Hereward, the Last of the English

  CHAPTER X.

  HOW HEREWARD WON THE MAGIC ARMOR.

  Torfrida had special opportunities of hearing about Hereward; for youngArnulf was to her a pet and almost a foster-brother, and gladly escapedfrom the convent to tell her the news.

  He had now had his first taste of the royal game of war. He had seenHereward fight by day, and heard him tell stories over the camp-fireby night. Hereward's beauty, Hereward's prowess, Hereward's songs,Hereward's strange adventures and wanderings, were forever in the youngboy's mouth; and he spent hours in helping Torfrida to guess who thegreat unknown might be; and then went back to Hereward, and artlesslytold him of his beautiful friend, and how they had talked of him, and ofnothing else; and in a week or two Hereward knew all about Torfrida; andTorfrida knew--what filled her heart with joy--that Hereward was boundto no lady-love, and owned (so he had told Arnulf) no mistress save thesword on his thigh.

  Whereby there had grown up in the hearts of both the man and the maid acuriosity, which easily became the parent of love.

  But when Baldwin the great Marquis came to St. Omer, to receive thehomage of Eustace of Guisnes, young Arnulf had run into Torfrida'schamber in great anxiety. "Would his grandfather approve of what he haddone? Would he allow his new friendship with the unknown?"

  "What care I?" said Torfrida. "But if your friend wishes to have theMarquis's favor, he would be wise to trust him, at least so far as totell his name."

  "I have told him so. I have told him that you would tell him so."

  "I? Have you been talking to him about me?"

  "Why not?"

  "That is not well done, Arnulf, to talk of ladies to men whom they donot know."

  Arnulf looked up, puzzled and pained; for she spoke haughtily.

  "I know naught of your new friend. He may be a low-born man, foranything that I can tell."

  "He is not! He is as noble as I am. Everything he says and does--everylook--shows it."

  "You are young,--as you have shown by talking of me to him. But I havegiven you my advice"; and she moved languidly away. "Let him tell yourgrandfather who he is, or remain suspected."

  The boy went away sadly.

  Early the next morning he burst into Torfrida's room as she was dressingher hair.

  "How now? Are these manners for the heir of Flanders?"

  "He has told all!"

  "He has!" and she started and dropt her comb.

  "Pick up that comb, girl. You need not go away. I have no secrets withyoung gentlemen."

  "I thought you would be glad to hear."

  "I? What can I want in the matter, save that your grandfather should besatisfied that you are entertaining a man worthy to be your guest?"

  "And he is worthy: he has told my grandfather who he is."

  "But not you?"

  "No. They say I must not know yet. But this I know, that they welcomedhim, when he told them, as if he had been an earl's son; and that he isgoing with my Uncle Robert against the Frieslanders."

  "And if he be an earl's son, how comes he here, wandering with roughseamen, and hiding his honest name? He must have done something of whichhe is ashamed."

  "I shall tell you nothing," said Arnulf, pouting.

  "What care I? I can find out by art magic if I like."

  "I don't believe all that. Can you find out, for instance, what he hason his throat?"

  "A beard."

  "But what is under that beard?"

  "A goitre."

  "You are laughing at me."

  "Of course I am, as I shall at any one who challenges me to find outanything so silly, and so unfit."

  "I shall go."

  "Go then." For she knew very well that he would come back again.

  "Nurse," said Torfrida to the old Lapp woman, when they were alone,"find out for me what is the name of this strange champion, and what hehas beneath his beard."

  "Beneath his beard?"

  "Some scar, I suppose, or secret mark. I must know. You will find outfor your Torfrida, will you not, nurse?"

  "I will make a charm that will bring him to you, were all the icebergsof Quenland between you and him: and then you can see for yourself."

  "No, no, no! not yet, nurse!" and Torfrida smiled. "Only find me outthat one thing: that I must know."

  And yet why she wanted to know, she could not tell herself.

  The old woman came back to her, ere she went to bed.

  "I have found it out all, and more. I know where to get scarlettoadstools, and I put the juice in his men's ale: they are laughing androaring now, merry-mad every one of them."

  "But not he?"

  "No, no. He is with the Marquis. But in madness comes out truth; andthat long hook-nosed body-varlet of his has told us all."

  And she told Torfrida who Hereward was, and the secret mark.

