Hereward, the Last of the English

  CHAPTER XL.

  HOW HEREWARD BEGAN TO GET HIS SOUL'S PRICE.

  And now behold Hereward at home again, fat with the wages of sin, andnot knowing that they are death.

  He is once more "Dominus de Brunune cum Marisco," (Lord of Bourne withthe fen), "with all returns and liberties and all other things adjacentto the same vill which are now held as a barony from the Lord King ofEngland." He has a fair young wife, and with her farms and manors, evenricher than his own. He is still young, hearty, wise by experience, highin the king's favor, and deservedly so.

  Why should he not begin life again?

  Why not? Unless it be true that the wages of sin are, not a new life,but death.

  And yet he has his troubles. Hardly a Norman knight or baron round buthas a blood-feud against him, for a kinsman slain. Sir Aswart, Thoroldthe abbot's man, was not likely to forgive him for turning him out ofthe three Mainthorpe manors, which he had comfortably held for twoyears past, and sending him back to lounge in the abbot's hall atPeterborough, without a yard of land he could call his own. Sir Ascelinwas not likely to forgive him for marrying Alftruda, whom he hadintended to marry himself. Ivo Taillebois was not likely to forgive himfor existing within a hundred miles of Spalding, any more than the wolfwould forgive the lamb for fouling the water below him. Beside, had he(Ivo) not married Hereward's niece? and what more grievous offence couldHereward commit, than to be her uncle, reminding Ivo of his own lowbirth by his nobility, and too likely to take Lucia's part, wheneverit should please Ivo to beat or kick her? Only "Gilbert of Ghent,"the pious and illustrious earl, sent messages of congratulation andfriendship to Hereward, it being his custom to sail with the wind, andworship the rising sun--till it should decline again.

  But more: hardly one of the Normans round, but, in the conceit of theirskin-deep yesterday's civilization, look on Hereward as a barbarianEnglishman, who has his throat tattooed, and wears a short coat, andprefers--the churl--to talk English in his own hall, though he cantalk as good French as they when he is with them, beside three or fourbarbarian tongues if he has need.

  But more still: if they are not likely to bestow their love on Hereward,Hereward is not likely to win love from them of his own will. He ispeevish, and wrathful, often insolent and quarrelsome; and small blameto him. The Normans are invaders and tyrants, who have no businessthere, and should not be there, if he had his way. And they and he canno more amalgamate than fire and water. Moreover, he is a very greatman, or has been such once, and he thinks himself one still. He has beenaccustomed to command men, whole armies; and he will no more treatthese Normans as his equals, than they will treat him as such. His ownson-in-law, Hugh of Evermue, has to take hard words,--thoroughly welldeserved, it may be; but all the more unpleasant for that reason.

  The truth was, that Hereward's heart was gnawed with shame and remorse;and therefore he fancied, and not without reason, that all men pointedat him the finger of scorn.

  He had done a bad, base, accursed deed. And he knew it. Once in hislife--for his other sins were but the sins of his age--the Father of menseems (if the chroniclers say truth) to have put before this splendidbarbarian good and evil, saying, Choose! And he knew that the evil wasevil, and chose it nevertheless.

  Eight hundred years after, a still greater genius and general had thesame choice--as far as human cases of conscience can be alike--putbefore him. And he chose as Hereward chose.

  But as with Napoleon and Josephine, so it was with Hereward andTorfrida. Neither throve after.

  It was not punished by miracle. What sin is? It worked out its ownpunishment; that which it merited, deserved, or earned, by its ownlabor. No man could commit such a sin without shaking his wholecharacter to the root. Hereward tried to persuade himself that his wasnot shaken; that he was the same Hereward as ever. But he could notdeceive himself long. His conscience was evil. He was discontented withall mankind, and with himself most of all. He tried to be good,--as goodas he chose to be. If he had done wrong in one thing, he might make upfor it in others; but he could not.

  All his higher instincts fell from him one by one. He did not like tothink of good and noble things; he dared not think of them. He felt, notat first, but as the months rolled on, that he was a changed man; thatGod had left him. His old bad habits began to return to him. Graduallyhe sank back into the very vices from which Torfrida had raised himsixteen years before. He took to drinking again, to dull the malady ofthought; he excused himself to himself; he wished to forget his defeats,his disappointment, the ruin of his country, the splendid past which laybehind him like a dream. True: but he wished to forget likewise Torfridafasting and weeping in Crowland. He could not bear the sight of Crowlandtower on the far green horizon, the sound of Crowland bells booming overthe flat on the south-wind. He never rode down into the fens; he neverwent to see his daughter at Deeping, because Crowland lay that way. Hewent up into the old Bruneswald, hunted all day long through the gladeswhere he and his merry men had done their doughty deeds, and came homein the evening to get drunk.

