Book: Hereward, The Last of the English

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What was there not to be seen and conquered? Where would he go? Where
would he not go? For the spirit of Odin the Goer, the spirit which has
sent his children round the world, was strong within him. He would go to
Ireland, to the Ostmen, or Irish Danes men at Dublin, Waterford, or Cork,
and marry some beautiful Irish Princess with gray eyes, and raven locks,
and saffron smock, and great gold bracelets from her native hills. No; he
would go off to the Orkneys, and join Bruce and Ranald, and the Vikings of
the northern seas, and all the hot blood which had found even Norway too
hot to hold it; and sail through witch-whales and icebergs to Iceland and
Greenland, and the sunny lands which they said lay even beyond, across the
all but unknown ocean. He would go up the Baltic to the Jomsburg Vikings,
and fight against Lett and Esthonian heathen, and pierce inland, perhaps,
through Puleyn and the bison forests, to the land from whence came the
magic swords and the old Persian coins which he had seen so often in the
halls of his forefathers. No; he would go South, to the land of sun and
wine; and see the magicians of Cordova and Seville; and beard Mussulman
hounds worshipping their Mahomets; and perhaps bring home an Emir's
daughter,--

"With more gay gold about her middle,
Than would buy half Northumberlee."

Or he would go up the Straits, and on to Constantinople and the great
Kaiser of the Greeks, and join the Varanger Guard, and perhaps, like
Harold Hardraade in his own days, after being cast to the lion for
carrying off a fair Greek lady, tear out the monster's tongue with his own
hands, and show the Easterns what a Viking's son could do. And as he
dreamed of the infinite world and its infinite wonders, the enchanters he
might meet, the jewels he might find, the adventures be might essay, he
held that he must succeed in all, with hope and wit and a strong arm; and
forgot altogether that, mixed up with the cosmogony of an infinite flat
plain called the Earth, there was joined also the belief in a flat roof
above called Heaven, on which (seen at times in visions through clouds and
stars) sat saints, angels, and archangels, forevermore harping on their
golden harps, and knowing neither vanity nor vexation of spirit, lust nor
pride, murder nor war;--and underneath a floor, the name whereof was Hell;
the mouths whereof (as all men knew) might be seen on Hecla and Aetna and
Stromboli; and the fiends heard within, tormenting, amid fire, and smoke,
and clanking chains, the souls of the eternally lost.

As he rode on slowly though cheerfully, as a man who will not tire his
horse at the beginning of a long day's journey, and knows not where he
shall pass the night, he was aware of a man on foot coming up behind him
at a slow, steady, loping, wolf-like trot, which in spite of its slowness
gained ground on him so fast, that he saw at once that the man could be no
common runner.

The man came up; and behold, he was none other than Martin Lightfoot.

"What! art thou here?" asked Hereward, suspiciously, and half cross at
seeing any visitor from the old world which he had just cast off. "How
gottest thou out of St. Peter's last night?"

Martin's tongue was hanging out of his mouth like a running hound's, but
he seemed, like a hound, to perspire through his mouth, for he answered
without the least sign of distress, without even pulling in his tongue,--

"Over the wall, the moment the Prior's back was turned. I was not going to
wait till I was chained up in some rat's-hole with a half-hundred of iron
on my leg, and flogged till I confessed that I was what I am not,--a
runaway monk."

"And why art here?"

"Because I am going with you."

"Going with me?" said Hereward; "what can I do for thee?"

"I can do for you," said Martin.

"What?"

"Groom your horse, wash your shirt, clean your weapons, find your inn,
fight your enemies, cheat your friends,--anything and everything. You are
going to see the world. I am going with you."

"Thou canst be my servant? A right slippery one, I expect," said Hereward,
looking down on him with some suspicion.

"Some are not the rogues they seem. I can keep my secrets and yours too."

"Before I can trust thee with my secrets, I shall expect to know some of
thine," said Hereward.

Martin Lightfoot looked up with a cunning smile. "A servant can always
know his master's secrets if he likes. But that is no reason a master
should know his servant's."

"Thou shalt tell me thine, man, or I shall ride off and leave thee."

"Not so easy, my lord. Where that heavy horse can go, Martin Lightfoot can
follow. But I will tell you one secret, which I never told to living man.
I can read and write like any clerk."

"Thou read and write?"

