Hereward, the Last of the English

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  HOW SIR DADE BROUGHT NEWS FROM ELY.

  A month after the fight, there came into the camp at Cambridge, ridingon a good horse, himself fat and well-liking, none other than Sir Dade.

  Boisterously he was received, as one alive from the dead; and questionedas to his adventures and sufferings.

  "Adventures I have had, and strange ones; but for sufferings, instead offetter-galls, I bring back, as you see, a new suit of clothes; insteadof an empty and starved stomach, a surfeit from good victuals andgood liquor; and whereas I went into Ely on foot, I came out on a fasthackney."

  So into William's tent he went; and there he told his tale.

  "So, Dade, my friend?" quoth the Duke, in high good humor, for he lovedDade, "you seem to have been in good company?"

  "Never in better, Sire, save in your presence. Of the earls and knightsin Ely, all I can say is, God's pity that they are rebels, for moregallant and courteous knights or more perfect warriors never sawI, neither in Normandy nor at Constantinople, among the Varangersthemselves."

  "Eh! and what are the names of these gallants; for you have used youreyes and ears, of course?"

  "Edwin and Morcar, the earls,--two fine young lads."

  "I know it. Go on"; and a shade passed over William's brow, as hethought of his own falsehood, and his fair Constance, weeping in vainfor the fair bridegroom whom he had promised to her.

  "Siward Barn, as they call him, the boy Orgar, and Thurkill Barn. Thoseare the knights. Egelwin, bishop of Durham, is there too; and besidesthem all, and above them all, Hereward. The like of that knight I mayhave seen. His better saw I never."

  "Sir fool!" said Earl Warrenne, who had not yet--small blame tohim--forgotten his brother's death. "They have soused thy brains withtheir muddy ale, till thou knowest not friend from foe. What! hastthou to come hither praising up to the King's Majesty such an outlawedvillain as that, with whom no honest knight would keep company?"

  "If you, Earl Warrenne, ever found Dade drunk or lying, it is more thanthe King here has done."

  "Let him speak, Earl," said William. "I have not an honester man in mycamp; and he speaks for my information, not for yours."

  "Then for yours will I speak, Sir King. These men treated me knightly,and sent me away without ransom."

  "They had an eye to their own profit, it seems," grumbled the Earl.

  "But force me they did to swear on the holy Gospels that I should tellyour Majesty the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. AndI keep my oath," quoth Dade.

  "Go on, then, without fear or favor. Are there any other men of note inthe island!"

  "No."

  "Are they in want of provisions?"

  "Look how they have fattened me."

  "What do they complain of?"

  "I will tell you, Sir King. The monks, like many more, took fright atthe coming over of our French men of God to set right all their filthy,barbarous ways; and that is why they threw Ely open to the rebels."

  "I will be even with the sots," quoth William.

  "However, they think that danger blown over just now; for they have astory among them, which, as my Lord the King never heard before, he mayas well hear now."

  "Eh?"

  "How your Majesty should have sent across the sea a whole shipload ofFrench monks."

  "That have I, and will more, till I reduce these swine into somethinglike obedience to his Holiness of Rome."

  "Ah, but your Majesty has not heard how one Bruman, a valiant Englishknight, was sailing on the sea and caught those monks. Whereon he tieda great sack to the ship's head, and cut the bottom out, and made everyone of those monks get into that sack and so fall through into the sea;whereby he rid the monks of Ely of their rivals."

  "Pish! why tell me such an old-wives' fable, knight?"

  "Because the monks believe that old-wives' fable, and are stout-heartedand stiff-necked accordingly."

  "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church," said William'schaplain, a pupil and friend of Lanfranc; "and if these men of Belialdrowned every man of God in Normandy, ten would spring up in theirplaces to convert this benighted and besotted land of Simonites andBalaamites, whose priests, like the brutes which perish, scruple not todefile themselves and the service of the altar with things which theyimpudently call their wives."

  "We know that, good chaplain," quoth William, impatiently. He had enoughof that language from Lanfranc himself; and, moreover, was thinking moreof the Isle of Ely than of the celibacy of the clergy.

  "Well, Sir Dade?"

  "So they have got together all their kin; for among these monks everyone is kin to a Thane, or Knight, or even an Earl. And there they are,brother by brother, cousin by cousin, knee to knee, and back to back,like a pack of wolves, and that in a hold which you will not enter yetawhile."

  "Does my friend Dade doubt his Duke's skill at last?"

  "Sir Duke,--Sir King I mean now, for King you are and deserve to be,--Iknow what you can do. I remember how we took England at one blow onSenlac field; but see you here, Sir King. How will you take an islandwhere four kings such as you (if the world would hold four such at once)could not stop one churl from ploughing the land, or one bird-catcherfrom setting lime-twigs?"

  "And what if I cannot stop the bird-catchers? Do they expect to limeFrenchmen as easily as sparrows?"

  "Sparrows! It is not sparrows that I have been fattening on this lastmonth. I tell you, Sire, I have seen wild-fowl alone in thatisland enough to feed them all the year round. I was there in themoulting-time, and saw them take,--one day one hundred, one two hundred;and once, as I am a belted knight, a thousand duck out of onesingle mere. There is a wood there, with herons sprawling about thetree-tops,--I did not think there were so many in the world,--and fishfor Lent and Fridays in every puddle and leat, pike and perch, tenchand eels, on every old-wife's table; while the knights think scorn ofanything worse than smelts and burbot."

