Hereward, the Last of the English Part 36

Malcolm Canmore promised a mighty army; Sweyn, a mighty fleet. And meanwhile, Eustace of Boulogne, the Confessor's brother-in-law, himself a Norman, rebelled at the head of the down-trodden men of Kent; and the Welshmen were harrying Herefordshire with fire and sword, in revenge for Norman ravages.

But as yet the storm did not burst. William returned, and with him something like order. He conquered Exeter; he destroyed churches and towns to make his New Forest. He brought over his Queen Matilda with pomp and great glory; and with her, the Bayeux tapestry which she had wrought with her own hands; and meanwhile Sweyn Ulfsson was too busy threatening Olaf Haroldsson, the new king of Norway, to sail for England; and the sons of King Harold of England had to seek help from the Irish Danes, and, ravaging the country round Bristol, be beaten off by the valiant burghers with heavy loss.

So the storm did not burst; and need not have burst, it may be, at all, had William kept his plighted word. But he would not give his fair daughter to Edwin. His Norman n.o.bles, doubtless, looked upon such an alliance as debasing to a civilized lady. In their eyes, the Englishman was a barbarian; and though the Norman might well marry the Englishwoman, if she had beauty or wealth, it was a dangerous precedent to allow the Englishman to marry the Norman woman, and that woman a princess. Beside, there were those who coveted Edwin's broad lands; Roger de Montgomery, who already (it is probable) held part of them as Earl of Shrewsbury, had no wish to see Edwin the son-in-law of his sovereign. Be the cause what it may, William faltered, and refused; and Edwin and Morcar left the Court of Westminster in wrath. Waltheof followed them, having discovered--what he was weak enough continually to forget again--the treachery of the Norman.

The young earls went off, one midlandward, one northward. The people saw their wrongs in those of their earls, and the rebellion burst forth at once, the Welsh under Blethyn, and the c.u.mbrians under Malcolm and Donaldbain, giving their help in the struggle.

It was the year 1069. A more evil year for England than even the year of Hastings.

The rebellion was crushed in a few months. The great general marched steadily north, taking the boroughs one by one, storming, ma.s.sacring young and old, burning, sometimes, whole towns, and leaving, as he went on, a new portent, a Norman donjon--till then all but unseen in England--as a place of safety for his garrisons. At Oxford (sacked horribly, and all but destroyed), at Warwick (destroyed utterly), at Nottingham, at Stafford, at Shrewsbury, at Cambridge, on the huge barrow which overhangs the fen; and at York itself, which had opened its gates, trembling, to the great Norman strategist; at each doomed free borough rose a castle, with its tall square tower within, its bailey around, and all the appliances of that ancient Roman science of fortification, of which the Danes, as well as the Saxons, knew nothing. Their struggle had only helped to tighten their bonds; and what wonder? There was among them neither unity nor plan nor governing mind and will. Hereward's words had come true. The only man, save Gospatrick, who had a head in England, was Harold G.o.dwinsson: and he lay in Waltham Abbey, while the monks sang ma.s.ses for his soul.

Edwin, Morcar, and Waltheof trembled before a genius superior to their own,--a genius, indeed, which had not its equal then in Christendom. They came in and begged grace of the king. They got it. But Edwin's earldom was forfeited, and he and his brother became, from thenceforth, desperate men.

Malcolm of Scotland trembled likewise, and asked for peace. The clans, it is said, rejoiced thereat, having no wish for a war which could buy them neither spoil nor land. Malcolm sent amba.s.sadors to William, and took that oath of fealty to the "Basileus of Britain," which more than one Scottish king and kinglet had taken before,--with the secret proviso (which, during the Middle Ages, seems to have been thoroughly understood in such cases by both parties), that he should be William's man just as long as William could compel him to be so, and no longer.

Then came cruel and unjust confiscations. Ednoth the standard-bearer had fallen at Bristol, fighting for William against the Haroldssons, yet all his lands were given away to Normans. Edwin and Morcar's lands were parted likewise; and--to specify cases which bear especially on the history of Hereward--Oger the Briton got many of Morcar's manors round Bourne, and Gilbert of Ghent many belonging to Marlesweyn about Lincoln city. And so did that valiant and crafty knight find his legs once more on other men's ground, and reappears in monkish story as "the most devout and pious earl, Gilbert of Ghent."