"Ay, good Latin enough, and Irish too, what is more. And now, because I
love you, and because you I will serve, willy nilly, I will tell you all
the secrets I have, as long as my breath lasts, for my tongue is rather
stiff after that long story about the bell-wether. I was born in Ireland,
in Waterford town. My mother was an English slave, one of those that Earl
Godwin's wife--not this one that is now, Gyda, but the old one, King
Canute's sister--used to sell out of England by the score, tied together
with ropes, boys and girls from Bristol town. Her master, my father that
was (I shall know him again), got tired of her, and wanted to give her
away to one of his kernes. She would not have that; so he hung her up hand
and foot, and beat her that she died. There was an abbey hard by, and the
Church laid on him a penance,--all that they dared get out of him,--that
he should give me to the monks, being then a seven-years' boy. Well, I
grew up in that abbey; they taught me my fa fa mi fa: but I liked better
conning of ballads and hearing stories of ghosts and enchanters, such as I
used to tell you. I'll tell you plenty more whenever you're tired. Then
they made me work; and that I never could abide at all. Then they beat me
every day; and that I could abide still less; but always I stuck to my
book, for one thing I saw,--that learning is power, my lord; and that the
reason why the monks are masters of the land is, they are scholars, and
you fighting men are none. Then I fell in love (as young blood will) with
an Irish lass, when I was full seventeen years old; and when they found
out that, they held me down on the floor and beat me till I was wellnigh
dead. They put me in prison for a month; and between bread-and-water and
darkness I went nigh foolish. They let me out, thinking I could do no more
harm to man or lass; and when I found out how profitable folly was,
foolish I remained, at least as foolish as seemed good to me. But one
night I got into the abbey church, stole therefrom that which I have with
me now, and which shall serve you and me in good stead yet,--out and away
aboard a ship among the buscarles, and off into the Norway sea. But after
a voyage or two, so it befell, I was wrecked in the Wash by Botulfston
Deeps, and, begging my way inland, met with your father, and took service
with him, as I have taken service now with you."

"Now, what has made thee take service with me?"

"Because you are you."

"Give me none of your parables and dark sayings, but speak out like a man.
What canst see in me that thou shouldest share an outlaw's fortune with
me?"

"I had run away from a monastery, so had you; I hated the monks, so did
you; I liked to tell stories,--since I found good to shut my mouth I tell
them to myself all day long, sometimes all night too. When I found out you
liked to hear them, I loved you all the more. Then they told me not to
speak to you; I held my tongue. I bided my time. I knew you would be
outlawed some day. I knew you would turn Viking and kempery-man, and kill
giants and enchanters, and win yourself honor and glory; and I knew I
should have my share in it. I knew you would need me some day; and you
need me now, and here I am; and if you try to cut me down with your sword,
I will dodge you, and follow you, and dodge you again, till I force you to
let me be your man, for with you I will live and die. And now I can talk
no more."

"And with me thou shalt live and die," said Hereward, pulling up his
horse, and frankly holding out his hand to his new friend.

Martin Lightfoot took his hand, kissed it, licked it almost as a dog would
have done. "I am your man," he said, "amen; and true man I will prove to
you, if you will prove true to me." And he dropped quietly back behind
Hereward's horse, as if the business of his life was settled, and his mind
utterly at rest.

"There is one more likeness between us," said Hereward, after a few
minutes' thought. "If I have robbed a church, thou hast robbed one too.
What is this precious spoil which is to serve me and thee in such mighty
stead?"

Martin drew from inside his shirt and under his waistband a small
battle-axe, and handed it up to Hereward. It was a tool the like of which
in shape Hereward had seldom seen, and never its equal in beauty. The
handle was some fifteen inches long, made of thick strips of black
whalebone, curiously bound with silver, and butted with narwhal ivory.
This handle was evidently the work of some cunning Norseman of old. But
who was the maker of the blade? It was some eight inches long, with a
sharp edge on one side, a sharp crooked pick on the other; of the finest
steel, inlaid with strange characters in gold, the work probably of some
Circassian, Tartar, or Persian; such a battle-axe as Rustum or Zohrab may
have wielded in fight upon the banks of Oxus; one of those magic weapons,
brought, men knew not how, out of the magic East, which were hereditary in
many a Norse family and sung of in many a Norse saga.