  Then he lost his sleep. He sent down to Crowland, to Leofric the priest,that he might come to him, and sing his sagas of the old heroes, that hemight get rest. But Leofric sent back for answer that he would not come.

  That night Alftruda heard him by her side in the still hours, weepingsilently to himself. She caressed him: but he gave no heed to her.

  "I believe," said she bitterly at last, "that you love Torfrida stillbetter than you do me."

  And Hereward answered, like Mahomet in like case, "That do I, by heaven.She believed in me when no one else in the world did."

  And the vain, hard Alftruda answered angrily; and there was many afierce quarrel between them after that.

  With his love of drinking, his love of boasting came back. Because hecould do no more great deeds--or rather had not the spirit left in himto do more--he must needs, like a worn-out old man, babble of the greatdeeds which he had done; insult and defy his Norman neighbors; oftentalk what might be easily caricatured into treason against King Williamhimself.

  There were great excuses for his follies, as there are for those ofevery beaten man; but Hereward was spent. He had lived his life, and hadno more life which he could live; for every man, it would seem, bringsinto the world with him a certain capacity, a certain amount of vitalforce, in body and in soul; and when that is used up, the man must sinkdown into some sort of second childhood, and end, like Hereward, verymuch where he began; unless the grace of God shall lift him up above thecapacity of the mere flesh, into a life literally new, ever-renewing,ever-expanding, and eternal.

  But the grace of God had gone away from Hereward, as it goes away fromall men who are unfaithful to their wives.

  It was very pitiable. Let no man judge him. Life, to most, is very hardwork. There are those who endure to the end, and are saved; there arethose, again, who do not endure: upon whose souls may God have mercy.

  So Hereward soon became as intolerable to his Norman neighbors as theywere intolerable to him.

  Whereon, according to the simple fashion of those primitive times, theysought about for some one who would pick a quarrel with Hereward, andslay him in fair fight. But an Archibald Bell-the-Cat was not to befound on every hedge.

  But it befell that Oger the Breton, he who had Morcar's lands roundBourne, came up to see after his lands, and to visit his friend andfellow-robber, Ivo Taillebois.

  Ivo thought the hot-headed Breton, who had already insulted Herewardwith impunity at Winchester, the fittest man for his purpose; and askedhim, over his cups, whether he had settled with that English ruffianabout the Docton land?

  Now, King William had judged that Hereward and Oger should hold thatland between them, as he and Toli had done. But when "two dogs," as Ivosaid, "have hold of the same bone, it is hard if they cannot get a snapat each other's noses."

  Oger agreed to that opinion; and riding into Bourne, made inquisitioninto the doings at Docton. And--scandalous injustice!--he found that anold woman had s
ent six hens to Hereward, whereof she should have keptthree for him.

  So he sent to demand formally of Hereward those three hens; and wasunpleasantly disappointed when Hereward, instead of offering to fighthim, sent him them in an hour, and a lusty young cock into the bargain,with this message,--That he hoped they might increase and multiply; forit was a shame of an honest Englishman if he did not help a poor Bretonchurl to eat roast fowls for the first time in his life, after feedingon nothing better than furze-toppings, like his own ponies.

  To which Oger, who, like a true Breton, believed himself descended fromKing Arthur, Sir Tristram, and half the knights of the Round Table,replied that his blood was to that of Hereward as wine to peat-water;and that Bretons used furze-toppings only to scourge the backs ofinsolent barbarians.

  To which Hereward replied, that there were gnats enough pestering him inthe fens already, and that one more was of no consequence.

  Wherefrom the Breton judged, as at Winchester, that Hereward had no lustto fight.

  The next day he met Hereward going out to hunt, and was confirmed inhis opinion when Hereward lifted his cap to him most courteously, sayingthat he was not aware before that his neighbor was a gentleman of suchhigh blood.

  "Blood? Better at least than thine, thou bare-legged Saxon, who hasdared to call me churl. So you must needs have your throat cut? I tookyou for a wiser man."

  "Many have taken me for that which I am not. If you will harnessyourself, I will do the same; and we will ride up into the Bruneswald,and settle this matter in peace."

  "Three men on each side to see fair play," said the Breton.

  And up into the Bruneswald they rode; and fought long without advantageon either side.

  Hereward was not the man which he had been. His nerve was gone, as wellas his conscience; and all the dash and fury of his old onslaughts gonetherewith.

