Hereward, the Last of the English Part 56

The which William did, within three years.

"May it be so! But when he came into the king's grace, he must needs demand me back in his son's name."

"What does Dolfin want with you?"

"His father wants my money, and stipulated for it with the king. And beside, I suppose I am a pretty plaything enough still."

"You? You are divine, perfect. Dolfin is right. How could a man who had once enjoyed you live without you?"

Alftruda laughed,--a laugh full of meaning; but what that meaning was, Hereward could not divine.

"So now," she said, "what Hereward has to do, as a true and courteous knight, is to give Alftruda safe conduct, and, if he can, a guard; and to deliver her up loyally and knightly to his old friend and fellow-warrior, Dolfin Gospatricksson, earl of whatever he can lay hold of for the current month."

"Are you in earnest?"

Alftruda laughed one of her strange laughs, looking straight before her.

Indeed, she had never looked Hereward in the face during the whole ride.

"What are those open holes? Graves?"

"They are Barnack stone-quarries, which Alfgar my brother gave to Crowland."

"So? That is pity. I thought they had been graves; and then you might have covered me up in one of them, and left me to sleep in peace."

"What can I do for you, Alftruda, my old play-fellow: Alftruda, whom I saved from the bear?"

"If she had foreseen the second monster into whose jaws she was to fall, she would have prayed you to hold that terrible hand of yours, which never since, men say, has struck without victory and renown. You won your first honor for my sake. But who am I now, that you should turn out of your glorious path for me?"

"I will do anything,--anything. But why miscall this n.o.ble prince a monster?"

"If he were fairer than St. John, more wise than Solomon, and more valiant than King William, he is to me a monster; for I loathe him, and I know not why. But do your duty as a knight, sir. Convey the lawful wife to her lawful spouse."

"What cares an outlaw for law, in a land where law is dead and gone? I will do what I--what you like. Come with me to Torfrida at Bourne; and let me see the man who dares try to take you out of my hand."

Alftruda laughed again.

"No, no. I should interrupt the little doves in their nest. Beside, the billing and cooing might make me envious. And I, alas! who carry misery with me round the land, might make your Torfrida jealous."

Hereward was of the same opinion, and rode silent and thoughtful through the great woods which are now the n.o.ble park of Burghley.

"I have found it!" said he at last. "Why not go to Gilbert of Ghent, at Lincoln?"

"Gilbert? Why should he befriend me?"

"He will do that, or anything else, which is for his own profit."

"Profit? All the world seems determined to make profit out of me. I presume you would, if I had come with you to Bourne."

"I do not doubt it. This is a very wild sea to swim in; and a man must be forgiven, if he catches at every bit of drift-timber."

"Selfishness, selfishness everywhere;--and I suppose you expect to gain by sending me to Gilbert of Ghent?"

"I shall gain nothing, Alftruda, save the thought that you are not so far from me--from us--but that we can hear of you,--send succor to you if you need."

Alftruda was silent. At last--

"And you think that Gilbert would not be afraid of angering the king?"

"He would not anger the king. Gilbert's friendship is more important to William, at this moment, than that of a dozen Gospatricks. He holds Lincoln town, and with it the key of Waltheof's earldom: and things may happen, Alftruda--I tell you; but if you tell Gilbert, may Hereward's curse be on you!"

"Not that! Any man's curse save yours!" said she in so pa.s.sionate a voice that a thrill of fire ran through Hereward. And he recollected her scoff at Bruges,--"So he could not wait for me?" And a storm of evil thoughts swept through him. "Would to heaven!" said he to himself, crushing them gallantly down, "I had never thought of Lincoln. But there is no other plan."

But he did not tell Alftruda, as he meant to do, that she might see him soon in Lincoln Castle as its conqueror and lord. He half hoped that when that day came, Alftruda might be somewhere else.

"Gilbert can say," he went on, steadying himself again, "that you feared to go north on account of the disturbed state of the country; and that, as you had given yourself up to him of your own accord, he thought it wisest to detain you, as a hostage for Dolfin's allegiance."

"He shall say so. I will make him say so."

"So be it, Now, here we are at Stamford town; and I must to my trade. Do you like to see fighting, Alftruda,--the man's game, the royal game, the only game worth a thought on earth? For you are like to see a little in the next ten minutes."

"I should like to see you fight. They tell me none is so swift and terrible in the battle as Hereward. How can you be otherwise, who slew the bear,--when we were two happy children together? But shall I be safe?"

"Safe? of course," said Hereward, who longed, peac.o.c.k-like, to show off his prowess before a lady who was--there was no denying it--far more beautiful than even Torfrida.

