CHAPTER XXII.
HOW HEREWARD SAILED FOE ENGLAND ONCE AND FOR ALL.
So Hereward fought the Viscount of Pinkney, who had the usual luck whichbefell those who crossed swords with him, and plotted meanwhile withGyda and the Countess Judith. Abbot Egelsin sent them news from KingSweyn in Denmark; soon Judith and Tosti's two sons went themselves toSweyn, and helped the plot and the fitting out of the armament. Newsthey had from England in plenty, by messengers from Queen Matilda tothe sister who was intriguing to dethrone her husband, and by privatemessengers from Durham and from York.
Baldwin, the _debonnaire_ marquis, had not lived to see this fruit ofhis long efforts to please everybody. He had gone to his rest the yearbefore; and now there ruled in Bruges his son, Baldwin the Good, "CountPalatine," as he styled himself, and his wife Richilda, the Lady ofHainault.
They probably cared as little for the success of their sister Matilda asthey did for that of their sister Judith; and followed out--Baldwin atleast--the great marquis's plan of making Flanders a retreat for thefugitives of all the countries round.
At least, if (as seems) Sweyn's fleet made the coast of Flanders itsrendezvous and base of operations against King William, Baldwin offeredno resistance.
So the messengers came, and the plots went on. Great was the delightof Hereward and the ladies when they heard of the taking of Durham andYork; but bitter their surprise and rage when they heard that Gospatrickand the Confederates had proclaimed Edgar Atheling king.
"Fools! they will ruin all!" cried Gyda. "Do they expect Swend Ulfsson,who never moved a finger yet, unless he saw that it would pay him withinthe hour, to spend blood and treasure in putting that puppet boy uponthe throne instead of himself?"
"Calm yourself, great Countess," said Hereward, with a smile. "The manwho puts him on the throne will find it very easy to take him off againwhen he needs."
"Pish!" said Gyda. "He must put him on the throne first. And how will hedo that? Will the men of the Danelagh, much less the Northumbrians, everrally round an Atheling of Cerdic's house? They are raising a Wessexarmy in Northumbria; a southern army in the north. There is no realloyalty there toward the Atheling, not even the tie of kin, as therewould be to Swend. The boy is a mere stalking-horse, behind which eachof these greedy chiefs expects to get back his own lands; and if theycan get them back by any other means, well and good. Mark my words, SirHereward, that cunning Frenchman will treat with them one by one, andbetray them one by one, till there is none left."
How far Gyda was right will be seen hereafter. But a less practiseddiplomat than the great Countess might have speculated reasonably onsuch an event.
At least, let this be said, that when historians have complained ofthe treachery of King Swend Ulfsson and his Danes, they have forgottencertain broad and simple facts.
Swend sailed for England to take a kingdom which he believed to be hisby right; which he had formerly demanded of William. When he arrivedthere, he found himself a mere cat's-paw for recovering that kingdomfor an incapable boy, whom he believed to have no right to the throne atall.
Then came darker news. As Ivo had foreseen, and as Ivo had done his bestto bring about, William dashed on York, and drove out the Confederateswith terrible slaughter; profaned the churches, plundered the town.Gospatrick and the earls retreated to Durham; the Atheling, morecautious, to Scotland.
Then came a strange story, worthy of the grown children who, in thoseold times, bore the hearts of boys with the ferocity and intellect ofmen.
A great fog fell on the Frenchmen as they struggled over the Durhammoors. The doomed city was close beneath them; they heard Wear roaringin his wooded gorge. But a darkness, as of Egypt, lay upon them:"neither rose any from his place."
Then the Frenchmen cried: "This darkness is from St. Cuthbert himself.We have invaded his holy soil. Who has not heard how none who offend St.Cuthbert ever went unpunished? how palsy, blindness, madness, fall onthose who dare to violate his sanctuary?"
And the French turned and fled from before the face of St. Cuthbert;and William went down to Winchester angry and sad, and then went offto Gloucestershire; and hunted--for, whatever befell, he still wouldhunt--in the forest of Dean.
And still Swend and his Danes had not sailed; and Hereward walked to andfro in his house, impatiently, and bided his time.
In July, Baldwin died. Arnoul, the boy, was Count of Flanders, andRichilda, his sorceress-mother, ruled the land in his name. She began tooppress the Flemings; not those of French Flanders, round St. Omer, butthose of Flemish Flanders, toward the north. They threatened to send forRobert the Frison to right them.
Hereward was perplexed. He was Robert the Frison's friend, and oldsoldier. Richilda was Torfrida's friend; so was, still more, the boyArnoul; which party should he take? Neither, if he could help it. And helonged to be safe out of the land.
And at last his time came. Martin Lightfoot ran in, breathless, to tellhow the sails of a mighty fleet were visible from the Dunes.
"Here?" cried Hereward. "What are the fools doing down here, wanderinginto the very jaws of the wolf? How will they land here? They were tohave gone straight to the Lincolnshire coast. God grant this mistake benot the first of dozens!"
Hereward went into Torfrida's bower.
"This is an evil business. The Danes are here, where they have nobusiness, instead of being off Scheldtmouth, as I entreated them. But gowe must, or be forever shamed. Now, true wife, are you ready? Dare youleave home and kin and friends, once and for all, to go, you know notwhither, with one who may be a gory corpse by this day week?"
"I dare," said she.
