CHAPTER XX.
HOW HEREWARD WAS MADE A KNIGHT AFTER THE FASHION OF THE ENGLISH.
A wild night was that in Bourne. All the folk, free and unfree, man andwoman, out on the streets, asking the meaning of those terrible shrieks,followed by a more terrible silence.
At last Hereward strode down from the hall, his drawn sword in his hand.
"Silence, good folks, and hearken to me, once for all. There is not aFrenchman left alive in Bourne. If you be the men I take you for, thereshall not be one left alive between Wash and Humber. Silence, again!" asa fierce cry of rage and joy arose, and men rushed forward to take himby the hand, women to embrace him. "This is no time for compliments,good folks, but for quick wit and quick blows. For the law we fight,if we do fight; and by the law we must work, fight or not. Where is thelawman of the town?"
"I was lawman last night, to see such law done as there is left," saidPerry. "But you are lawman now. Do as you will. We will obey you."
"You shall be our lawman," shouted many voices.
"I! Who am I? Out-of-law, and a wolf's-head."
"We will put you back into your law,--we will give you your lands infull husting."
"Never mind a husting on my behalf. Let us have a husting, if we haveone, for a better end than that. Now, men of Bourne, I have put the coalin the bush. Dare you blow the fire till the forest is aflame from southto north? I have fought a dozen of Frenchmen. Dare you fight Tailleboisand Gilbert of Ghent, with William, Duke of Normandy, at their back? Orwill you take me, here as I stand, and give me up to them as an outlawand a robber, to feed the crows outside the gates of Lincoln? Do it, ifyou will. It will be the wiser plan, my friends. Give me up to be judgedand hanged, and so purge yourselves of the villanous murder of Gilbert'scook,--your late lord and master."
"Lord and master! We are free men!" shouted the holders, or yeomengentlemen. "We hold our lands from God and the sun."
"You are our lord!" shouted the socmen, or tenants. "Who but you? Wewill follow, If you will lead!"
"Hereward is come home!" cried a feeble voice behind. "Let me come tohim. Let me feel him."
And through the crowd, supported by two ladies, tottered the mighty formof Surturbrand, the blind Viking.
"Hereward is come!" cried he, as he folded his master's son in his arms."Hoi! he is wet with blood! Hoi! he smells of blood! Hoi! the ravenswill grow fat now, for Hereward is come home!"
Some would have led the old man away; but he thrust them off fiercely.
"Hoi! come wolf! Hoi! come kite! Hoi! come erne from off the fen! Youfollowed us, and we fed you well, when Swend Forkbeard brought us overthe sea. Follow us now, and we will feed you better still, with themongrel Frenchers who scoff at the tongue of their forefathers, andwould rob their nearest kinsman of land and lass. Hoi! Swend's men!Hoi! Canute's men! Vikings' sons, sea-cocks' sons, Berserkers' sonsall! Split up the war-arrow, and send it round, and the curse of Odin onevery man that will not pass it on! A war-king to-morrow, and Hildur'sgame next day, that the old Surturbrand may fall like a freeholder, axein hand, and not die like a cow, in the straw which the Frenchman hasspared him."
All men were silent, as the old Viking's voice, cracked and feeble whenhe began, gathered strength from rage, till it rang through the stillnight-air like a trumpet-blast.
The silence was broken by a long wild cry from the forest, which madethe women start, and catch their children closer to them. It was thehowl of a wolf.
"Hark to the witch's horse! Hark to the son of Fenris, how he calls formeat! Are ye your fathers' sons, ye men of Bourne? They never let thegray beast call in vain."