But he had no opportunity to show off his prowess. For as he galloped in over Stamford Bridge, Abbot Thorold galloped out at the opposite end of the town through Casterton, and up the Roman road to Grantham.

After whom Hereward sent Alftruda (for he heard that Thorold was going to Gilbert at Lincoln) with a guard of knights, bidding them do him no harm, but say that Hereward knew him to be a _preux chevalier_ and lover of fair ladies; that he had sent him a right fair one to bear him company to Lincoln, and hoped that he would sing to her on the way the song of Roland.

And Alftruda, who knew Thorold, went willingly, since it could no better be.

After which, according to Gaimar, Hereward tarried three days at Stamford, laying a heavy tribute on the burgesses for harboring Thorold and his Normans; and also surprised at a drinking-bout a certain special enemy of his, and chased him from room to room sword in hand, till he took refuge shamefully in an outhouse, and begged his life. And when his knights came back from Grantham, he marched to Bourne.

"The next night," says Leofric the deacon, or rather the monk who paraphrased his saga in Latin prose,--"Hereward saw in his dreams a man standing by him of inestimable beauty, old of years, terrible of countenance, in all the raiment of his body more splendid than all things which he had ever seen, or conceived in his mind; who threatened him with a great club which he carried in his hand, and with a fearful doom, that he should take back to his church all that had been carried off the night before, and have them restored utterly, each in its place, if he wished to provide for the salvation of his soul, and escape on the spot a pitiable death. But when awakened, he was seized with a divine terror, and restored in the same hour all that he took away, and so departed, going onward with all his men."

So says Leofric, wishing, as may be well believed, to advance the glory of St. Peter, and purge his master's name from the stain of sacrilege.

Beside, the monks of Peterborough, no doubt, had no wish that the world should spy out their nakedness, and become aware that the Golden Borough was stript of all its gold.

Nevertheless, truth will out. Golden Borough was Golden Borough no more.

The treasures were never restored; they went to sea with the Danes, and were scattered far and wide,--to Norway, to Ireland, to Denmark; "all the spoils," says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "which reached the latter country, being the pallium and some of the shrines and crosses; and many of the other treasures they brought to one of the king's towns, and laid them up in the church. But one night, through their carelessness and drunkenness, the church was burned, with all that was therein. Thus was the minster of Peterborough burned and pillaged. May Almighty G.o.d have pity on it in His great mercy."

Hereward, when blamed for the deed, said always that he did it "because of his allegiance to the monastery." Rather than that the treasures gathered by Danish monks should fall into the hands of the French robbers, let them be given to their own Danish kinsmen, in payment for their help to English liberty.

But some of the treasure, at least, he must have surely given back, it so appeased the angry shade of St. Peter. For on that night, when marching past Stamford, they lost their way. "To whom, when they had lost their way, a certain wonder happened, and a miracle, if it can be said that such would be worked in favor of men of blood. For while in the wild night and dark they wandered in the wood, a huge wolf met them, wagging his tail like a tame dog, and went before them on a path. And they, taking the gray beast in the darkness for a white dog, cheered on each other to follow him to his farm, which ought to be hard by. And in the silence of the midnight, that they might see their way, suddenly candles appeared, burning, and clinging to the lances of all the knights,--not very bright, however; but like those which the folk call _candelae nympharum_,--wills of the wisp. But none could pull them off, or altogether extinguish them, or throw them from their hands. And thus they saw their way, and went on, although astonished out of mind, with the wolf leading them, until day dawned, and they saw, to their great astonishment, that he was a wolf. And as they questioned among themselves about what had befallen, the wolf and the candles disappeared, and they came whither they had been minded,-- beyond Stamford town,--thanking G.o.d, and wondering at what had happened."

After which Hereward took Torfrida, and his child, and all he had, and took ship at Bardeney, and went for Ely. Which when Earl Warrenne heard, he laid wait for him, seemingly near Southery: but got nothing thereby, according to Leofric, but the pleasure of giving and taking a great deal of bad language; and (after his men had refused, reasonably enough, to swim the Ouse and attack Hereward) an arrow, which Hereward, "_modic.u.m se inclinans_," stooping forward, says Leofric,--who probably saw the deed,--shot at him across the Ouse, as the Earl stood cursing on the top of the dike. Which arrow flew so stout and strong, that though it sprang back from Earl Warrenne's hauberk, it knocked him almost senseless off his horse, and forced him to defer his purpose of avenging Sir Frederic his brother.

After which Hereward threw himself into Ely, and a.s.sumed, by consent of all, the command of the English who were therein.