"Look at it," said Martin Lightfoot. "There is magic on it. It must bring
us luck. Whoever holds that must kill his man. It will pick a lock of
steel. It will crack a mail corslet as a nut-hatch cracks a nut. It will
hew a lance in two at a single blow. Devils and spirits forged it,--I know
that; Virgilius the Enchanter, perhaps, or Solomon the Great, or
whosoever's name is on it, graven there in letters of gold. Handle it,
feel its balance; but no,--do not handle it too much. There is a devil in
it, who would make you kill me. Whenever I play with it I long to kill a
man. It would be so easy,--so easy. Give it me back, my lord, give it me
back, lest the devil come through the handle into your palm, and possess
you."

Hereward laughed, and gave him back his battle-axe. But he had hardly less
doubt of the magic virtues of such a blade than had Martin himself.

"Magical or not, thou wilt not have to hit a man twice with that, Martin,
my lad. So we two outlaws are both well armed; and having neither wife nor
child, land nor beeves to lose, ought to be a match for any six honest men
who may have a grudge against us, and sound reasons at home for running
away."

And so those two went northward through the green Bruneswald, and
northward again through merry Sherwood, and were not seen in that land
again for many a year.




CHAPTER II.

HOW HEREWARD SLEW THE BEAR.


Of Hereward's doings for the next few months naught is known. He may very
likely have joined Siward in the Scotch war. He may have looked,
wondering, for the first time in his life, upon the bones of the old
world, where they rise at Dunkeld out of the lowlands of the Tay; and have
trembled lest the black crags of Birnam should topple on his head with all
their pines. He may have marched down from that famous leaguer with the
Gospatricks and Dolfins, and the rest of the kindred of Crinan (abthane or
abbot,--let antiquaries decide),--of Dunkeld, and of Duncan, and of
Siward, and of the outraged Sibilla. He may have helped himself to bring
Birnam Wood to Dunsinane, "on the day of the Seven Sleepers," and heard
Siward, when his son Asbiorn's corpse was carried into camp, [Footnote:
Shakespeare makes young Siward his son. He, too, was slain in the battle:
but he was Siward's nephew.] ask only, "Has he all his wounds in front?"
He may have seen old Siward, after Macbeth's defeat (not death, as
Shakespeare relates the story), go back to Northumbria "with such booty as
no man had obtained before,"--a proof, if the fact be fact, that the
Scotch lowlands were not, in the eleventh century, the poor and barbarous
country which some have reported them to have been.

All this is not only possible, but probable enough, the dates considered:
the chroniclers, however, are silent. They only say that Hereward was in
those days beyond Northumberland with Gisebert of Ghent.

Gisebert, Gislebert, Gilbert, Guibert, Goisbricht, of Ghent, who
afterwards owned, by chance of war, many a fair manor about Lincoln city,
was one of those valiant Flemings who settled along the east and northeast
coast of Scotland in the eleventh century. They fought with the Celtic
princes, and then married with their daughters; got to themselves lands
"by the title-deed of the sword"; and so became--the famous "Freskin the
Fleming" especially--the ancestors of the finest aristocracy, both
physically and intellectually, in the world. They had their connections,
moreover, with the Norman court of Rouen, through the Duchess Matilda,
daughter of their old Seigneur, Baldwin, Marquis of Flanders; their
connections, too, with the English Court, through Countess Judith, wife of
Earl Tosti Godwinsson, another daughter of Baldwin's. Their friendship was
sought, their enmity feared, far and wide throughout the north. They seem
to have been civilizers and cultivators and traders,--with the instinct of
true Flemings,--as well as conquerors; they were in those very days
bringing to order and tillage the rich lands of the north-east, from the
Frith of Moray to that of Forth; and forming a rampart for Scotland
against the invasions of Sweyn, Hardraade, and all the wild Vikings of the
northern seas.

Amongst them, in those days, Gilbert of Ghent seems to have been a notable
personage, to judge from the great house which he kept, and the _milites
tyrones,_ or squires in training for the honor of knighthood, who fed at
his table. Where he lived, the chroniclers report not. To them the country
"ultra Northumbriam," beyond the Forth, was as Russia or Cathay, where

"Geographers on pathless downs
Put elephants for want of towns."