  He grew tired of the fight, not in body, but in mind; and more than oncedrew back.

  "Let us stop this child's play," said he, according to the chronicler;"what need have we to fight here all day about nothing?"

  Whereat the Breton fancied him already more than half-beaten, andattacked more furiously than ever. He would be the first man on earthwho ever had had the better of the great outlaw. He would win himselfeternal glory, as the champion of all England.

  But he had mistaken his man, and his indomitable English pluck. "It wasHereward's fashion, in fight and war," says the chronicler, "always toply the man most at the last." And so found the Breton; for Herewardsuddenly lost patience, and rushing on him with one of his old shouts,hewed at him again and again, as if his arm would never tire.

  Oger gave back, would he or not. In a few moments his sword-arm dropt tohis side, cut half through.

  "Have you had enough, Sir Tristram the younger?" quoth Hereward, wipinghis sword, and walking moodily away.

  Oger went out of Bourne with his arm in a sling, and took counsel withIvo Taillebois. Whereon they two mounted, and rode to Lincoln, and tookcounsel with Gilbert of Ghent.

  The fruit of which was this. That a fortnight after Gilbert rode intoBourne with a great meinie, full a hundred strong, and with him thesheriff and the king's writ, and arrested Hereward on a charge ofspeaking evil of the king, breaking his peace, compassing the deathof his faithful lieges, and various other wicked, traitorous, anddiabolical acts.

  Hereward was minded at first to fight and die. But Gilbert, who--to dohim justice--wished no harm to his ancient squire, reasoned with him.Why should he destroy not only himself, but perhaps his people likewise?Why should he throw away his last chance? The king was not so angry ashe seemed; and if Hereward would but be reasonable, the matter might bearranged. As it was, he was not to be put to strong prison. He was to bein the custody of Robert of Herepol, Chatelain of Bedford, who, Herewardknew, was a reasonable and courteous man. The king had asked him,Gilbert, to take charge of Hereward.

  "And what said you?"

  "That I had rather have in my pocket the seven devils that came out ofSt. Mary Magdalene; and that I would not have thee within ten miles ofLincoln town, to be Earl of all the Danelagh. So I begged him to sendthee to Sir Robert, just because I knew him to be a mild and graciousman."

  A year before, Hereward would have scorned the proposal; and probably,by one of his famous stratagems, escaped there and then out of the midstof all Gilbert's men. But his spirit was broken; indeed, so was thespirit of every Englishman; and he mounted his horse sullenly, and rodealongside of Gilbert, unarmed for the first time for many a year.

  "You had better have taken me," said Sir Ascelin aside to the weepingAlftruda.

  "I? helpless wretch that I am! What shall I do for my own safety, now heis gone?"

  "Let me come and provide for it."

  "Out! wretch! traitor!" cried she.

  "There is nothing very traitorous in succoring distressed ladies," saidAscelin. "If I can be of the least service to Alftruda the peerless, lether but send, and I fly to do her bidding."

  So they rode off.

  Hereward went through Cambridge and Potton like a man stunned, and spokenever a word. He could not even think, till he heard the key turned onhim in a room--not a small or doleful one--in Bedford keep, and found aniron shackle on his leg, fastened to the stone bench on which he sat.

  Robert of Herepol had meant to leave his prisoner loose. But there werethose in Gilbert's train who told him, and with truth, that if he didso, no man's life would be safe. That to brain the jailer with his ownkeys, and then twist out of his bowels a line wherewith to let himselfdown from the top of the castle, would be not only easy, but amusing, tothe famous "Wake."

  So Robert consented to fetter him so far, but no further; and begged hispardon again and again as he did it, pleading the painful necessities ofhis office.

  But Hereward heard him not. He sat in stupefied despair. A great blackcloud had covered all heaven and earth, and entered into his brainthrough every sense, till his mind, as he said afterwards, was likehell, with the fire gone out.

  A jailer came in, he knew not how long after, bringing a good meal, andwine. He came cautiously toward the prisoner, and when still beyond thelength of his chain, set the food down, and thrust it toward him with astick, lest Hereward should leap on him and wring his neck.

  But Hereward never even saw him or the food. He sat there all day, allnight, and nearly all the next day, and hardly moved hand or foot. Thejailer told Sir Robert in the evening that he thought the man was mad,and would die.

  So good Sir Robert went up to him, and spoke kindly and hopefully.But all Hereward answered was, that he was very well. That he wantednothing. That he had always heard well of Sir Robert. That he shouldlike to get a little sleep: but that sleep would not come.

  The next day Sir Robert came again early, and found him sitting in thesame place.

