Hereward, the Last of the English Part 43

"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 at last."

Herluin heard, and knew what he meant.

After which Hereward was silent, filled with many thoughts.

The next morning, before the high ma.s.s, those three brave men walked up to the altar; laid thereon their belts and swords; and then knelt humbly at 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 bare neck the bare blade, and bade him take back his sword in the name of G.o.d and of St. Peter and St. Paul, and use it like a true knight, for a terror and punishment to evil-doers, and a defence for women and orphans, and the poor and the oppressed, and the monks the servants of G.o.d.

And then the monks girded each man with his belt and sword once more. And after ma.s.s was sung, they rose and went forth, each feeling himself--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 had received their sword from G.o.d's knights the monks. And therefore he would have, in after years, almost all his companions knighted by the monks; and brought into Ely with him that same good custom which he had learnt 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 them with a troubled face.

"As I feared, my Lord, you have been too hot and hasty. The French have raised the country against you."

"I have raised it against them, my lord. But we have news that Sir Frederick--"

"And who may he be?"

"A very terrible Goliath of these French; old and crafty, a brother of old Earl Warrenne of Norfolk, whom G.o.d confound. And he has sworn to have your life, and has gathered knights and men-at-arms at Lynn in Norfolk."

"Very good; I will visit him as I go home, Lord Abbot. Not a word of this 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 was sitting in his inn at Lynn, when there came in one with a sword, and said: "I am Hereward. I was told that thou didst desire, greatly, to see me; therefore I am come, being a courteous knight," and therewith smote off 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, and whosoever smote it, their swords melted in their hands. And so, gaining the 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 upon the meres cried nothing, save "Hereward is come home again!"

And so, already surrounded with myth and mystery, Hereward flashed into the fens and out again, like the lightning brand, destroying as he pa.s.sed.

And the hearts of all the French were turned to water; and the land had peace from its tyrants for many days.

CHAPTER XXI.

HOW IVO TAILLEBOIS MARCHED OUT OF SPALDING TOWN.

A proud man was Ivo Taillebois, as he rode next morning out of Spalding town, with hawk on fist, and hound at heel, and a dozen men-at-arms at his back, who would, on due or undue cause shown, hunt men while he hunted game.

An adventurer from Anjou, brutal, ignorant, and profligate,--low-born, too (for his own men whispered, behind his back, that he was no more than his name hinted, a wood-cutter's son), he still had his deserts. Valiant he was, cunning, and skilled in war. He and his troop of Angevine ruttiers had fought like tigers by William's side, at Hastings; and he had been rewarded with many a manor, which had been Earl Algar's, and should now have been Earl Edwin's, or Morcar's, or, it may be, Hereward's own.

"A fat land and fair," said he to himself; "and, after I have hanged a few more of these barbarians, a peaceful fief enough to hand down to the lawful heirs of my body, if I had one. I must marry. Blessed Virgin! this it is to serve and honor your gracious majesty, as I have always done according to my poor humility. Who would have thought that Ivo Taillebois would ever rise so high in life as to be looking out for a wife,--and that a lady, too?"

Then thought he over the peerless beauties of the Lady Lucia, Edwin and Morcar's sister, almost as fair as that hapless aunt of hers,--first married (though that story is now denied) to the wild Griffin, Prince of Snowdon, and then to his conqueror, and (by complicity) murderer, Harold, the hapless king. Eddeva faira, Eddeva pulcra, stands her name in Domesday-book even now, known, even to her Norman conquerors, as the Beauty of her time, as G.o.diva, her mother, had been before her. Scarcely less beautiful was Lucia, as Ivo had seen her at William's court, half captive and half guest: and he longed for her; love her he could not. "I have her father's lands," quoth he; "what more reasonable than to have the daughter, too? And have her I will, unless the Mamzer, in his present merciful and politic mood, makes a Countess of her, and marries her up to some Norman c.o.xcomb with a long pedigree,--invented the year before last.