As indeed it was to that French map-maker who, as late as the middle of
the eighteenth century (not having been to Aberdeen or Elgin), leaves all
the country north of the Tay a blank, with the inscription: "_Terre
inculte et sauvage, habitee par les Higlanders._"

Wherever Gilbert lived, however, he heard that Hereward was outlawed, and
sent for him, says the story. And there he lived, doubtless happily
enough, fighting Highlanders and hunting deer, so that as yet the pains
and penalties of exile did not press very hardly upon him. The handsome,
petulant, good-humored lad had become in a few weeks the darling of
Gilbert's ladies, and the envy of all his knights and gentlemen. Hereward
the singer, harp-player, dancer, Hereward the rider and hunter, was in all
mouths; but he himself was discontented at having as yet fallen in with no
adventure worthy of a man, and looked curiously and longingly at the
menagerie of wild beasts enclosed in strong wooden cages, which Gilbert
kept in one corner of the great court-yard, not for any scientific
purposes, but to try with them, at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, the
mettle of the young gentlemen who were candidates for the honor of
knighthood. But after looking over the bulls and stags, wolves and bears,
Hereward settled it in his mind that there was none worthy of his steel,
save one huge white bear, whom no man had yet dared to face, and whom
Hereward, indeed, had never seen, hidden as he was all day within the old
oven-shaped Pict's house of stone, which had been turned into his den.
There was a mystery about the uncanny brute which charmed Hereward. He was
said to be half-human, perhaps wholly human; to be the son of the Fairy
Bear, near kinsman, if not uncle or cousin, of Siward Digre. He had, like
his fairy father, iron claws; he had human intellect, and understood human
speech, and the arts of war,--at least so all in the place believed, and
not as absurdly as at first sight seems.

For the brown bear, and much more the white, was, among the Northern
nations, in himself a creature magical and superhuman. "He is God's dog,"
whispered the Lapp, and called him "the old man in the fur cloak," afraid
to use his right name, even inside the tent, for fear of his overhearing
and avenging the insult. "He has twelve men's strength, and eleven men's
wit," sang the Norseman, and prided himself accordingly, like a true
Norseman, on outwitting and slaying the enchanted monster.

Terrible was the brown bear: but more terrible "the white sea-deer," as
the Saxons called him; the hound of Hrymir, the whale's bane, the seal's
dread, the rider of the iceberg, the sailor of the floe, who ranged for
his prey under the six months' night, lighted by Surtur's fires, even to
the gates of Muspelheim. To slay him was a feat worthy of Beowulf's self;
and the greatest wonder, perhaps, among all the wealth of Crowland, was
the twelve white bear-skins which lay before the altars, the gift of the
great Canute. How Gilbert had obtained his white bear, and why he kept him
there in durance vile, was a mystery over which men shook their heads.
Again and again Hereward asked his host to let him try his strength
against the monster of the North. Again and again the shrieks of the
ladies, and Gilbert's own pity for the stripling youth, brought a refusal.
But Hereward settled it in his heart, nevertheless, that somehow or other,
when Christmas time came round, he would extract from Gilbert, drunk or
sober, leave to fight that bear; and then either make himself a name, or
die like a man.

Meanwhile Hereward made a friend. Among all the ladies of Gilbert's
household, however kind they were inclined to be to him, he took a fancy
but to one,--and that was to a little girl of eight years old. Alftruda
was her name. He liked to amuse himself with this child, without, as he
fancied, any danger of falling in love; for already his dreams of love
were of the highest and most fantastic; and an Emir's daughter, or a
Princess of Constantinople, were the very lowest game at which he meant to
fly. Alftruda was beautiful, too, exceedingly, and precocious, and, it may
be, vain enough to repay his attentions in good earnest. Moreover she was
English as he was, and royal likewise; a relation of Elfgiva, daughter of
Ethelred, once King of England, who, as all know, married Uchtred, prince
of Northumberland and grandfather of Gospatrick, Earl of Northumberland,
and ancestor of all the Dunbars. Between the English lad then and the
English maiden grew up in a few weeks an innocent friendship, which had
almost become more than friendship, through the intervention of the Fairy
Bear.

For as Hereward was coming in one afternoon from hunting, hawk on fist,
with Martin Lightfoot trotting behind, crane and heron, duck and hare,
slung over his shoulder, on reaching the court-yard gates he was aware of
screams and shouts within, tumult and terror among man and beast. Hereward
tried to force his horse in at the gate. The beast stopped and turned,
snorting with fear; and no wonder; for in the midst of the court-yard
stood the Fairy Bear; his white mane bristled up till he seemed twice as
big as any of the sober brown bears which Hereward yet had seen: his long
snake neck and cruel visage wreathed about in search of prey. A dead
horse, its back broken by a single blow of the paw, and two or three
writhing dogs, showed that the beast had turned (like too many of his
human kindred) "Berserker." The court-yard was utterly empty: but from the
ladies' bower came shrieks and shouts, not only of women, but of men; and
knocking at the bower door, adding her screams to those inside, was a
little white figure, which Hereward recognized as Alftruda's. They had
barricaded themselves inside, leaving the child out; and now dared not
open the door, as the bear swung and rolled towards it, looking savagely
right and left for a fresh victim.

