Hereward, the Last of the English

But soon he had to take care of himself. Earl Warrenne’s commands to feed him were construed by the cook-boys and scullions into a command to make him drunk likewise. To make a laughing-stock of an Englishman was too tempting a jest to be resisted; and Hereward was drenched (says the chronicler) with wine and beer, and sorely baited and badgered. At last one rascal hit upon a notable plan.

“Pluck out the English hog’s hair and beard, and put him blindfold in the midst of his pots, and see what a smash we shall have.”

Hereward pretended not to understand the words, which were spoken in French; but when they were interpreted to him, he grew somewhat red about the ears.

Submit he would not. But if he defended himself, and made an uproar in the king’s Court, he might very likely find himself riding Odin’s horse before the hour was out. However, happily for him, the wine and beer had made him stout of heart, and when one fellow laid hold of his beard, he resisted sturdily.

The man struck him, and that hard. Hereward, hot of temper, and careless of life, struck him again, right under the ear.

The fellow dropped for dead.

Up leapt cook-boys, scullions, lécheurs (who hung about the kitchen to lécher, lick the platters), and all the foul-mouthed rascality of a great mediaeval household; and attacked Hereward cum fureis et tridentibus, with forks and flesh-hooks.

Then was Hereward aware of a great broach, or spit, before the fire; and recollecting how he had used such a one as a boy against the monks of Peterborough, was minded to use it against the cooks of Brandon; which he did so heartily, that in a few moments he had killed one, and driven the others backward in a heap.

But his case was hopeless. He was soon overpowered by numbers from outside, and dragged into the hall, to receive judgment for the mortal crime of slaying a man within the precincts of the Court.

He kept up heart. He knew that the king was there; he knew that he should most likely get justice from the king. If not, he could but discover himself, and so save his life: for that the king would kill him knowingly, he did not believe.

So he went in boldly and willingly, and up the hall, where, on the dais, stood William the Norman.

William had finished his luncheon, and was standing at the board side. A page held water in a silver basin, in which he was washing his hands. Two more knelt, and laced his long boots, for he was, as always, going a-hunting.

Then Hereward looked at the face of the great man, and felt at once that it was the face of the greatest man whom he had ever met.

“I am not that man’s match,” said he to himself. “Perhaps it will all end in being his man, and he my master.”

“Silence, knaves!” said William, “and speak one of you at a time. How came this?”

“A likely story, forsooth!” said he, when he had heard. “A poor English potter comes into my court, and murders my men under my very eyes for mere sport. I do not believe you, rascals! You, churl,” and he spoke through an English interpreter, “tell me your tale, and justice you shall have or take, as you deserve. I am the King of England, man, and I know your tongue, though I speak it not yet, more pity.”

Hereward fell on his knees.

“If you are indeed my Lord the King, then I am safe; for there is justice in you, at least so all men say.” And he told his tale, manfully.

“Splendeur Dex! but this is a far likelier story, and I believe it. Hark you, you ruffians! Here am I, trying to conciliate these English by justice and mercy whenever they will let me, and here are you outraging them, and driving them mad and desperate, just that you may get a handle against them, and thus rob the poor wretches and drive them into the forest. From the lowest to the highest,—from Ivo Taillebois there down to you cook-boys,—you are all at the same game. And I will stop it! The next time I hear of outrage to unarmed man or harmless woman, I will hang that culprit, were he Odo my brother himself.”

This excellent speech was enforced with oaths so strange and terrible, that Ivo Taillebois shook in his boots; and the chaplain prayed fervently that the roof might not fall in on their heads.

“Thou smilest, man?” said William, quickly, to the kneeling Hereward. “So thou understandest French?”

“A few words only, most gracious King, which we potters pick up, wandering everywhere with our wares,” said Hereward, speaking in French; for so keen was William’s eye, that he thought it safer to play no tricks with him.

Nevertheless, he made his French so execrable, that the very scullions grinned, in spite of their fear.

“Look you,” said William, “you are no common churl; you have fought too well for that. Let me see your arm.”

Hereward drew up his sleeve.

“Potters do not carry sword-scars like those; neither are they tattooed like English thanes. Hold up thy head, man, and let us see thy throat.”