  "There is a cross upon his throat, beneath his chin, pricked in aftertheir English fashion."

  Torfrida started.

  "Then,--then the spell will not work upon him; the Holy Cross will turnit off."

  "It must be a great Cross and a holy one that will turn off my charms,"said the old hag, with a sneer, "whatever it may do against yours. Buton the back of his hand,--that will be a mark to know him by,--there ispricked a bear,--a white bear that he slew." And she told the story ofthe fairy bear; which Torfrida duly stored up in her heart.

  "So he has the Cross on his throat," thought Torfrida to herself. "Well,if it keep off my charm, it will keep off others, that is one comfort;and one knows not what fairies or witches or evil creatures he may meetwith in the forests and the fens."

  The discovery of Hereward's rank did not, doubtless, lessen Torfrida'sfancy for him. She was ambitious enough, and proud enough of her ownlineage, to be full glad that her heart had strayed away--as it mustneeds stray somewhere--to the son of the third greatest man in England.As for his being an outlaw, that mattered little. He might be inlawed,and rich and powerful, any day in those uncertain, topsy-turvy times;and, for the present, his being a wolf's head only made him the moreinteresting to her. Women like to pity their lovers. Sometimes--may allgood beings reward them for it--they love merely because they pity.And Torfrida found it pleasant to pity the insolent young coxcomb, whocertainly never dreamed of pitying himself.

  When Hereward went home that night, he found the Abbey of St. Bertin inhorrible confusion. His men were grouped outside the gate, chatteringlike monkeys; the porter and the monks, from inside, entreating them,vainly, to come in and go to bed quietly.

  But they would not. They vowed and swore that a great gulf had openedall down the road, and that one step more would tumble them in headlong.They manifested the most affectionate solicitude for the monks, warningthem, on their lives, not to step across the threshold, or they would beswallowed (as Martin, who was the maddest of the lot, phrased it) withKorah, Dathan, and Abiram. In vain Hereward stormed; assured themthat the supposed abyss was nothing but the gutter; proved the fact bykicking Martin over it. The men determined to believe their own eyes,and after a while fell asleep, in heaps, in the roadside, and lay theretill morning, when they woke, declaring, as did the monks, that they hadbeen all bewitched. They knew not--and happily the lower orders, bothin England and on the Continent, do not yet know--the potent virtues ofthat strange fungus, with which Lapps and Samoiedes have, it is said,practised wonders for centuries past.

  The worst of the matter was, that Martin Lightfoot, who had drank mostof the poison, and had always been dreamy and uncanny, in spite of hisshrewdness and humor, had, from that day forward, something very like abee in his bonnet.

  But before Count Robert and Hereward could collect sufficient troops forthe invasion of Holland, another chance of being slain in fight arose,too tempting to be overlooked; namely, the annual tournament at Pontde l'Arche above Rouen, where all the noblest knights of Normandy wouldassemble, to win their honor and ladies' love by hewing at each other'ssinful bodies. Thither, too, the best knights of Flanders must needs go,and with them Hereward. Th
ough no knight, he was allowed in Flanders, ashe had been in Scotland, to take his place among that honorable company.For, though he still refused the honor of knighthood, on the groundthat he had, as yet, done no deed deserving thereof, he was held tohave deserved it again and again, and all the more from his modesty indeclining it.

  So away they all went to Pont de l'Arche, a right gallant meinie: andTorfrida watched them go from the lattice window.

  And when they had passed down the street, tramping and jingling andcaracoling, young Arnulf ran into the house with eyes full of tears,because he was not allowed to go likewise; and with a message forTorfrida, from no other than Hereward.

  "I was to tell you this and no more: that if he meets your favor in thefield, he that wears it will have hard work to keep it."

  Torfrida turned pale as ashes; first with wild delight, and then withwild fear.

  "Ha?--does he know who--Sir Ascelin?"

  "He knows well enough. Why not? Every one knows. Are you afraid that heis not a match for that great bullock?"

  "Afraid? Who said I was afraid? Sir Ascelin is no bullock either; but acourteous and gallant knight."

  "You are as pale as death, and so--"

  "Never mind what I am," said she, putting her hands over his eyes, andkissing him again and again, as a vent for her joy.