  "Splendeur Dex!" quoth William, who, Norman-like, did not dislike a gooddinner. "I must keep Lent in Ely before I die."

  "Then you had best make peace with the burbot-eating knights, my lord."

  "But have they flesh-meat?"

  "The isle is half of it a garden,--richer land, they say, is none inthese realms, and I believe it; but, besides that, there is a deer-parkthere with a thousand head in it, red and fallow; and plenty of swine inwoods, and sheep, and cattle; and if they fail, there are plenty more tobe got, they know where."

  "They know where? Do you, Sir Knight?" asked William, keenly.

  "Out of every little Island in their fens, for forty miles on end. Thereare the herds fattening themselves on the richest pastures in the land,and no man needing to herd them, for they are all safe among dikes andmeres."

  "I will make my boats sweep their fens clear of every head--"

  "Take care, my Lord King, lest never a boat come back from that errand.With their narrow flat-bottomed punts, cut out of a single log, andtheir leaping-poles, wherewith they fly over dikes of thirty feet inwidth,--they can ambuscade in those reed-beds and alder-beds, killwhom they will, and then flee away through the marsh like so manyhorse-flies. And if not, one trick have they left, which they never trysave when driven into a corner; but from that, may all saints save us!"

  "What then?"

  "Firing the reeds."

  "And destroying their own cover?"

  "True: therefore they will only do it in despair."

  "Then to despair will I drive them, and try their worst. So these monksare as stout rebels as the earls?"

  "I only say what I saw. At the hall-table there dined each day maybesome fifty belted knights, with every one a monk next to him; and at thehigh table the abbot, and the three earls, and Hereward and his lady,and Thurkill Barn. And behind each knight, and each monk likewise, hungagainst the wall lance and shield, helmet and hauberk, sword and axe."

  "To monk as well as knight?"

  "As I am a knight myself; and were as well used, too, f
or aught I saw.The monks took turns with the knights as sentries, and as foragers, too;and the knights themselves told me openly, the monks were as good men asthey."

  "As wicked, you mean," groaned the chaplain. "O, accursed andbloodthirsty race, why does not the earth open and swallow you, withKorah, Dathan, and Abiram?"

  "They would not mind," quoth Dade. "They are born and bred in thebottomless pit already. They would jump over, or flounder out, as theydo to their own bogs every day."

  "You speak irreverently, my friend," quoth William.

  "Ask those who are in camp, and not me. As for whither they went, orhow, the English were not likely to tell me. All I know is, that I sawfresh cattle come every few days, and fresh farms burnt, too, on theNorfolk side. There were farms burning last night only, between here andCambridge. Ask your sentinels on the Rech-dike how that came about!"

  "I can answer that," quoth a voice from the other end of the tent. "Iwas on the Rech-dike last night, close down to the fen,--worse luck andshame for me."

  "Answer, then!" quoth William, with one of his horrible oaths, glad tohave some one on whom he could turn his rage and disappointment.

  "There came seven men in a boat up from Ely yestereven, and five ofthem were monks; they came up from Burwell fen, and plundered and burntBurwell town."

  "And where were all you mighty men of war?"

  "Ten of us ran down to stop them, with Richard, Earl Osbern's nephew,at their head. The villains got to the top of the Rech-dike, and made astand, and before we could get to them--"

  "Thy men had run, of course."

  "They were every one dead or wounded, save Richard; and he was fightingsingle-handed with an Englishman, while the other six stood around, andlooked on."

  "Then they fought fairly?" said William.

  "As fairly, to do them justice, as if they had been Frenchmen, and notEnglish churls. As we came down along the dike, a little man of themsteps between the two, and strikes down their swords as if they had beentwo reeds. 'Come!' cries he, 'enough of this. You are two _prudhommes_well matched, and you can fight out this any other day'; and away he andhis men go down the dike-end to the water."

  "Leaving Richard safe?"

  "Wounded a little,--but safe enough."

  "And then?"

  "We followed them to the boat as hard as we could; killed one with ajavelin, and caught another."

  "Knightly done!" and William swore an awful oath, "and worthy of valiantFrenchmen. These English set you the example of chivalry by lettingyour comrade fight his own battle fairly, instead of setting on him alltogether; and you repay them by hunting them down with darts, becauseyou dare not go within sword's-stroke of better men than yourselves. Go.I am ashamed of you. No, stay. Where is your prisoner? For, SplendeurDex! I will send him back safe and sound in return for Dade, to tell theknights of Ely that if they know so well the courtesies of war, Williamof Rouen does too."

  "The prisoner, Sire," quoth the knight, trembling, "is--is--"

  "You have not murdered him?"

  "Heaven forbid! but--"

  "He broke his bonds and escaped?"

  "Gnawed them through, Sire, as we suppose, and escaped through the mirein the dark, after the fashion of these accursed frogs of Girvians."

  "But did he tell you naught ere he bade you good morning?"

  "He told as the names of all the seven. He that beat down the swords wasHereward himself."

  "I thought as much. When shall I have that fellow at my side?"

  "He that fought Richard was one Wenoch."

  "I have heard of him."

  "He that we slew was Siward, a monk."

  "More shame to you."

  "He that we took was Azer the Hardy, a monk of Nicole--Licole,"--theNormans could never say Lincoln.

  "And the rest were Thurstan the Younger; Leofric the Deacon, Hereward'sminstrel; and Boter, the traitor monk of St. Edmund's."

  "And if I catch them," quoth William, "I will make an abbot of every oneof them."

  "Sire?" quoth the chaplain, in a deprecating tone.