Hereward, who had carefully hung down his head to prevent his throat-patterns being seen, was forced to lift it up.

“Aha! So I expected. More fair ladies’ work there. Is not this he who was said to be so like Hereward? Very good. Put him in ward till I come back from hunting. But do him no harm. For”—and William fixed on Hereward eyes of the most intense intelligence—“were he Hereward himself, I should be right glad to see Hereward safe and sound; my man at last, and earl of all between Humber and the Fens.”

But Hereward did not rise at the bait. With a face of stupid and ludicrous terror, he made reply in broken French.

“Have mercy, mercy, Lord King! Make not that fiend earl over us. Even Ivo Taillebois there would be better than he. Send him to be earl over the imps in hell, or over the wild Welsh who are worse still: but not over us, good Lord King, whom he hath polled and peeled till we are—”

“Silence!” said William, laughing, as did all round him, “Thou art a cunning rogue enough, whoever thou art. Go into limbo, and behave thyself till I come back.”

“All saints send your grace good sport, and thereby me a good deliverance,” quoth Hereward, who knew that his fate might depend on the temper in which William returned. So he was thrust into an outhouse, and there locked up.

He sat on an empty barrel, meditating on the chances of his submitting to the king after all, when the door opened, and in strode one with a drawn sword in one hand, and a pair of leg-shackles in the other.

“Hold out thy shins, fellow! Thou art not going to sit at thine ease there like an abbot, after killing one of us grooms, and bringing the rest of us into disgrace. Hold out thy legs, I say!”

“Nothing easier,” quoth Hereward, cheerfully, and held out a leg. But when the man stooped to put on the fetters, he received a kick which sent him staggering.

After which he recollected very little, at least in this world. For Hereward cut off his head with his own sword.

After which (says the chronicler) he broke away out of the house, and over garden walls and palings, hiding and running, till he got to the front gate, and leaped upon mare Swallow.

And none saw him, save one unlucky groom-boy, who stood yelling and cursing in front of the mare’s head, and went to seize the bridle.

Whereon, between the imminent danger and the bad language, Hereward’s blood rose, and he smote that unlucky groom-boy; but whether he slew him or not, the chronicler had rather not say.

Then he shook up mare Swallow, and rode for his life, with knights and squires (for the hue and cry was raised) galloping at her heels.

Who then were astonished but those knights, as they saw the ugly potter’s garron gaining on them length after length, till she and her rider had left them far behind?

Who then was proud but Hereward, as the mare tucked her great thighs under her, and swept on over heath and rabbit burrow, over rush and fen, sound ground and rotten all alike to that enormous stride, to that keen bright eye which foresaw every footfall, to that raking shoulder which picked her up again at every stagger?

Hereward laid the bridle on her neck, and let her go. Fall she could not, and tire she could not; and he half wished she might go on forever. Where could a man be better than on a good horse, with all the cares of this life blown away out of his brains by the keen air which rushed around his temples? And he galloped on, as cheery as a boy, shouting at the rabbits as they scuttled from under his feet, and laughing at the dottrel as they postured and anticked on the mole-hills.

But think he must, at last, of how to get home. For to go through Mildenhall again would not be safe, and he turned over the moors to Icklingham; and where he went after, no man can tell.

Certainly not the chronicler; for he tells how Hereward got back by the Isle of Somersham. Which is all but impossible, for Somersham is in Huntingdonshire, many a mile on the opposite side of Ely Isle.

And of all those knights that followed him, none ever saw or heard sign of him save one; and his horse came to a standstill in “the aforesaid wood,” which the chronicler says was Somersham; and he rolled off his horse, and lay breathless under a tree, looking up at his horse’s heaving flanks and wagging tail, and wondering how he should get out of that place before the English found him and made an end of him.

Then there came up to him a ragged churl, and asked him who he was, and offered to help him.

“For the sake of God and courtesy,” quoth he,—his Norman pride being wellnigh beat out of him,—“if thou hast seen or heard anything of Hereward, good fellow, tell me, and I will repay thee well.”

“As thou hast asked me for the sake of God and of courtesy, Sir Knight, I will tell thee. I am Hereward. And in token thereof, thou shalt give me up thy lance and sword, and take instead this sword which I carried off from the king’s court; and promise me, on the faith of a knight, to bear it back to King William; and tell him that Hereward and he have met at last, and that he had best beware of the day when they shall meet again.”

