Book: Hereward, The Last of the English

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"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--"

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