  The next few days seemed years for length: but she could wait. She wassure of him now. She needed no charms. "Perhaps," thought she, as shelooked in the glass, "I was my own charm." And, indeed, she had everyfair right to say so.

  At last news came.

  She was sitting over her books; her mother, as usual, was praying in thechurches; when the old Lapp nurse came in. A knight was at the door. Hisname, he said, was Siward the White, and he came from Hereward.

  From Hereward! He was at least alive: he might be wounded, though;and she rushed out of the chamber into the hall, looking never morebeautiful; her color heightened by the quick beating of her heart;her dark hair, worn loose and long, after the fashion of those days,streaming around her and behind her.

  A handsome young man stood in the door-way, armed from head to foot.

  "You are Siward, Hereward's nephew?"

  He bowed assent. She took him by the hands, and, after the fashion ofthose days, kissed him on the small space on either cheek, which wasleft bare between the nose-piece and the chain-mail.

  "You are welcome. Hereward is--is alive?"

  "Alive and gay, and all the more gay at being able to send to the LadyTorfrida by me something which was once hers, and now is hers oncemore."

  And he drew from his bosom the ribbon of the knight of St. Valeri.

  She almost snatched it from his hand, in her delight at recovering herfavor.

  "How--where--did he get this?"

  "He saw it, in the thick of the tournament, on the helm of a knight who,he knew, had vowed to maim him or take his life; and, wishing to givehim a chance of fulfilling his vow, rode him down, horse and man. Theknight's Norman friends attacked us in force; and we Flemings, withHereward at our head, beat them off, and overthrew so many, that weare almost all horsed at the Norman's expense. Three more knights, withtheir horses, fell before Hereward's lance."

  "And what of this favor?"

  "He sends it to its owner. Let her say what shall be done with it."

  Torfrida was on the point of saying, "He has won it; let him wear it formy sake." But she paused. She longed to see Hereward face to face; tospeak to him, if but one word. If she allowed him to wear the favor, shemust at least have the pleasure of giving it with her own hands. And shepaused.

  "And he is killed?"

  "Who? Hereward?"

  "Sir Ascelin."

  "Only bruised; but he shall be killed, if you will."

  "God forbid!"

  "Then," said Siward, mistaking her meaning, "all I have to tell Herewardis, it seems, that he has wasted his blow. He will return, therefore, tothe Knight of St. Valeri his horse, and, if the Lady Torfrida chooses,the favor which he has taken by mistake from its rightful owner." And heset his teeth, and could not prevent stamping on the ground, in evidentpassion. There was a tone, too, of deep disappointment in his voice,which made Torfrida look keenly at him. Why should Hereward's nephewfeel so deeply about that favor? And as she looked,--could that man bethe youth Siward? Young he was, but surely thirty years old at least.His face could hardly be seen, hidden by helmet and nose-piece above,and mailed up to the mouth below. But his long mustache was that ofa grown man; his vast breadth of shoulder, his hard hand, his sturdylimbs,--these surely belonged not to the slim youth whom she had seenfrom her lattice riding at Hereward's side. And, as she looked, she sawupon his hand the bear of which her nurse had told her.

  "You are deceiving me!" and she turned first deadly pale, and thencrimson. "You--you are Hereward himself!"

  "I? Pardon me, my lady. Ten minutes ago I should have been glad enoughto have been Hereward. Now, I am thankful enough that I am only Siward;and not Hereward, who wins for himself contempt by overthrowing a knightmore fortunate than he." And he bowed, and turned away to go.

  "Hereward! Hereward!" and, in her passion, she seized him by both hishands. "I know you! I know that device upon your hand. At last! at lastmy hero,--my idol! How I have longed for this moment! How I have toiledfor it, and not in vain! Good heavens! what am I saying?" And she tried,in her turn, to escape from Hereward's mailed arms.

  "Then you do not care for that man?"

  "For him? Here! take my favor, wear it before all the world, and guardit as you only can; and let them all know that Torfrida is your love."

  And with hands trembling with passion, she bound the ribbon round hishelm.

  "Yes! I am Hereward," he almost shouted; "the Berserker, thebrain-hewer, the land-thief, the sea-thief, the feeder of wolf andraven,--Aoi! Ere my beard was grown, I was a match for giants. How muchmore now, that I am a man whom ladies love? Many a champion has quailedbefore my very glance. How much more, now that I wear Torfrida's gift?Aoi!"