Hereward saw his opportunity and seized it. There were those in thecrowd, he well knew, as there must needs be in all crowds, who wishedthemselves well out of the business; who shrank from the thought offacing the Norman barons, much more the Norman king; who were readyenough, had the tide of feeling begun to ebb, of blaming Hereward forrashness, even though they might not have gone so far as to give himup to the Normans; who would have advised some sort of compromise,pacifying half-measure, or other weak plan for escaping present danger,by delivering themselves over to future destruction. But three out offour there were good men and true. The savage chant of the old barbarianmight have startled them somewhat, for they were tolerably orthodoxChristian folk. But there was sense as well as spirit in its savageness;and they growled applause, as he ceased. But Hereward heard, andcried,--
"The Viking is right! So speaks the spirit of our fathers, and we mustshow ourselves their true sons. Send round the war-arrow, and death tothe man who does not pass it on! Better die bravely together than falterand part company, to be hunted down one by one by men who will neverforgive us as long as we have an acre of land for them to seize. Perry,son of Surturbrand, you are the lawman. Put it to the vote!"
"Send round the war-arrow!" shouted Perry himself; and if there was aman or two who shrank from the proposal they found it prudent to shoutas loudly as did the rest.
Ere the morning light, the war-arrow was split into four splinters, andcarried out to the four airts, through all Kesteven. If the splinterwere put into the house-father's hand, he must send it on at once to thenext freeman's house. If he were away, it was stuck into his house-door,or into his great chair by the fireside, and woe to him if, on hisreturn, he sent it not on likewise. All through Kesteven went thatnight the arrow-splinters, and with them the whisper, "Hereward is comeagain!" And before midday there were fifty well-armed men in the oldcamping-field outside the town, and Hereward haranguing them in words offire.
A chill came over them, nevertheless, when he told them that he mustreturn at once to Flanders.
"But it must be," he said. He had promised his good lord and sovereign,Baldwin of Flanders, and his word of honor he must keep. Two visits hemust pay, ere he went; and then to sea. But within the year, if he werealive on ground, he would return, and with him ships and men, it mightbe with Sweyn and all the power of Denmark. Only let them hold their owntill the Danes should come, and all would be well. And whenever he cameback, he would set a light to three farms that stood upon a hill, whencethey could be seen far and wide over the Bruneswold and over all thefen; and then all men might know for sure that Hereward was come again.
"And nine-and-forty of them," says the chronicler, "he chose to guardBourne," seemingly the lands which had been his nephew Morcar's, till heshould come back and take them for himself. Godiva's lands, of Witham,Toft and Mainthorpe, Gery his cousin should hold till his return, andsend what he could off them to his mother at Crowland.
Then they went down to the water and took barge, and laid the corpsetherein; and Godiva and Hereward sat at the dead lad's head; and Wintersteered the boat, and Gwenoch took the stroke-oar.
And they rowed away for Crowland, by many a mere and many an ea; throughnarrow reaches of clear brown glassy water; between the dark-greenalders; between the pale-green reeds; where the coot clanked, and thebittern boomed, and the sedge-bird, not content with its own sweet song,mocked the song of all the birds around; and then out into the broadlagoons, where hung motionless, high overhead, hawk beyond hawk, buzzardbeyond buzzard, kite beyond kite, as far as eye could see. Into the air,as they rowed on, whirred up the great skeins of wild fowl innumerable,with a cry as of all the bells of Crowland, or all the hounds ofBruneswold; and clear above all the noise sounded the wild whistle ofthe curlews, and the trumpet-note of the great white swan. Out of thereeds, like an arrow, shot the peregrine, singled one luckless mallardfrom the flock, caught him up, struck him stone dead with one blow ofhis terrible heel, and swept his prey with him into the reeds again.
"Death! death! death!" said Lady Godiva, as the feathers fluttered downinto the boat and rested on the dead boy's pall. "War among man andbeast, war on earth, war in air, war in the water beneath," as a greatpike rolled at his bait, sending a shoal of white fish flying along thesurface. "And war, says holy writ, in heaven above. O Thou who didst dieto destroy death, when will it all be over?"
And thus they glided on from stream to stream, until they came to thesacred isle of "the inheritance of the Lord, the soil of St. Mary andSt. Bartholomew; the most holy sanctuary of St. Guthlac and his monks;the minster most free from worldly servitude; the special almshouse ofthe most illustrious kings; the sole place of refuge for any one inall tribulations; the perpetual abode of the saints; the possessionof religious men, especially set apart by the Common Council of thekingdom; by reason of the frequent miracles of the most holy Confessor,an ever fruitful mother of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi; and,by reason of the privileges granted by the kings, a city of grace andsafety to all who repent."
