Hereward, the Last of the English Part 60

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

"Sparrows! It is not sparrows that I have been fattening on this last month. I tell you, Sire, I have seen wild-fowl alone in that island enough to feed them all the year round. I was there in the moulting-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 one single mere. There is a wood there, with herons sprawling about the tree-tops,--I did not think there were so many in the world,--and fish for Lent and Fridays in every puddle and leat, pike and perch, tench and eels, on every old-wife's table; while the knights think scorn of anything worse than smelts and burbot."

"Splendeur Dex!" quoth William, who, Norman-like, did not dislike a good dinner. "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 in these realms, and I believe it; but, besides that, there is a deer-park there with a thousand head in it, red and fallow; and plenty of swine in woods, and sheep, and cattle; and if they fail, there are plenty more to be 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. There are 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 and meres."

"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, and their leaping-poles, wherewith they fly over dikes of thirty feet in width,--they can ambuscade in those reed-beds and alder-beds, kill whom they will, and then flee away through the marsh like so many horse-flies.

And if not, one trick have they left, which they never try save 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 monks are as stout rebels as the earls?"

"I only say what I saw. At the hall-table there dined each day maybe some fifty belted knights, with every one a monk next to him; and at the high table the abbot, and the three earls, and Hereward and his lady, and Thurkill Barn. And behind each knight, and each monk likewise, hung against the wall lance and s.h.i.+eld, helmet and hauberk, sword and axe."

"To monk as well as knight?"

"As I am a knight myself; and were as well used, too, for 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 as they."

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

"They would not mind," quoth Dade. "They are born and bred in the bottomless pit already. They would jump over, or flounder out, as they do 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, or how, the English were not likely to tell me. All I know is, that I saw fresh cattle come every few days, and fresh farms burnt, too, on the Norfolk side. There were farms burning last night only, between here and Cambridge. 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. "I was on the Rech-dike last night, close down to the fen,--worse luck and shame for me."

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

"There came seven men in a boat up from Ely yestereven, and five of them were monks; they came up from Burwell fen, and plundered and burnt Burwell 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 a stand, 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 fighting single-handed with an Englishman, while the other six stood around, and looked on."

"Then they fought fairly?" said William.

"As fairly, to do them justice, as if they had been Frenchmen, and not English churls. As we came down along the dike, a little man of them steps between the two, and strikes down their swords as if they had been two 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 and his 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 a javelin, and caught another."

"Knightly done!" and William swore an awful oath, "and worthy of valiant Frenchmen. These English set you the example of chivalry by letting your comrade fight his own battle fairly, instead of setting on him all together; and you repay them by hunting them down with darts, because you 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, Splendeur Dex! I will send him back safe and sound in return for Dade, to tell the knights of Ely that if they know so well the courtesies of war, William of 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 mire in the dark, after the fas.h.i.+on 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 was Hereward 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,"--the Normans could never say Lincoln.