  Torfrida had often heard that wild battle-cry of Aoi! of which the earlyminstrels were so fond,--with which the great poet who wrote the "Songof Roland" ends every paragraph; which has now fallen (displaced by ourmodern Hurrah), to be merely a sailor's call or hunter's cry. But sheshuddered as she heard it close to her ears, and saw, from the flashingeye and dilated nostril, the temper of the man on whom she had thrownherself so utterly. She laid her hand upon his lips.

  "Silence! silence for pity's sake. Remember that you are in a maiden'shouse; and think of her good fame."

  Hereward collected himself instantly, and then holding her at arm'slength, gazed upon her. "I was mad a moment. But is it not enough tomake me mad to look at you?"

  "Do not look at me so, I cannot bear it," said she, hanging down herhead. "You forget that I am a poor weak girl."

  "Ah! we are rough wooers, we sea-rovers. We cannot pay glozing Frenchcompliments like your knights here, who fawn on a damsel with soft wordsin the hall, and will kiss the dust off their queen's feet, and die fora hair of their goddess's eyebrow; and then if they catch her in theforest, show themselves as very ruffians as if they were Paynim Moors.We are rough, lady, we English: but those who trust us, find us true."

  "And I can trust you?" she asked, still trembling.

  "On God's cross there round your neck," and he took her crucifix andkissed it. "You only I love, you only I will love, and you will I lovein all honesty, before the angels of heaven, till we be wedded man andwife. Who but a fool would soil the flower which he means to wear beforeall the world?"

  "I knew Hereward was noble! I knew I had not trusted him in vain!"

  "I kept faith and honor with the Princess of Cornwall, when I had her atmy will, and shall I not keep faith and honor with you?"

  "The Princess of Cornwall?" asked Torfrida.

  "Do not be jealous, fair queen. I brought her safe to her betrothed; andwedded she is, long ago. I will tell you that story some day. And now--Imust go."


  "Not yet! not yet! I have something to--to show you."

  She motioned him to go up the narrow stairs, or rather ladder, which ledto the upper floor, and then led him into her chamber.

  A lady's chamber was then, in days when privacy was little cared for,her usual reception room; and the bed, which stood in an alcove, was thecommon seat of her and her guests. But Torfrida did not ask him to sitdown. She led the way onward towards a door beyond.

  Hereward followed, glancing with awe at the books, parchments, andstrange instruments which lay on the table and the floor.

  The old Lapp nurse sat in the window, sewing busily. She looked up, andsmiled meaningly. But as she saw Torfrida unlock the further door withone of the keys which hung at her girdle, she croaked out,--

  "Too fast! Too fast! Trust lightly, and repent heavily."

  "Trust once and for all, or never trust at all," said Torfrida, as sheopened the door.

  Hereward saw within rich dresses hung on perches round the wall, andchests barred and padlocked.

  "These are treasures," said she, "which many a knight and nobleman hascoveted. By cunning, by flattery, by threats of force even, have theytried to win what lies here,--and Torfrida herself, too, for the sake ofher wealth. But thanks to the Abbot my uncle, Torfrida is still her ownmistress, and mistress of the wealth which her forefathers won by seaand land far away in the East. All here is mine,--and if you be but trueto me, all mine is yours. Lift the lid for me, it is too heavy for myarms."

  Hereward did so; and saw within golden cups and bracelets, horns ofivory and silver, bags of coin, and among them a mail shirt and helmet,on which he fixed at once silent and greedy eyes.

  She looked at his face askance, and smiled. "Yes, these are more toHereward's taste than gold and jewels. And he shall have them. He shallhave them as a proof that if Torfrida has set her love upon a worthyknight, she is at least worthy of him; and does not demand, withoutbeing able to give in return."

  And she took out the armor, and held it up to him.

  "This is the work of dwarfs or enchanters! This was not forged by mortalman! It must have come out of some old cavern, or dragon's hoard!" saidHereward, in astonishment at the extreme delicacy and slightness ofthe mail-rings, and the richness of the gold and silver with which bothhauberk and helm were inlaid.

  "Enchanted it is, they say; but its maker, who can tell? My ancestor wonit, and by the side of Charles Martel. Listen, and I will tell you how.