So that knight, not having recovered his wind, was fain to submit, and go home a sadder and a wiser man. And King William laughed a royal laugh, and commanded his knights that they should in no wise harm Hereward, but take him alive, and bring him in, and they should have great rewards.

Which seemed to them more easily said than done.

CHAPTER XXXI. – HOW THEY FOUGHT AGAIN AT ALDRETH

Hereward came back in fear and trembling, after all. He believed in the magic powers of the witch of Brandon; and he asked Torfrida, in his simplicity, whether she was not cunning enough to defeat her spells by counter spells.

Torfrida smiled, and shook her head.

“My knight, I have long since given up such vanities. Let us not fight evil with evil, but rather with good. Better are prayers than charms; for the former are heard in heaven above, and the latter only in the pit below. Let me and all the women of Ely go rather in procession to St. Etheldreda’s well, there above the fort at Aldreth, and pray St. Etheldreda to be with us when the day shall come, and defend her own isle and the honor of us women who have taken refuge in her holy arms.”

So all the women of Ely walked out barefoot to St. Etheldreda’s well, with Torfrida at their head clothed in sackcloth, and with fetters on her wrists and waist and ankles; which she vowed, after the strange, sudden, earnest fashion of those times, never to take off again till she saw the French host flee from Aldreth before the face of St. Etheldreda. So they prayed, while Hereward and his men worked at the forts below. And when they came back, and Torfrida was washing her feet, sore and bleeding from her pilgrimage, Hereward came in.

“You have murdered your poor soft feet, and taken nothing thereby, I fear.”

“I have. If I had walked on sharp razors all the way, I would have done it gladly, to know what I know now. As I prayed I looked out over the fen; and St. Etheldreda put a thought into my heart. But it is so terrible a one, that I fear to tell it to you. And yet it seems our only chance.”

Hereward threw himself at her feet, and prayed her to tell. At last she spoke, as one half afraid of her own words,—

“Will the reeds burn, Hereward?”

Hereward kissed her feet again and again, calling her his prophetess, his savior.

“Burn! yes, like tinder, in this March wind, if the drought only holds. Pray that the drought may hold, Torfrida.”

“There, there, say no more. How hard-hearted war makes even us women! There, help me to take off this rough sackcloth, and dress myself again.”

Meanwhile William had moved his army again to Cambridge, and on to Willingham field, and there he began to throw up those “globos and montanas,” of which Leofric’s paraphraser talks, but of which now no trace remains. Then he began to rebuild his causeway, broader and stronger; and commanded all the fishermen of the Ouse to bring their boats to Cotinglade, and ferry over his materials. “Among whom came Hereward in his boat, with head and beard shaven lest he should be known, and worked diligently among the rest. But the sun did not set that day without mischief; for before Hereward went off, he finished his work by setting the whole on fire, so that it was all burnt, and some of the French killed and drowned.”

And so he went on, with stratagems and ambushes, till “after seven days’ continual fighting, they had hardly done one day’s work; save four ‘globos’ of wood, in which they intended to put their artillery. But on the eighth day they determined to attack the isle, putting in the midst of them that pythoness woman on a high place, where she might be safe freely to exercise her art.”

It was not Hereward alone who had entreated Torfrida to exercise her magic art in their behalf. But she steadily refused, and made good Abbot Thurstan support her refusal by a strict declaration, that he would have no fiends’ games played in Ely, as long as he was abbot alive on land.

Torfrida, meanwhile, grew utterly wild. Her conscience smote her, in spite of her belief that St. Etheldreda had inspired her, at the terrible resource which she had hinted to her husband, and which she knew well he would carry out with terrible success. Pictures of agony and death floated before her eyes, and kept her awake at night. She watched long hours in the church in prayer; she fasted; she disciplined her tender body with sharp pains; she tried, after the fashion of those times, to atone for her sin, if sin it was. At last she had worked herself up into a religious frenzy. She saw St. Etheldreda in the clouds, towering over the isle, menacing the French host with her virgin palm-branch. She uttered wild prophecies of ruin and defeat to the French; and then, when her frenzy collapsed, moaned secretly of ruin and defeat hereafter to themselves. But she would be bold; she would play her part; she would encourage the heroes who looked to her as one inspired, wiser and loftier than themselves.