Hereward leaped from his horse, and, drawing his sword, rushed forward
with a shout which made the bear turn round.

He looked once back at the child; then round again at Hereward: and,
making up his mind to take the largest morsel first, made straight at him
with a growl which there was no mistaking.

He was within two paces; then he rose on his hind legs, a head and
shoulders taller than Hereward, and lifted the iron talons high in air.
Hereward knew that there was but one spot at which to strike; and he
struck true and strong, before the iron paw could fall, right on the
muzzle of the monster.

He heard the dull crash of the steel; he felt the sword jammed tight. He
shut his eyes for an instant, fearing lest, as in dreams, his blow had
come to naught; lest his sword had turned aside, or melted like water in
his hand, and the next moment would find him crushed to earth, blinded and
stunned. Something tugged at his sword. He opened his eyes, and saw the
huge carcass bend, reel, roll slowly over to one side dead, tearing out of
his hand the sword, which was firmly fixed into the skull.

Hereward stood awhile staring at the beast like a man astonished at what
he himself had done. He had had his first adventure, and he had conquered.
He was now a champion in his own right,--a hero of the heroes,--one who
might take rank, if he went on, beside Beowulf, Frotho, Ragnar Lodbrog, or
Harald Hardraade. He had done this deed. What was there after this which
he might not do? And he stood there in the fulness of his pride, defiant
of earth and heaven, while in his heart arose the thought of that old
Viking who cried, in the pride of his godlessness: "I never on earth met
him whom I feared, and why should I fear Him in heaven? If I met Odin, I
would fight with Odin. If Odin were the stronger, he would slay me; if I
were the stronger, I would slay him." And there he stood, staring, and
dreaming over renown to come,--a true pattern of the half-savage hero of
those rough times, capable of all vices except cowardice, and capable,
too, of all virtues save humility.

"Do you not see," said Martin Lightfoot's voice, close by, "that there is
a fair lady trying to thank you, while you are so rude or so proud that
you will not vouchsafe her one look?"

It was true. Little Alftruda had been clinging to him for five minutes
past. He took the child up in his arms and kissed her with pure kisses,
which for a moment softened his hard heart; then, setting her down, he
turned to Martin.

"I have done it, Martin."

"Yes, you have done it; I spied you. What will the old folks at home say
to this?"

"What care I?"

Martin Lightfoot shook his head, and drew out his knife.

"What is that for?" said Hereward.

"When the master kills the game, the knave can but skin it. We may sleep
warm under this fur in many a cold night by sea and moor."

"Nay," said Hereward, laughing; "when the master kills the game he must
first carry it home. Let us take him and set him up against the bower door
there, to astonish the brave knights inside." And stooping down, he
attempted to lift the huge carcass; but in vain. At last, with Martin's
help, he got it fairly on his shoulders, and the two dragged their burden
to the bower and dashed it against the door, shouting with all their might
to those within to open it.

Windows, it must be remembered, were in those days so few and far between
that the folks inside had remained quite unaware of what was going on
without.

The door was opened cautiously enough; and out looked, to the shame of
knighthood, be it said, two or three knights who had taken shelter in the
bower with the ladies. Whatever they were going to say the ladies
forestalled, for, rushing out across the prostrate bear, they overwhelmed
Hereward with praises, thanks, and, after the straightforward custom of
those days, with substantial kisses.

"You must be knighted at once," cried they. "You have knighted yourself by
that single blow."

"A pity, then," said one of the knights to the others, "that he had not
given that accolade to himself, instead of to the bear."

"Unless some means are found," said another, "of taking down this boy's
conceit, life will soon be not worth having here."

"Either he must take ship," said a third, "and look for adventures
elsewhere, or I must."

Martin Lightfoot heard those words; and knowing that envy and hatred, like
all other vices in those rough-hewn times, were apt to take very startling
and unmistakeable shapes, kept his eye accordingly on those three knights.

"He must be knighted,--he shall be knighted, as soon as Sir Gilbert comes
home," said all the ladies in chorus.

"I should be sorry to think," said Hereward, with the blundering mock
humility of a self-conceited boy, "that I had done anything worthy of such
an honor. I hope to win my spurs by greater feats than these."

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