So they went down to Calais by night, with Torfrida's mother, and alltheir jewels, and all they had in the world. And their housecarleswent with them, forty men, tried and trained, who had vowed to followHereward round the world. And there were two long ships ready, andtwenty good mariners in each. So when the Danes made the South Forelandthe next morning, they were aware of two gallant ships bearing down onthem, with a great white bear embroidered on their sails.
A proud man was Hereward that day, as he sailed into the midst of theDanish fleet, and up to the royal ships, and shouted: "I am Herewardthe Berserker, and I come to take service under my rightful lord, Sweyn,king of England."
"Come on board, then; we know you well, and right glad we are to haveHereward with us."
And Hereward laid his ship's bow upon the quarter of the royal ship (tolay alongside was impossible, for fear of breaking oars), and came onboard.
"And thou art Hereward?" asked a tall and noble warrior.
"I am. And thou art Swend Ulfsson, the king?"
"I am Earl Osbiorn, his brother."
"Then, where is the king?"
"He is in Denmark, and I command his fleet; and with me are Canute andHarold, Sweyn's sons, and earls and bishops enough for all England."
This was spoken in a somewhat haughty tone, in answer to the look ofsurprise and disappointment which Hereward had, unawares, allowed topass over his face.
"Thou art better than none," said Hereward. "Now, hearken, Osbiorn theEarl. Had Swend been here, I would have put my hand between his, andsaid in my own name, and that of all the men in Kesteven and the fens,Swend's men we are, to live and die! But now, as it is, I say, for meand them, thy men we are, to live and die, as long as thou art true tous."
"True to you I will be," said Osbiorn.
"Be it so," said Hereward. "True we shall be, whatever betide. Now,whither goes Earl Osbiorn, and all his great meinie?"
"We purpose to try Dover."
"You will not take it. The Frenchman has strengthened it with one of hisaccursed keeps, and without battering-engines you may sit before it amonth."
"What if I asked you to go in thither yourself, and try the mettle andthe luck which, they say, never failed Hereward yet?"
"I should say that it was a child's trick to throw away against apaltry stone wall the life of a man who was ready to raise for you inLincolnshire and Cambridg
eshire, five times as many men as you will losein taking Dover."
"Hereward is right," said more than one Earl. "We shall need him in hisown country."
"If you are wise, to that country you yourselves will go. It is readyto receive you. This is ready to oppose you. You are attacking theFrenchman at his strongest point instead of his weakest. Did I not sendagain and again, entreating you to cross from Scheldtmouth to the Wash,and send me word that I might come and raise the Fen-men for you, andthen we would all go north together?"
"I have heard, ere now," said Earl Osbiorn, haughtily, "that Hereward,though he be a valiant Viking, is more fond of giving advice than oftaking it."
Hereward was about to answer very fiercely. If he had, no one wouldhave thought any harm, in those plain-spoken times. But he was wise; andrestrained himself, remembering that Torfrida was there, all but alone,in the midst of a fleet of savage men; and that beside, he had a greatdeed to do, and must do it as he could. So he answered,--
"Osbiorn the Earl has not, it seems, heard this of Hereward: thatbecause he is accustomed to command, he is also accustomed to obey. Whatthou wilt do, do, and bid me do. He that quarrels with his captain cutshis own throat and his fellows' too."
"Wisely spoken!" said the earls; and Hereward went back to his ship.
"Torfrida," said he, bitterly, "the game is lost before it is begun."
"God forbid, my beloved! What words are these?"
"Swend--fool that he is with his over-caution,--always the same!--haslet the prize slip from between his fingers. He has sent Osbiorn insteadof himself."
"But why is that so terrible a mistake?"
"We do not want a fleet of Vikings in England, to plunder the Frenchand English alike. We want a king, a king, a king!" and Hereward stampedwith rage. "And instead of a king, we have this Osbiorn,--all men knowhim, greedy and false and weak-headed. Here he is going to be beaten offat Dover; and then, I suppose, at the next port; and so forth, till thewhole season is wasted, and the ships and men lost by driblets. Pray forus to God and his saints, Torfrida, you who are nearer to Heaven than I;for we never needed it more."
And Osbiorn went in; tried to take Dover; and was beaten off with heavyloss.
Then the earls bade him take Hereward's advice. But he would not.
So he went round the Foreland, and tried Sandwich,--as if, landingthere, he would have been safe in marching on London, in the teeth ofthe _elite_ of Normandy.
But he was beaten off there, with more loss. Then, too late, he tookHereward's advice,--or, rather, half of it,--and sailed north; but onlyto commit more follies.
He dared not enter the Thames. He would not go on to the Wash; but hewent into the Orwell, and attacked Ipswich, plundering right and left,instead of proclaiming King Sweyn, and calling the Danish folk aroundhim. The Danish folk of Suffolk rose, and, like valiant men, beat himoff; while Hereward lay outside the river mouth, his soul within himblack with disappointment, rage, and shame. He would not go in. He wouldnot fight against his own countrymen. He would not help to turn thewhole plan into a marauding raid. And he told Earl Osbiorn so, sofiercely, that his life would have been in danger, had not the force ofhis arm been as much feared as the force of his name was needed.
At last they came to Yarmouth. Osbiorn would needs land there, and tryNorwich.
Hereward was nigh desperate: but he hit upon a plan. Let Osbiorn do so,if he would. He himself would sail round to the Wash, raise the Fen-men,and march eastward at their head through Norfolk to meet him. Osbiornhimself could not refuse so rational a proposal. All the earls andbishops approved loudly; and away Hereward went to the Wash, his heartwell-nigh broken, foreseeing nothing but evil.