As they drew near, they passed every minute some fisher's log canoe,in which worked with net or line the criminal who had saved his life byfleeing to St. Guthlac, and becoming his man henceforth; the slave whohad fled from his master's cruelty; and here and there in those evildays, the master who had fled from the cruelty of Normans, who wouldhave done to him as he had done to others. But all old grudges were putaway there. They had sought the peace of St. Guthlac; and thereforethey must keep his peace, and get their living from the fish of thefive rivers, within the bounds whereof was peace, as of their own quietstreams; for the Abbot and St. Guthlac were the only lords thereof, andneither summoner nor sheriff of the king, nor armed force of knight orearl, could enter there.
At last they came to Crowland minster,--a vast range of high-peakedbuildings, founded on piles of oak and hazel driven into thefen,--itself built almost entirely of timber from the Bruneswold; barns,granaries, stables, workshops, stranger's hall,--fit for the boundlesshospitality of Crowland,--infirmary, refectory, dormitory, library,abbot's lodgings, cloisters; and above, the great minster towering up, asteep pile, half wood, half stone, with narrow round-headed windows andleaden roofs; and above all the great wooden tower, from which, on highdays, chimed out the melody of the seven famous bells, which had nottheir like in English land. Guthlac, Bartholomew, and Bettelm were thenames of the biggest, Turketul and Tatwin of the middle, and Pega andBega of the smallest. So says Ingulf, who saw them a few years after,pouring down on his own head in streams of melted metal. Outside theminster walls were the cottages of the corodiers, or laboring folk; andbeyond them again the natural park of grass, dotted with mighty oaksand ashes; and, beyond all those, cornlands of inexhaustible fertility,broken up by the good Abbot Egelric some hundred years before, fromwhich, in times of dearth, the monks of Crowland fed the people of allthe neighboring fens.
They went into the great court-yard. All men were quiet, yet allmen were busy. Baking and brewing, carpentering and tailoring in theworkshops, reading and writing in the cloister, praying and singingin the church, and teaching the children in the school-house. Only theancient sempects--some near upon a hundred and fifty years old--wanderedwhere they would, or basked against a sunny wall, like autumn flies,with each a young monk to guide him, and listen to his tattle of olddays. For, said the laws of Turketul the good, "Nothing disagreeableabout the affairs of the monastery shall be mentioned in their presence.No person shall presume in any way to offend them; but with the greatestpeace and tranquillity they shall await their end."
So, while the world outside raged, and fought, and conquered, andplundered, they within the holy isle kept up some sort of order, andjustice, and usefulness, and love to God and man. And about the yards,among the feet of the monks, hopped the sacred ravens, descendantsof those who brought back the gloves at St. Guthlac's bidding;and overhead, under all the eaves, built the sacred swallows, thedescendants of those who sat and sang upon St. Guthlac's shoulders; andwhen men marvelled thereat, he, the holy man, replied: "Know that theywho live the holy life draw nearer to the birds of the air, even as theydo to the angels in heaven."
And Lady Godiva called for old Abbot Ulfketyl, the good and brave, andfell upon his neck, and told him all her tale; and Ulfketyl wept uponher neck, for they were old and faithful friends.
And they passed into the dark, cool church, where in the crypt under thehigh altar lay the thumb of St. Bartholomew, which old Abbot Turketulused to carry about, that he might cross himself with it in times ofdanger, tempest, and lightning; and some of the hair of St. Mary, Queenof Heaven, in a box of gold; and a bone of St. Leodegar of Aquitaine;and some few remains, too, of the holy bodies of St. Guthlac; and of St.Bettelm, his servant; and St. Tatwin, who steered him to Crowland; andSt. Egbert, his confessor; and St. Cissa the anchorite; and of the mostholy virgin St. Etheldreda; and many more. But little of them remainedsince Sigtryg and Bagsac's heathen Danes had heaped them pellmell on thefloor, and burned the church over them and the bodies of the slaughteredmonks.
