Hereward, the Last of the English Part 44

In a few minutes he was beyond pursuit; and Ivo turned, breathless with rage, to ask who he was.

"Alas, sir! he is the man who set free the four men at Wrokesham Bridge last night."

"Set free! Are they not hanged and dead?"

"We--we dared not tell you. But he came upon us--"

"Single-handed, you cowards?"

"Sir, he is not a man, but a witch or a devil. He asked us what we did there. One of our men laughed at his long neck and legs, and called him heron. 'Heron I am,' says he, 'and strike like a heron, right at the eyes'; and with that he cuts the man over the face with his axe, and laid him dead, and then another, and another.'

"Till you all ran away, villains!"

"We gave back a step,--no more. And he freed one of those four, and he again the rest; and then they all set on us, and went to hang us in their own stead."

"When there were ten of you, I thought?"

"Sir, as we told you, he is no mortal man, but a fiend."

"Beasts, fools! Well, I have hanged this one, at least!" growled Ivo, and then rode sullenly on.

"Who is this fellow?" cried he to the trembling English.

"Wulfric Raher, Wulfric the Heron, of Wrokesham in Norfolk."

"Aha! And I hold a manor of his," said Ivo to himself. "Look you, villains, this fellow is in league with you."

A burst of abject denial followed. "Since the French,--since Sir Frederick, as they call him, drove him out of his Wrokesham lands, he wanders the country, as you see: to-day here, but Heaven only knows where he will be to-morrow."

"And finds, of course, a friend everywhere. Now march!" And a string of threats and curses followed.

It was hard to see why Wulfric should not have found friends; as he was simply a small holder, or squire, driven out of house and land, and turned adrift on the wide world, for the offence of having fought in Harold's army at the battle of Hastings. But to give him food or shelter was, in Norman eyes, an act of rebellion against the rightful King William; and Ivo rode on, boiling over with righteous indignation, along the narrow drove which led toward Deeping.

A pretty la.s.s came along the drove, driving a few sheep before her, and spinning as she walked.

"Whose la.s.s are you?" shouted Ivo.

"The Abbot of Crowland's, please your lordship," said she, trembling.

"Much too pretty to belong to monks. Chuck her up behind you, one of you."

The shrieking and struggling girl was mounted behind a horseman and bound, and Ivo rode on.

A woman ran out of a turf-hut on the drove side, attracted by the girl's cries. It was her mother.

"My la.s.s! Give me my la.s.s, for the love of St. Mary and all saints!" and she clung to Ivo's bridle.

He struck her down, and rode on over her.

A man cutting sedges in a punt in the lode alongside looked up at the girl's shrieks, and leapt on sh.o.r.e, scythe in hand.

"Father! father!" cried she.

"I'll rid thee, la.s.s, or die for it," said he, as he sprang up the drove-dike and swept right and left at the horses' legs.

The men recoiled. One horse went down, lamed for life; another staggered backwards into the further lode, and was drowned. But an arrow went through the brave serf's heart, and Ivo rode on, cursing more bitterly than ever, and comforted himself by flying his hawks at a covey of patridges.

Soon a group came along the drove which promised fresh sport to the man-hunters: but as the foremost person came up, Ivo stopped in wonder at the shout of,--

"Ivo! Ivo Taillebois! Halt and have a care! The English are risen, and we are all dead men!"

The words were spoken in French; and in French Ivo answered, laughing,--

"Thou art not a dead man yet it seems, Sir Robert; art going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, that thou comest in this fashion? Or dost mean to return to Anjou as bare as thou camest out of it?"

For Sir Robert had, like Edgar in Shakespear's _Lear_, "reserved himself a blanket, else had we all been shamed."

But very little more did either he, his lady, and his three children wear, as they trudged along the drove, in even poorer case than that

Robert of Coningsby, Who came out of Normandy, With his wife Tiffany, And his maid Maupas, And his dog Hardigras.

"For the love of heaven and all chivalry, joke me no jokes, Sir Ivo, but give me and mine clothes and food! The barbarians rose on us last night,--with Azer, the ruffian who owned my lands, at their head, and drove us out into the night as we are, bidding us carry the news to you, for your turn would come next. There are forty or more of them in West Deeping now, and coming eastward, they say, to visit you, and, what is more than all, Hereward is come again."

"Hereward?" cried Ivo, who knew that name well.

Whereon Sir Robert told him the terrible tragedy of Bourne.

"Mount the lady on a horse, and wrap her in my cloak. Get that dead villain's clothes for Sir Robert as we go back. Put your horses' heads about and ride for Spalding."

"What shall we do with the la.s.s?"

"We cannot be burdened with the jade. She has cost us two good horses already. Leave her in the road, bound as she is, and let us see if St.

Guthlac her master will come and untie her."

So they rode back. Coming from Deeping two hours after, Azer and his men found the girl on the road, dead.

"Another count in the long score," quoth Azer. But when, in two hours more, they came to Spalding town, they found all the folk upon the street, shouting and praising the host of Heaven. There was not a Frenchman left in the town.

For when Ivo returned home, ere yet Sir Robert and his family were well clothed and fed, there galloped into Spalding from, the north Sir Ascelin, nephew and man of Thorold, would-be Abbot of Peterborough, and one of the garrison of Lincoln, which was then held by Hereward's old friend, Gilbert of Ghent.

"Not bad news, I hope," cried Ivo, as Ascelin clanked into the hall. "We have enough of our own. Here is all Kesteven, as the barbarians call it, risen, and they are murdering us right and left."

"Worse news than that, Ivo Taillebois," ("Sir," or "Sieur," Ascelin was loath to call him, being himself a man of family and fashion; and holding the _nouveaux venus_ in deep contempt,)--"worse news than that: the North has risen again, and proclaimed Prince Edgar King."

"A king of words! What care I, or you, as long as the Mamzer, G.o.d bless him! is a king of deeds?"

"They have done their deeds, though, too. Gospatrick and Marlesweyn are back out of Scotland. They attacked Robert de Comines [Footnote: Ancestor of the Comyns of Scotland.] at Durham, and burnt him in his own house.

There was but one of his men got out of Durham to tell the news. And now they have marched on York; and all the chiefs, they say, have joined them,--Archill the Thane, and Edwin and Morcar, and Waltheof too, the young traitors."