Hereward, the Last of the English Part 52

It is but probable, nevertheless, that Hereward, as the only man among the fugitives who ever showed any ability whatsoever, and who was, also, the only leader (save Morcar) connected with the fen, conceived the famous "Camp of Refuge," and made it a formidable fact. Be that as it may, Edwin and Morcar went to Ely; and there joined them a Count Tosti (according to Leofric), unknown to history; a Siward Barn, or "the boy," who had been dispossessed of lands in Lincolnshire; and other valiant and n.o.ble gentlemen,--the last wrecks of the English aristocracy. And there they sat in Abbot Thurstan's hall, and waited for Sweyn and the Danes.

But the worst Job's messenger who, during that evil winter and spring, came into the fen, was Bishop Egelwin of Durham. He it was, most probably, who brought the news of Yorkshire laid waste with fire and sword. He it was, most certainly, who brought the worse news still, that Gospatrick and Waltheof were gone over to the king. He was at Durham, seemingly, when he saw that; and fled for his life ere evil overtook him: for to yield to William that brave bishop had no mind.

But when Hereward heard that Waltheof was married to the Conqueror's niece, he smote his hands together, and cursed him, and the mother who bore him to Siward the Stout.

"Could thy father rise from his grave, he would split thy craven head in the very lap of the Frenchwoman."

"A hard lap will he find it, Hereward," said Torfrida. "I know her,--wanton, false, and vain. Heaven grant he do not rue the day he ever saw her!"

"Heaven grant he may rue it! Would that her bosom were knives and fish-hooks, like that of the statue in the fairy-tale. See what he has done for us! He is Earl not only of his own lands, but he has taken poor Morcar's too, and half his earldom. He is Earl of Huntingdon, of Cambridge, they say,--of this ground on which we stand. What right have I here now? How can I call on a single man to arm, as I could in Morcar's name? I am an outlaw here and a robber; and so is every man with me. And do you think that William did not know that? He saw well enough what he was doing when he set up that great brainless idol as Earl again. He wanted to split up the Danish folk, and he has done it. The Northumbrians will stick to Waltheof. They think him a mighty hero, because he held York-gate alone with his own axe against all the French."

"Well, that was a gallant deed."

"Pish! we are all gallant men, we English. It is not courage that we want, it is brains. So the Yorkshire and Lindsay men, and the Nottingham men too, will go with Waltheof. And round here, and all through the fens, every coward, every prudent man even,--every man who likes to be within the law, and feel his head safe on his shoulders,--no blame to him--will draw each from me for fear of this new Earl, and leave us to end as a handful of outlaws. I see it all. As William sees it all. He is wise enough, the Mamzer, and so is his father Belial, to whom he will go home some day. Yes, Torfrida," he went on after a pause, more gently, but in a tone of exquisite sadness, "you were right, as you always are. I am no match for that man. I see it now."

"I never said that. Only--"

"Only you told me again and again that he was the wisest man on earth."

"And yet, for that very reason, I bade you win glory without end, by defying the wisest man on earth."

"And do you bid me do it still?"

"G.o.d knows what I bid," said Torfrida, bursting into tears. "Let me go pray, for I never needed it more."

Hereward watched her kneeling, as he sat moody, all but desperate. Then he glided to her side, and said gently,--

"Teach me how to pray, Torfrida. I can say a Pater or an Ave. But that does not comfort a man's heart, as far as I could ever find. Teach me to pray, as you and my mother do."

And she put her arms round the wild man's neck, and tried to teach him, like a little child.

CHAPTER XXVI.

HOW HEREWARD FULFILLED HIS WORDS TO THE PRIOR OF THE GOLDEN BOROUGH.

In the course of that winter died good Abbot Brand. Hereward went over to see him, and found him mumbling to himself texts of Isaiah, and confessing the sins of his people.

"'Woe to the vineyard that bringeth forth wild grapes. Woe to those that join house to house, and field to field,'--like us, and the G.o.dwinssons, and every man that could, till we 'stood alone in the land.' 'Many houses, great and fair, shall be without inhabitants.' It is all foretold in Holy Writ, Hereward, my son. 'Woe to those who rise early to fill themselves with strong drink, and the tabret and harp are in their feasts; but they regard not the works of the Lord.' 'Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge.' Ah, those Frenchmen have knowledge, and too much of it; while we have brains filled with ale instead of justice. 'Therefore h.e.l.l hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure'; and all go down into it, one by one. And dost thou think thou shalt escape, Hereward, thou stout-hearted?"

"I neither know nor care; but this I know, that whithersoever I go, I shall go sword in hand."

"'They that take the sword shall perish by the sword,'" said Brand, and blessed Hereward, and died.

A week after came news that Thorold of Malmesbury was coming to take the Abbey of Peterborough, and had got as far as Stamford, with a right royal train.

Then Hereward sent Abbot Thorold word, that if he or his Frenchmen put foot into Peterborough, he, Hereward, would burn it over their heads. And that if he rode a mile beyond Stamford town, he should walk back into it barefoot in his shirt.

Whereon Thorold abode at Stamford, and kept up his spirits by singing the songs of Roland,--which some say he himself composed.

A week after that, and the Danes were come.