If he does throw away his daughter on that Earl Edwin, in his fancy for petting and patting these savages into good humor, he is not likely to throw away Edwin's sister on a Taillebois. Well, I must put a spoke in Edwin's wheel. It will not be difficult to make him, or Morcar, or both of them, traitors. We must have a rebellion in these parts. I will talk about it to Gilbert of Ghent. We must make these savages desperate, and William furious, or he will be soon giving them back their lands, beside asking them to Court; and then, how are valiant knights, like us, who have won England for him, to be paid for their trouble? No, no. We must have a rebellion, and a confiscation, and then, when English la.s.ses are going cheap, perhaps the Lady Lucia may fall to my share."

And Ivo Taillebois kept his word; and without difficulty, for he had many to help him. To drive the English to desperation, and get a pretext for seizing their lands, was the game which the Normans played, and but too well.

As he rode out of Spalding town, a man was being hanged on the gallows there permanently provided.

That was so common a sight, that Ivo would not have stopped, had not a priest, who was comforting the criminal, ran forward, and almost thrown himself under the horse's feet.

"Mercy, good my Lord, in the name of G.o.d and all his saints!"

Ivo went to ride on.

"Mercy!" and he laid hands on Ivo's bridle. "If he took a few pike out of your mere, remember that the mere was his, and his father's before him; and do not send a sorely tempted soul out of the world for a paltry pike."

"And where am I to get fish for Lent, Sir Priest, if every rascal nets my waters, because his father did so before him? Take your hand off my bridle, or, par le splendeur Dex" (Ivo thought it fine to use King William's favorite oath), "I will hew it off!"

The priest looked at him, with something of honest English fierceness in his eyes, and dropping the bridle, muttered to himself in Latin: "The bloodthirsty and deceitful man shall not live out half his days.

Nevertheless my trust shall be in Thee, O Lord!"

"What art muttering, beast? Go home to thy wife" (wife was by no means the word which Ivo used) "and make the most of her, before I rout out thee and thy fellow-canons, and put in good monks from Normandy in the place of your drunken English swine. Hang him!" shouted he, as the by-standers fell on their knees before the tyrant, crouching in terror, every woman for her husband, every man for wife and daughter. "And hearken, you fen-frogs all.

Who touches pike or eel, swimming or wading fowl, within these meres of mine, without my leave, I will hang him as I hanged this man,--as I hanged four brothers in a row on Wrokesham bridge but yesterday."

"Go to Wrokesham bridge and see," shouted a shrill cracked voice from behind the crowd.

All looked round; and more than one of Ivo's men set up a yell, the hangman loudest of all.

"That's he, the heron, again! Catch him! Stop him! Shoot him!"

But that was not so easy. As Ivo pushed his horse through the crowd, careless of whom he crushed, he saw a long lean figure flying through the air seven feet aloft, with his heels higher than his head, on the further side of a deep broad ditch; and on the nearer side of the same one of his best men lying stark, with a cloven skull.

"Go to Wrokesham!" shrieked the lean man, as he rose and showed a ridiculously long nose, neck, and legs,--a type still not uncommon in the fens,--a quilted leather coat, a double-bladed axe slung over his shoulder by a thong, a round s.h.i.+eld at his back, and a pole three times as long as himself, which he dragged after him, like an unwieldy tail.

"The heron! the heron!" shouted the English.

"Follow him, men, heron or hawk!" shouted Ivo, galloping his horse up to the ditch, and stopping short at fifteen feet of water.

"Shoot, some one! Where are the bows gone?"

The heron was gone two hundred yards, running, in spite of his pole, at a wonderful pace, before a bow could be brought to bear. He seemed to expect an arrow; for he stopped, glanced his eye round, threw himself flat on his face, with his s.h.i.+eld, not over his body, but over his bare legs; sprang up as the shaft stuck in the ground beside him, ran on, planted his pole in the next dike, and flew over it.