  "He was very well," he said. "How could he be otherwise? He was justwhere he ought to be. A man could not be better than in his rightplace."

  Whereon Sir Robert gave him up for mad.

  Then he bethought of sending him a harp, knowing the fame of Hereward'smusic and singing. "And when he saw the harp," the jailer said, "hewept; but bade take the thing away. And so sat still where he was."

  In this state of dull despair he remained for many weeks. At last hewoke up.

  There passed through and by Bedford large bodies of troops, going as itwere to and from battle. The clank of arms stirred Hereward's heart asof old, and he sent to Sir Robert to ask what was toward.

  Sir Robert, "the venerable man," came to him joyfully and at once, gladto speak to an illustrious captive, whom he looked on as an injured man;and told him news enough.

  Taillebois's warning about Ralph Guader and Waltheof had not beenneedless. Ralph, as the most influential of the Bretons, was on nogood terms with the Normans, save with one, and that one of the mostpowerful,--Fitz-Osbern, Earl of Hereford. His sister Ralph was to havemarried; but William, for reasons unknown, forbade the match. Thetwo great earl
s celebrated the wedding in spite of William, and askedWaltheof as a guest. And at Exning, between the fen and NewmarketHeath,--

  "Was that bride-ale Which was man's bale."

  For there was matured the plot which Ivo and others had long seenbrewing. William had made himself hateful to all men by his crueltiesand tyrannies; and indeed his government was growing more unrighteousday by day. Let them drive him out of England, and part the land betweenthem. Two should be dukes, the third king paramount.

  "Waltheof, I presume, plotted drunk, and repented sober, when too late.The wittol! He should have been a monk."

  "Repented he has, if ever he was guilty. For he fled to ArchbishopLanfranc, and confessed to him so much, that Lanfranc declares himinnocent, and has sent him on to William in Normandy."

  "O kind priest! true priest! To send his sheep into the wolf's mouth."

  "You forget, dear sire, that William is our king."

  "I can hardly forget that, with this pretty ring upon my ankle. Butafter my experience of how he has kept faith with me, what can I expectfor Waltheof the wittol, save that which I have foretold many a time?"

  "As for you, dear sire, the king has been misinformed concerning you. Ihave sent messengers to reason with him again and again; but as long asTaillebois, Warrenne, and Robert Malet had his ear, of what use were mypoor words?"

  "And what said they?"

  "That there would be no peace in England if you were loose."

  "They lied. I am no boy, like Waltheof. I know when the game is playedout. And it is played out now. The Frenchman is master, and I know itwell. Were I loose to-morrow, and as great a fool as Waltheof,what could I do, with, it may be, some forty knights and a hundredmen-at-arms, against all William's armies? But how goes on this fool'srebellion? If I had been loose I might have helped to crush it in thebud."

  "And you would have done that against Waltheof?"

  "Why not against him? He is but bringing more misery on England. Tellthat to William. Tell him that if he sets me free, I will be the firstto attack Waltheof, or whom he will. There are no English left to fightagainst," said he, bitterly, "for Waltheof is none now."

  "He shall know your words when he returns to England."

  "What, is he abroad, and all this evil going on?"

  "In Normandy. But the English have risen for the King in Herefordshire,and beaten Earl Roger; and Odo of Bayeux and Bishop Mowbray are on theirway to Cambridge, where they hope to give a good account of Earl Ralph;and that the English may help them there."

  "And they shall! They hate Ralph Guader as much as I do. Can you send amessage for me?"

  "Whither?"

  "To Bourne in the Bruneswald; and say to Hereward's men, whereverthey are, Let them rise and arm, if they love Hereward, and down toCambridge, to be the foremost at Bishop Odo's side against Ralph Guader,or Waltheof himself. Send! send! O that I were free!"

  "Would to Heaven thou wert free, my gallant sir!" said the good man.

  From that day Hereward woke up somewhat. He was still a broken man,querulous, peevish; but the hope of freedom and the hope of battle wokehim up. If he could but get to his men! But his melancholy returned. Hismen--some of them at least--went down to Odo at Cambridge, and did goodservice. Guader was utterly routed, and escaped to Norwich, and thenceto Brittany,--his home. The bishops punished their prisoners, the rebelNormans, with horrible mutilations.

  "The wolves are beginning to eat each other," said Hereward to himself.But it was a sickening thought to him, that his men had been fightingand he not at their head.

  After a while there came to Bedford Castle two witty knaves. One was acook, who "came to buy milk," says the chronicler; the other seeminglya gleeman. They told stories, jested, harped, sang, drank, and pleasedmuch the garrison and Sir Robert, who let them hang about the place.