The plunder which was taken from Crowland on that evil day lay, and liesstill, with the plunder of Peterborough and many a minster more, atthe bottom of the Nene, at Huntingdon Bridge. But it had been more thanreplaced by the piety of the Danish kings and nobles; and above thetwelve white bearskins which lay at the twelve altars blazed, in thelight of many a wax candle, gold and jewels inferior only to those ofPeterborough and Coventry.
And there in the nave they buried the lad Godwin, with chant and dirge;and when the funeral was done Hereward went up toward the high altar,and bade Winter and Gwenoch come with him. And there he knelt, and voweda vow to God and St. Guthlac and the Lady Torfrida his true love, neverto leave from slaying while there was a Frenchman left alive on Englishground.
And Godiva and Ulfketyl heard his vow, and shuddered; but they dared notstop him, for they, too, had English hearts.
And Winter and Gwenoch heard it, and repeated it word for word.
Then he kissed his mother, and called Winter and Gwenoch, and wentforth. He would be back again, he said, on the third day.
Then those three went to Peterborough, and asked for Abbot Brand. Andthe monks let them in; for the fame of their deed had passed through theforest, and all the French had fled.
And old Brand lay back in his great arm-chair, his legs all muffled upin furs, for he could get no heat; and by him stood Herluin the prior,and wondered when he would die, and Thorold take his place, and theyshould drive out the old Gregorian chants from the choir, and have thenew Norman chants of Robert of Fecamp, and bring in French-Roman customsin all things, and rule the English boors with a rod of iron.
And old Brand knew all that was in his heart, and looked up like apatient ox beneath the butcher's axe, and said, "Have patience with me,Brother Herluin, and I will die as soon as I can, and go where there isneither French nor English, Jew nor Gentile, bond or free, but all arealike in the eyes of Him who made them."
But when he saw Hereward come in, he cast the mufflers off him, andsprang up from his chair, and was young and strong in a moment, and fora moment.
And he threw his arms round Hereward, and wept upon his neck, as hismother had done. And Hereward wept upon his neck, though he had not weptupon his mother's.
Then Brand held him at arms' length, or thought he held him, for he wasleaning on Hereward, and tottering all the while; and extolled him asthe champion, the warrior, the stay of his house, the avenger of hiskin, the hero of whom he had always prophesied that his kin would needhim, and that then he would not fail.
But Hereward answered him modestly and mildly,--
"Speak not so to me and of me, Uncle Brand. I am a very foolish, vain,sinful man, who have come through great adventures, I know not how, togreat and strange happiness, and now again to great and strange sorrows;and to an adventure greater and stranger than all that has befallen mefrom my youth up until now. Therefore make me not proud, Uncle Brand,but keep me modest and lowly, as befits all true knights and penitentsinners; for they tell me that God resists the proud, and giveth graceto the humble. And I have that to do which do I cannot, unless God andhis saints give me grace from this day forth."
Brand looked at him, astonished; and then turned to Herluin.
"Did I not tell thee, prior? This is the lad whom you called gracelessand a savage; and see, since he has bee
n in foreign lands, and seen theways of knights, he talks as clerkly as a Frenchman, and as piously asany monk."
"The Lord Hereward," said Herluin, "has doubtless learned much fromthe manners of our nation which he would not have learned in England. Irejoice to see him returned so Christian and so courtly a knight."
"The Lord Hereward, Prior Herluin, has learnt one thing in histravels,--to know somewhat of men and the hearts of men, and to dealwith them as they deserve of him. They tell me that one Thorold ofMalmesbury,--Thorold of Fecamp, the minstrel, he that made the song ofRowland,--that he desires this abbey."
"I have so heard, my lord."
"Then I command,--I, Hereward, Lord of Bourne!--that this abbey be heldagainst him and all Frenchmen, in the name of Swend Ulfsson, king ofEngland, and of me. And he that admits a Frenchman therein, I will shavehis crown for him so well, that he shall never need razor more. This Itell thee; and this I shall tell your monks before I go. And unless youobey the same, my dream will be fulfilled; and you will see Goldenbreghin a light low, and burning yourselves in the midst thereof."