  "You have heard of fair Provence, where I spent my youth; the land ofthe sunny south; the land of the fig and the olive, the mulberry andthe rose, the tulip and the anemone, and all rich fruits and fairflowers,--the land where every city is piled with temples and theatresand towers as high as heaven, which the old Romans built with theirenchantments, and tormented the blessed martyrs therein."

  "Heavens, how beautiful you are!" cried Hereward, as her voice shapeditself into a song, and her eyes flashed, at the remembrance of hersouthern home.

  Torfrida was not altogether angry at finding that he was thinking ofher, and not of her words.

  "Peace, and listen. You know how the Paynim held that land,--theSaracens, to whom Mahound taught all the wisdom of Solomon,--as theyteach us in turn," she added in a lower voice.

  "And how Charles and his Paladins," [Charles Martel and Charlemagne wereperpetually confounded in the legends of the time] "drove them out, andconquered the country again for God and his mother."

  "I have heard--" but he did not take his eyes off her face.

  "They were in the theatre at Arles, the Saracens, where the blessedmartyr St. Trophimus had died in torments; they had set up there theiridol of Mahound, and turned the place into a fortress. Charles burntit over their heads: you see--I have seen--the blackened walls, theblood-stained marbles, to this day. Then they fled into the plain, andthere they turned and fought. Under Montmajeur, by the hermit's cell,they fought a summer's day, till they were all slain. There was an Emiramong them, black as a raven, clad in magic armor. All lances turnedfrom it, all swords shivered on it. He rode through the press without awound, while every stroke of his scymitar shore off a head of horse orman. Charles himself rode at him, and smote him with his hammer. Theyheard the blow in Avignon, full thirty miles away. The flame flashed outfrom the magic armor a fathom's length, blinding all around; and whenthey recovered their sight, the enchanter was far away in the battle,killing as he went.

  "Then Charles cried, 'Who will stop that devil, whom no steel can wound?Help us, O blessed martyr St. Trophimus, and save the soldiers of theCross from shame!'

  "Then cried Torfrid, my forefather, 'What use in crying to St.Trophimus? He could not help himself, when the Paynim burnt him: and howcan he help us? A tough arm is worth a score of martyrs here.'

  "And he rode at that Emir, and gript him in his arms. They both fell,and rolled together on the ground; but Torfrid never loosed his holdtill he had crushed out his unbaptized soul and sent it to join Mahoundin hell.

  "Then he took his armor, and brought it home in triumph. But after awhile he fell sick of a fever; and the blessed St. Trophimus appearedto him, and told him that it was a punishment for his blasphemy in thebattle. So he repented, and vowed to serve the saint all his life. Onwhich he was healed instantly, and fell to religion, and went back toMontmajeur; and there he was a hermit in the cave under the rock, andtended the graves hewn in the living stone, where his old comrades, thePaladins who were slain, sleep side by side round the church of the HolyCross. But the armor he left here; and he laid a curse upon it, thatwhosoever of his descendants should lose that armor in fight, should diechildless, without a son to wield a sword. And therefore it is thatnone of his ancestors, valiant as they have been, have dared to put thisharness on their backs."

  And so ended a story, which Torfrida believed utterly, and Herewardlikewise.

  "And now, Hereward mine, dare you wear that magic armor, and face oldTorfrid's curse?"

  "What dare I not?"

  "Think. If you lose it, in you your race must end."

  "Let it end. I accept the curse."

  And he put the armor on.

  But he trembled as he did it. Atheism and superstition go too often handin hand; and godless as he was, sceptical of Providence itself, and muchmore of the help of saint or angel, still the curse of the old warrior,like the malice of a witch or a demon, was to him a thing possible,probable, and formidable.

  She looked at him in pride and exultation.

  "It is yours,--the invulnerable harness! Wear it in the forefront of thebattle! And if weapon wound you through it, may I, as punishment for mylie, suffer the same upon my tender body,--a wound for every wound ofyours, my knight!" [Footnote: "Volo enim in meo tale quid nunc perpeticorpore semel, quicquid eas ferrei vel e metallo excederet."]

  And after that they sat side by side, and talked of love with all honorand honesty, never heeding the old hag, who crooned to herself in herbarbarian tongue,--

  "Quick thaw, long frost, Quick joy, long pain, Soon found, soon lost, You will take your gift again."