  They asked next, whether it were true that the famous Hereward wasthere? If so, might a man have a look at him?

  The jailer said that many men might have gone to see him, so easy wasSir Robert to him. But he would have no man; and none dare enter saveSir Robert and he, for fear of their lives. But he would ask him ofHerepol.

  The good knight of Herepol said, "Let the rogues go in; they may amusethe poor man."

  So they went in, and as soon as they went, he knew them. One was MartinLightfoot, the other Leofric the Unlucky.

  "Who sent you?" asked he surlily, turning his face away.

  "She."

  "Who?"

  "We know but one she, and she is at Crowland."

  "She sent you? and wherefore?"

  "That we might sing to you, and make you merry."

  Hereward answered them with a terrible word, and turned his face to thewall, groaning, and then bade them sternly to go.

  So they went, for the time.

  The jailer told this to Sir Robert, who saw all, being a kind-heartedman.

  "From his poor first wife, eh? Well, there can be no harm in that. Norif they came from this Lady Alftruda either, for that matter; let themgo in and out when they will."

  "But they may be spies and traitors."

  "Then we can but hang them."

  Robert of Herepol, it would appear from the chronicle, did not much carewhether they were spies or not.

  So the men went to and fro, and often sat with Hereward. But he forbadethem sternly to mention Torfrida's name.

  Alftruda sent to him meanwhile, again and again, messages of passionatelove and sorrow, and he listened to them as sullenly as he did to histwo servants, and sent no answer back. And so sat more weary months, inthe very prison, it may be in the very room, in which John Bunyan satnigh six hundred years after: but in a very different frame of mind.

  One day Sir Robert was going up the stairs with another knight, andmet the two coming down. He was talking to that knight earnestly,indignantly: and somehow, as he passed Leofric and Martin he thought fitto raise his voice, as if in a great wrath.

  "Shame to all honor and chivalry! good saints in heaven, what a thing ishuman fortune! That this man, who had once a gallant army at hisback, should be at this moment going like a sheep to the slaughter, toBuckingham Castle, at the mercy of his worst enemy, Ivo Taillebois, ofall men in the world. If there were a dozen knights left of all thosewhom he used to heap with wealth and honor, worthy the name of knights,they would catch us between here and Stratford, and make a free man oftheir lord."

  So spake--or words to that effect, according to the Latin chronicler,who must have got them from Leofric himself--the good knight of Herepol.

  "Hillo, knaves!" said he, seeing the two, "are you here eavesdropping?out of the castle this instant, on your lives."

  Which hint those two witty knaves took on the spot.

  A few days after, Hereward was travelling toward Buckingham, chainedupon a horse, with Sir Robert and his men, and a goodly company ofknights belonging to Ivo. Ivo, as the story runs, seems to have arrangedwith Ralph Pagnel at Buckingham to put him into the keeping of acreature of his own. And how easy it was to put out a man's eyes, orstarve him to death, in a Norman keep, none knew better than Hereward.

  But he was past fear or sorrow. A dull heavy cloud of despair hadsettled down upon his soul. Black with sin, his heart could not pray. Hehad hardened himself against all heaven and earth, and thought, when hethought at all, only of his wrongs: but never of his sins.

  They passed through a forest, seemingly somewhere near what is NewportPagnel, named after Ralph, his would-be jailer.

  Suddenly from the trees dashed out a body of knights, and at their headthe white-bear banner, in Ranald of Ramsey's hand.

  "Halt!" shouted Sir Robert; "we are past the half-way stone. Earl Ivo'sand Earl Ralph's men are answerable now for the prisoner."

  "Treason!" shouted Ivo's men, and one would have struck Hereward throughwith his lance; but Winter was too quick for him, and bore him from hissaddle; and then dragged Hereward out of the fight.

  The Normans, surprised while their helmets were hanging at t
heirsaddles, and their arms not ready for battle, were scattered at once.But they returned to the attack, confident in their own numbers.

  They were over confident. Hereward's fetters were knocked off; and hewas horsed and armed, and, mad with freedom and battle, fighting likehimself once more.

  Only as he rode to and fro, thrusting and hewing, he shouted to his mento spare Sir Robert, and all his meinie, crying that he was the saviorof his life; and when the fight was over, and all Ivo's and Ralph's menwho were not slain had ridden for their lives into Stratford, he shookhands with that venerable knight, giving him innumerable thanks andcourtesies for his honorable keeping; and begged him to speak well ofhim to the king.

  And so these two parted in peace, and Hereward was a free man.