"Swend Ulfsson? Swend of Denmark? What words are these?" cried Brand.
"You will know within six months, uncle."
"I shall know better things, my boy, before six months are out."
"Uncle, uncle, do not say that."
"Why not? If this mortal life be at best a prison and a grave, what isit worth now to an Englishman?"
"More than ever; for never had an Englishman such a chance of showingEnglish mettle, and winning renown for the English name. Uncle, you mustdo something for me and my comrades ere we go."
"Well, boy?"
"Make us knights."
"Knights, lad? I thought you had been a belted knight this dozen years?"
"I might have been made a knight by many, after the French, fashion,many a year agone. I might have been knight when I slew the white bear.Ladies have prayed me to be knighted again and again since. Somethingkept me from it. Perhaps" (with a glance at Herluin) "I wanted to showthat an English squire could be the rival and the leader of French andFlemish knights."
"And thou hast shown it, brave lad!" said Brand, clapping his greathands.
"Perhaps I longed to do some mighty deed at last, which would give me aright to go to the bravest knight in all Christendom, and say, 'Giveme the accolade, then! Thou only art worthy to knight as good a man asthyself.'"
"Pride and vainglory," said Brand, shaking his head.
"But now I am of a sounder mind. I see now why I was kept from beingknighted,--till I had done a deed worthy of a true knight; till I hadmightily avenged the wronged, and mightily succored the oppressed; tillI had purged my soul of my enmity against my own kin, and could go outinto the world a new man, with my mother's blessing on my head."
"But not of the robbery of St. Peter," said Herluin. The French monkwanted not for moral courage,--no French monk did in those days. And heproved it by those words.
"Do not anger the lad, Prior; now, too, above all times, when his heartis softened toward the Lord."
"He has not angered me. The man is right. Here, Lord Abbot and SirPrior, is a chain of gold, won in the wars. It is worth fifty times thesixteen pence which I stole, and which I repaid double. Let St. Petertake it, for the sins of me and my two comrades, and forgive. And now,Sir Prior, I do to thee what I never did for mortal man. I kneel, andask thy forgiveness. Kneel, Winter! Kneel, Gwenoch!" And Hereward knelt.
Herluin was of double mind. He longed to keep Hereward out of St.Peter's grace. He longed to see Hereward dead at his feet; not becauseof any personal hatred, but because he foresaw in him a terrible foe tothe Norman cause. But he wished, too, to involve Abbot Brand as much aspossible in Hereward's "rebellions" and "misdeeds," and above all, inthe master-offence of knighting him; for for that end, he saw, Herewardwas come. Moreover, he was touched with the sudden frankness andhumility of the famous champion. So he answered mildly,--
"Verily, thou hast a knightly soul. May God and St. Peter so forgivethee and thy companions as I forgive thee, freely and from my heart."
"Now," cried Hereward, "a boon! a boon! Knight me and these my fellows,Uncle Brand, this day."
Brand was old and weak, and looked at Herluin.
"I know," said Hereward, "that the French look on us English monk-madeknights as spurious and adulterine, unworthy of the name of knight.But, I hold--and what churchman will gainsay me?--that it is nobler toreceive sword and belt from a man of God than from a man of blood likeone's self; the fittest to consecrate the soldier of an earthly king,is the soldier of Christ, the King of kings." [Footnote: Almost word forword from the "Life of Hereward."]
"He speaks well," said Herluin. "Abbot, grant him his boon."
"Who celebrates high mass to-morrow?"
"Wilton the priest, the monk of Ely," said Herluin, aloud. "And a verydangerous and stubborn Englishman," added he to himself.
"Good. Then this night you shall watch in the church. To-morrow, afterthe Gospel, the thing shall be done as you will."