And so it befell, that when the men marched down to Haddenham that afternoon, Torfrida rode at their head on a white charger, robed from throat to ankle in sackcloth, her fetters clanking on her limbs. But she called on the English to see in her the emblem of England, captive yet, unconquered, and to break her fetters and the worse fetters of every woman in England who was the toy and slave of the brutal invaders; and so fierce a triumph sparkled from her wild hawk-eyes that the Englishmen looked up to her weird beauty as to that of an inspired saint; and when the Normans came on to the assault there stood on a grassy mound behind the English fort a figure clothed in sackcloth, barefooted and bareheaded, with fetters shining on waist, and wrist, and ankle,—her long black locks streaming in the wind, her long white arms stretched crosswise toward heaven, in imitation of Moses of old above the battle with Amalek; invoking St. Etheldreda and all the powers of Heaven, and chanting doom and defiance to the invaders.

And the English looked on her, and cried: “She is a prophetess! We will surely do some great deed this day, or die around her feet like heroes!”

And opposite to her, upon the Norman tower, the old hag of Brandon howled and gibbered with filthy gestures, calling for the thunder-storm which did not come; for all above, the sky was cloudless blue.

And the English saw and felt, though they could not speak it, dumb nation as they were, the contrast between the spirit of cruelty and darkness and the spirit of freedom and light.

So strong was the new bridge, that William trusted himself upon it on horseback, with Ivo Taillebois at his side.

William doubted the powers of the witch, and felt rather ashamed of his new helpmate; but he was confident in his bridge, and in the heavy artillery which he had placed in his four towers.

Ivo Taillebois was utterly confident in his witch, and in the bridge likewise.

William waited for the rising of the tide; and when the tide was near its height, he commanded the artillery to open, and clear the fort opposite of the English. Then with crash and twang, the balistas and catapults went off, and great stones and heavy lances hurtled through the air.

“Back!” shouted Torfrida, raised almost to madness, by fasting, self-torture, and religious frenzy. “Out of yon fort, every man. Why waste your lives under that artillery? Stand still this day, and see how the saints of Heaven shall fight for you.”

So utter was the reverence which she commanded for the moment, that every man drew back, and crowded round her feet outside the fort.

“The cowards are fleeing already. Let your men go, Sir King!” shouted Taillebois.

“On to the assault! Strike for Normandy!” shouted William.

“I fear much,” said he to himself, “that this is some stratagem of that Hereward’s. But conquered they must be.”

The evening breeze curled up the reach. The great pike splashed out from the weedy shores, and sent the white-fish flying in shoals into the low glare of the setting sun; and heeded not, stupid things, the barges packed with mailed men, which swarmed in the reeds on either side the bridge, and began to push out into the river.

The starlings swung in thousands round the reed-ronds, looking to settle in their wonted place: but dare not; and rose and swung round again, telling each other, in their manifold pipings, how all the reed-ronds teemed with mailed men. And all above, the sky was cloudless blue.

And then came a trample, a roll of many feet on the soft spongy peat, a low murmur which rose into wild shouts of “Dex Aie!” as a human tide poured along the causeway, and past the witch of Brandon Heath.

“‘Dex Aie?’” quoth William, with a sneer. “‘Debbles Aie!’ would fit better.”

“If, Sire, the powers above would have helped us, we should have been happy enough to–But if they would not, it is not our fault if we try below,” said Ivo Taillebois.

William laughed. “It is well to have two strings to one’s bow, sir. Forward, men! forward!” shouted he, riding out to the bridge-end, under the tower.

“Forward!” shouted Ivo Taillebois.

“Forward!” shouted the hideous hag overhead. “The spirit of the well fights for you.”

“Fight for yourselves,” said William.

There was twenty yards of deep clear water between Frenchman and Englishman. Only twenty yards. Not only the arrows and arblast quarrels, but heavy hand-javelins, flew across every moment; every now and then a man toppled forward, and plunged into the blue depth among the eels and pike, to find his comrades of the summer before; then the stream was still once more. The coots and water-hens swam in and out of the reeds, and wondered what it was all about. The water-lilies flapped upon the ripple, as lonely as in the loneliest mere. But their floats were soon broken, their white cups stained with human gore. Twenty yards of deep clear water. And treasure inestimable to win by crossing it.