A mighty fleet, with Sweyn Ulfsson at their head, went up the Ouse toward Ely. Another, with Osbiorn at their head, having joined them off the mouth of the Humber, sailed (it seems) up the Nene. All the chivalry of Denmark and Ireland was come. And with it, all the chivalry and the unchivalry of the Baltic sh.o.r.es. Vikings from Jomsburg and Arkona, Gottlanders from Wisby; and with them savages from Esthonia, Finns from aland, Letts who still offered in the forests of Rugen, human victims to the four-headed Swantowit; foul hordes in sheep-skins and primeval filth, who might have been scented from Hunstanton Cliff ever since their ships had rounded the Skaw.

Hereward hurried to them with all his men. He was anxious, of course, to prevent their plundering the landsfolk as they went,--and that the savages from the Baltic sh.o.r.e would certainly do, if they could, however reasonable the Danes, Orkneymen, and Irish Ostmen might be.

Food, of course, they must take where they could find it; but outrages were not a necessary, though a too common, adjunct to the process of emptying a farmer's granaries.

He found the Danes in a dangerous mood, sulky, and disgusted, as they had good right to be. They had gone to the Humber, and found nothing but ruin; the land waste; the French holding both the sh.o.r.es of the Humber; and Osbiorn cowering in Humber-mouth, hardly able to feed his men. They had come to conquer England, and nothing was left for them to conquer, but a few peat-bogs. Then they would have what there was in them. Every one knew that gold grew up in England out of the ground, wherever a monk put his foot. And they would plunder Crowland. Their forefathers had done it, and had fared none the worse. English gold they would have, if they could not get fat English manors.

"No! not Crowland!" said Hereward; "any place but Crowland, endowed and honored by Canute the Great,--Crowland, whose abbot was a Danish n.o.bleman, whose monks were Danes to a man, of their own flesh and blood. Canute's soul would rise up in Valhalla and curse them, if they took the value of a penny from St. Guthlac. St. Guthlac was their good friend. He would send them bread, meat, ale, all they needed. But woe to the man who set foot upon his ground."

Hereward sent off messengers to Crowland, warning all to be ready to escape into the fens; and entreating Ulfketyl to empty his storehouses into his barges, and send food to the Danes, ere a day was past. And Ulfketyl worked hard and well, till a string of barges wound its way through the fens, laden with beeves and bread, and ale-barrels in plenty, and with monks too, who welcomed the Danes as their brethren, talked to them in their own tongue, blessed them in St. Guthlac's name as the saviors of England, and went home again, chanting so sweetly their thanks to Heaven for their safety, that the wild Vikings were awed, and agreed that St. Guthlac's men were wise folk and open-hearted, and that it was a shame to do them harm.

But plunder they must have.

"And plunder you shall have!" said Hereward, as a sudden thought struck him. "I will show you the way to the Golden Borough,--the richest minster in England; and all the treasures of the Golden Borough shall be yours, if you will treat Englishmen as friends, and spare the people of the fens."

It was a great crime in the eyes of men of that time. A great crime, taken simply, in Hereward's own eyes. But necessity knows no law. Something the Danes must have, and ought to have; and St. Peter's gold was better in their purses than in that of Thorold and his French monks.

So he led them across the fens and side rivers, till they came into the old Nene, which men call Cat.w.a.ter and Muscal now.

As he pa.s.sed Nomanslandhirne, and the mouth of the Crowland river, he trembled, and trusted that the Danes did not know that they were within three miles of St. Guthlac's sanctuary. But they went on ignorant, and up the Muscal till they saw St. Peter's towers on the wooded rise, and behind them the great forest which now is Milton Park.

There were two parties in Peterborough minster: a smaller faction of stout-hearted English, a larger one who favored William and the French customs, with Prior Herluin at their head. Herluin wanted not for foresight, and he knew that evil was coming on him. He knew that the Danes were in the fen. He knew that Hereward was with them. He knew that they had come to Crowland. Hereward could never mean to let them sack it.

Peterborough must be their point. And Herluin set his teeth, like a bold man determined to abide the worst, and barred and barricaded every gate and door.

That night a hapless churchwarden, Ywar was his name, might have been seen galloping through Milton and Castor Hanglands, and on by Barnack quarries over Southorpe heath, with saddlebags of huge size stuffed with "gospels, ma.s.s-robes, ca.s.socks, and other garments, and such other small things as he could carry away." And he came before day to Stamford, where Abbot Thorold lay at his ease in his inn with his _hommes d'armes_ asleep in the hall.

And the churchwarden knocked them up, and drew Abbot Thorold's curtains with a face such as his who

"drew Priam's curtains in the dead of night, And would have told him, half his Troy was burned";

and told Abbot Thorold that the monks of Peterborough had sent him; and that unless he saddled and rode his best that night, with his meinie of men-at-arms, his Golden Borough would be even as Troy town by morning light.

"A moi, hommes d'armes!" shouted Thorold, as he used to shout whenever he wanted to scourge his wretched English monks at Malmesbury into some French fashion.

The men leaped up, and poured in, growling.

"Take me this monk, and kick him into the street for waking me with such news."

"But, gracious lord, the outlaws will surely burn Peterborough; and folks said that you were a mighty man of war"

"So I am; but if I were Roland, Oliver, and Turpin rolled into one, how am I to fight Hereward and the Danes with forty men-at-arms? Answer me that, thou dunder-headed English porker. Kick him out."

And Ywar was kicked into the cold, while Thorold raged up and down his chamber in mantle and slippers, wringing his hands over the treasure of the Golden Borough, s.n.a.t.c.hed from his fingers just as he was closing them upon it.