That night two messengers, knights of the Abbot, galloped fromPeterborough. One to Ivo Taillebois at Spalding, to tell him thatHereward was at Peterborough, and that he must try to cut him off uponthe Egelric's road, the causeway which one of the many Abbots Egelrichad made some thirty years before, through Deeping Fen to Spalding, atan enormous expense of labor and of timber. The other knight rode south,along the Roman road to London, to tell King William of the rising ofKesteven, and all the evil deeds of Hereward and of Brand.
And old Brand slept quietly in his bed, little thinking on what errandshis prior had sent his knights.
Hereward and his comrades watched that night in St. Peter's church.Oppressed with weariness of body, and awe of mind, they heard the monksdrone out their chants through the misty gloom; they confessed thesins--and they were many--of their past wild lives. They had to summonup within themselves courage and strength henceforth to live, not forthemselves, but for the fatherland which they hoped to save. They prayedto all the heavenly powers of that Pantheon which then stood betweenman and God, to help them in the coming struggle; but ere the morningdawned, they were nodding, unused to any long strain of mind.
Suddenly Hereward started, and sprang up, with a cry of fire.
"What? Where?" cried his comrades, and the monks who ran up.
"The minster is full of flame. No use! too late! you cannot put it out!It must burn."
"You have been dreaming," said one.
"I have not," said Hereward. "Is it Lammas night?"
"What a question! It is the vigil of the Nativity of St. Peter and St.Paul."
"Thank heaven! I thought my old Lammas night's dream was coming true atlast."
Herluin heard, and knew what he meant.
After which Hereward was silent, filled with many thoughts.
The next morning, before the high mass, those three brave men walked upto the altar; laid thereon their belts and swords; and then knelt humblyat the foot of the steps till the Gospel was finished.
Then came down from the altar Wilton of Ely, and laid on each man's bareneck the bare blade, and bade him take back his sword in the name ofGod and of St. Peter and St. Paul, and use it like a true knight, fora terror and punishment to evil-doers, and a defence for women andorphans, and the poor and the oppressed, and the monks the servants ofGod.
And then the monks girded each man with his belt and sword oncemore. And after mass was sung, they rose and went forth, each feelinghimself--and surely not in vain--a better man.
At least this is certain, that Hereward would say to his dying day,how he had often proved that none would fight so well as those who hadreceived their sword from God's knights the monks. And therefore hewould have, in after years, almost all his companions knighted by themonks; and brought into Ely with him that same good custom which he hadlearnt at Peterborough, and kept it up as long as he held the isle.
So says the chronicler Leofric, the minstrel and priest.
/> It was late when they got back to Crowland. The good Abbot received themwith a troubled face.
"As I feared, my Lord, you have been too hot and hasty. The French haveraised the country against you."
"I have raised it against them, my lord. But we have news that SirFrederick--"
"And who may he be?"
"A very terrible Goliath of these French; old and crafty, a brother ofold Earl Warrenne of Norfolk, whom God confound. And he has sworn tohave your life, and has gathered knights and men-at-arms at Lynn inNorfolk."
"Very good; I will visit him as I go home, Lord Abbot. Not a word ofthis to any soul."
"I tremble for thee, thou young David."
"One cannot live forever, my lord. Farewell."
A week after, a boatman brought news to Crowland, how Sir Frederick wassitting in his inn at Lynn, when there came in one with a sword, andsaid: "I am Hereward. I was told that thou didst desire, greatly, to seeme; therefore I am come, being a courteous knight," and therewith smoteoff his head. And when the knights and others would have stopped him,he cut his way through them, killing some three or four at each stroke,himself unhurt; for he was clothed from head to foot in magic armor, andwhosoever smote it, their swords melted in their hands. And so, gainingthe door, he vanished in a great cloud of sea-fowl, that cried forever,"Hereward is come home again!"
And after that, the fen-men said to each other, that all the birds uponthe meres cried nothing, save "Hereward is come home again!"
And so, already surrounded with myth and mystery, Hereward flashedinto the fens and out again, like the lightning brand, destroying as hepassed. And the hearts of all the French were turned to water; and theland had peace from its tyrants for many days.