What followed, Hereward heard not from flying rumors; but from one who had seen and known and judged of all. [Footnote: For Gyda's coming to St. Omer that year, see Ordericus Vitalis.]

For one day, about this time, Hereward was riding out of the gate of St.

Omer, when the porter appealed to him. Begging for admittance were some twenty women, and a clerk or two; and they must needs see the chatelain.

The chatelain was away. What should he do?

Hereward looked at the party, and saw, to his surprise, that they were Englishwomen, and two of them women of rank, to judge from the rich materials of their travel-stained and tattered garments. The ladies rode on sorry country garrons, plainly hired from the peasants who drove them.

The rest of the women had walked; and weary and footsore enough they were.

"You are surely Englishwomen?" asked he of the foremost, as he lifted his cap.

The lady bowed a.s.sent, beneath a heavy veil.

"Then you are my guests. Let them pa.s.s in." And Hereward threw himself off his horse, and took the lady's bridle.

"Stay," she said, with an accent half Wess.e.x, half Danish. "I seek the Countess Judith, if it will please you to tell me where she lives."

"The Countess Judith, lady, lives no longer in St. Omer. Since her husband's death, she lives with her mother at Bruges."

The lady made a gesture of disappointment.

"It were best for you, therefore, to accept my hospitality, till such time as I can send you and your ladies on to Bruges."

"I must first know who it is who offers me hospitality?"

This was said so proudly, that Hereward answered proudly enough in return,--

"I am Hereward Leofricsson, whom his foes call Hereward the outlaw, and his friends Hereward the master of knights."

She started, and threw her veil hack, looking intently at him. He, for his part, gave but one glance, and then cried,--

"Mother of Heaven! You are the great Countess!"

"Yes, I was that woman once, if all be not a dream. I am now I know not what, seeking hospitality--if I can believe my eyes and ears--of G.o.diva's son."

"And from G.o.diva's son you shall have it, as though you were G.o.diva's self. G.o.d so deal with my mother, madam, as I will deal with you."

"His father's wit, and his mother's beauty!" said the great Countess, looking upon him. "Too, too like my own lost Harold!"

"Not so, my lady. I am a dwarf compared to him." And Hereward led the garron on by the bridle, keeping his cap in hand, while all wondered who the dame could be, before whom Hereward the champion would so abase himself.

"Leofric's son does me too much honor. He has forgotten, in his chivalry, that I am G.o.dwin's widow."

"I have not forgotten that you are Sprakaleg's daughter, and niece of Canute, king of kings. Neither have I forgotten that you are an English lady, in times in which all English folk are one, and all old English feuds are wiped away."

"In English blood. Ah! if these last words of yours were true, as you, perhaps, might make them true, England might be saved even yet."

"Saved?"

"If there were one man in it, who cared for aught but himself."

Hereward was silent and thoughtful.

He had sent Martin back to his house, to tell Torfrida to prepare bath and food; for the Countess Gyda, with all her train, was coming to be her guest. And when they entered the court, Torfrida stood ready.

"Is this your lady?" asked Gyda, as Hereward lifted her from her horse.

"I am his lady, and your servant," said Torfrida, bowing.

"Child! child! Bow not to me. Talk not of servants to a wretched slave, who only longs to crawl into some hole and die, forgetting all she was and all she had."

And the great Countess reeled with weariness and woe, and fell upon Torfrida's neck.

A tall veiled lady next her helped to support her; and between them they almost carried her through the hall, and into Torfrida's best guest-chamber.

And there they gave her wine, and comforted her, and let her weep awhile in peace.

The second lady had unveiled herself, displaying a beauty which was still brilliant, in spite of sorrow, hunger, the stains of travel, and more than forty years of life.

"She must be Gunhilda," guessed Torfrida to herself, and not amiss.

She offered Gyda a bath, which she accepted eagerly, like a true Dane.

"I have not washed for weeks. Not since we sat starving on the Flat-Holme there, in the Severn sea. I have become as foul as my own fortunes: and why not? It is all of a piece. Why should not beggars beg unwashed?"

But when Torfrida offered Gunhilda the bath she declined.

"I have done, lady, with such carnal vanities. What use in cleansing that body which is itself unclean, and whitening the outside of this sepulchre?

If I can but cleanse my soul fit for my heavenly Bridegroom, the body may become--as it must at last--food for worms."

"She will needs enter religion, poor child," said Gyda; "and what wonder?"