They thrust out baulks, canoes, pontoons; they crawled upon them like ants, and thrust out more yet beyond, heedless of their comrades, who slipped, and splashed, and sank, holding out vain hands to hands too busy to seize them. And always the old witch jabbered overhead, with her cantrips, pointing, mumming, praying for the storm; while all above, the sky was cloudless blue.

And always on the mound opposite, while darts and quarrels whistled round her head, stood Torfrida, pointing with outstretched scornful finger at the stragglers in the river, and chanting loudly, what the Frenchmen could not tell; but it made their hearts, as it was meant to do, melt like wax within them.

“They have a counter witch to yours, Ivo, it seems; and a fairer one. I am afraid the devils, especially if Asmodeus be at hand, are more likely to listen to her than to that old broomstick-rider aloft.”

“Fair is, that fair cause has, Sir King.”

“A good argument for honest men, but none for fiends. What is the fair fiend pointing at so earnestly there?”

“Somewhat among the reeds. Hark to her now! She is singing, somewhat more like an angel than a fiend, I will say for her.”

And Torfrida’s bold song, coming clear and sweet across the water, rose louder and shriller till it almost drowned the jabbering of the witch.

“She sees more there than we do.”

“I see it!” cried William, smiting his hand upon his thigh. “Par le splendeur Dex! She has been showing them where to fire the reeds; and they have done it!”

A puff of smoke; a wisp of flame; and then another and another; and a canoe shot out from the reeds on the French shore, and glided into the reeds of the island.

“The reeds are on fire, men! Have a care,” shouted Ivo.

“Silence, fool! Frighten them once, and they will leap like sheep into that gulf. Men! right about! Draw off,—slowly and in order. We will attack again to-morrow.”

The cool voice of the great captain arose too late. A line of flame was leaping above the reed bed, crackling and howling before the evening breeze. The column on the causeway had seen their danger but too soon, and fled. But whither?

A shower of arrows, quarrels, javelins, fell upon the head of the column as it tried to face about and retreat, confusing it more and more. One arrow, shot by no common aim, went clean through William’s shield, and pinned it to the mailed flesh. He could not stifle a cry of pain.

“You are wounded, Sire. Ride for your life! It is worth that of a thousand of these churls,” and Ivo seized William’s bridle and dragged him, in spite of himself, through the cowering, shrieking, struggling crowd.

On came the flames, leaping and crackling, laughing and shrieking, like a live fiend. The archers and slingers In the boats cowered before it; and fell, scorched corpses, as it swept on. It reached the causeway, surged up, recoiled from the mass of human beings, then sprang over their heads and passed onwards, girding them with flame.

The reeds were burning around them; the timbers of the bridge caught fire; the peat and fagots smouldered beneath their feet. They sprang from the burning footway and plunged into the fathomless bog, covering their faces and eyes with scorched hands, and then sank in the black gurgling slime.

Ivo dragged William on, regardless of curses and prayers from his soldiery; and they reached the shore just in time to see between them and the water a long black smouldering writhing line; the morass to right and left, which had been a minute before deep reed, an open smutty pool, dotted with boatsful of shrieking and cursing men; and at the causeway-end the tower, with the flame climbing up its posts, and the witch of Brandon throwing herself desperately from the top, and falling dead upon the embers, a motionless heap of rags.

“Fool that you are! Fool that I was!” cried the great king, as he rolled off his horse at his tent door, cursing with rage and pain.

Ivo Taillebois sneaked off, sent over to Mildenhall for the second witch, and hanged her, as some small comfort to his soul. Neither did he forget to search the cabin till he found buried in a crock the bits of his own gold chain and various other treasures, for which the wretched old women had bartered their souls. All which he confiscated to his own use, as a much injured man.

The next day William withdrew his army. The men refused to face again that blood-stained pass. The English spells, they said, were stronger than theirs, or than the daring of brave men. Let William take Torfrida and burn her, as she had burned them, with reeds out of Willingham fen; then might they try to storm Ely again.