great things without the traitor earl. If their hearts fail them, you
would have done nothing with them worthy of yourself, had you had Norway
as well as Denmark at your back. At least, be true with them, as your only
chance of keeping them true to you."

"Wise, wise wife," said Hereward, and went out and called his band
together, and told them every word, and all that had passed since he left
Calais Straits.

"And now I have deceived you, and entrapped you, and I have no right to be
your captain more. He that will depart in peace, let him depart, before
the Frenchmen close in on us on every side and swallow us up at one
mouthful."

Not a man answered.

"I say it again: He that will depart, let him depart."

They stood thoughtful.

Ranald, the Monk of Ramsey, drove the White-Bear banner firm into the
earth, tucked up his monk's frock, and threw his long axe over his
shoulder, as if preparing for action.

Winter spoke at last.

"If all go, there are two men here who stay, and fight by Hereward's side
as long as there is a Frenchman left on English soil; for they have sworn
an oath to Heaven and to St. Peter, and that oath will they keep. What say
you, Gwenoch, knighted with us at Peterborough?"

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.