Hereward, the Last of the English Part 79

"I am doing penance for my sins."

"And your feet all cut and bleeding."

"Are they?" said Torfrida, vacantly. "I will tell you all about it when I wake."

And she fell fast asleep, with her head in G.o.diva's lap.

The countess did not speak or stir. She beckoned the good prioress, who had followed Torfrida in, to go away. She saw that something dreadful had happened; and prayed as she awaited the news.

Torfrida slept for a full hour. Then she woke with a start.

"Where am I? Hereward!"

Then followed a dreadful shriek, which made every nun in that quiet house shudder, and thank G.o.d that she knew nothing of those agonies of soul, which were the lot of the foolish virgins who married and were given in marriage themselves, instead of waiting with oil in their lamps for the true Bridegroom.

"I recollect all now," said Torfrida. "Listen!" And she told the countess all, with speech so calm and clear, that G.o.diva was awed by the power and spirit of that marvellous woman.

But she groaned in bitterness of soul. "Anything but this. Rather death from him than treachery. This last, worst woe had G.o.d kept in his quiver for me most miserable of women. And now his bolt has fallen! Hereward!

Hereward! That thy mother should wish her last child laid in his grave!"

"Not so," said Torfrida, "it is well as it is. How better? It is his only chance for comfort, for honor, for life itself. He would have grown a--I was growing bad and foul myself in that ugly wilderness. Now he will be a knight once more among knights, and win himself fresh honor in fresh fields. Let him marry her. Why not? He can get a dispensation from the Pope, and then there will be no sin in it, you know. If the Holy Father cannot make wrong right, who can? Yes. It is very well as it is. And I am very well where I am. Women! bring me scissors, and one of your nun's dresses. I am come to be a nun like you."

G.o.diva would have stopped her. But Torfrida rose upon her knees, and calmly made a solemn vow, which, though canonically void without her husband's consent, would, she well knew, never be disputed by any there; and as for him,--"He has lost me; and forever. Torfrida never gives herself away twice."

"There's carnal pride in those words, my poor child," said G.o.diva.

"Cruel!" said she, proudly. "When I am sacrificing myself utterly for him."

"And thy poor girl?"

"He will let her come hither," said Torfrida with forced calm. "He will see that it is not fit that she should grow up with--yes, he will send her to me--to us. And I shall live for her--and for you. If you will let me be your bower woman, dress you, serve you, read to you. You know that I am a pretty scholar. You will let me, mother? I may call you mother, may I not?" And Torfrida fondled the old woman's thin hands, "For I do want so much something to love."

"Love thy heavenly bridegroom, the only love worthy of woman!" said G.o.diva, as her tears fell fast on Torfrida's head.

She gave a half-impatient toss.

"That may come, in good time. As yet it is enough to do, if I can keep down this devil here in my throat. Women, bring me the scissors."

And Torfrida cut off her raven locks, now streaked with gray, and put on the nun's dress, and became a nun thenceforth.

On the second day there came to Crowland Leofric the priest, and with him the poor child.

She had woke in the morning and found no mother. Leofric and the other men searched the woods round, far and wide. The girl mounted her horse, and would go with them. Then they took a bloodhound, and he led them to Grimkel's hut. There they heard of Martin. The ghost must have been Torfrida. Then the hound brought them to the river. And they divined at once that she was gone to Crowland, to G.o.diva; but why, they could not guess.

Then the girl insisted, prayed, at last commanded them to take her to Crowland. And to Crowland they came.

Leofric left the girl at the nun's house door, and went into the monastery, where he had friends enow, runaway and renegade as he was. As he came into the great court, whom should he meet but Martin Lightfoot, in a lay brother's frock.

"Aha? And are you come home likewise? Have you renounced the Devil and this last work of his?"

"What work? What devil?" asked Leofric, who saw method in Martin's madness. "And what do you here, in a long frock?"

"Devil? Hereward the devil. I would have killed him with my axe; but she got it from me, and threw it in among the holy sisters, and I had work to get it again. Shame on her, to spoil my chance of heaven! For I should have surely won heaven, you know, if I had killed the devil."

After much beating, about, Leofric got from Martin the whole tragedy.

And when he heard it, he burst out weeping.

"O Hereward, Hereward! O knightly honor! O faith and troth and grat.i.tude, and love in return for such love as might have tamed lions, and made tyrants mild! Are they all carnal vanities, works of the weak flesh, bruised reeds which break when they are leaned upon? If so, you are right, Martin, and there is naught left, but to flee from a world in which all men are liars."

And Leofric, in the midst of Crowland Yard, tore off his belt and trusty sword, his hauberk and helm also, and letting down his monk's frock, which he wore trussed to the mid-knee, he went to the Abbot's lodgings, and asked to see old Ulfketyl.

"Bring him up," said the good abbot, "for he is a valiant man and true, in spite of all his vanities; and may be he brings news of Hereward, whom G.o.d forgive."

And when Leofric came in, he fell upon his knees, bewailing and confessing his sinful life; and begged the abbot to take him back again into Crowland minster, and lay upon him what penance he thought fit, and put him in the lowest office, because he was a man of blood; if only he might stay there, and have a sight at times of his dear Lady Torfrida, without whom he should surely die.

So Leofric was received back, in full chapter, by abbot and prior and all the monks. But when he asked them to lay a penance upon him, Ulfketyl arose from his high chair and spoke.

"Shall we, who have sat here at ease, lay a penance on this man, who has shed his blood in fifty valiant fights for us, and for St. Guthlac, and for this English land? Look at yon scars upon his head and arms. He has had sharper discipline from cold steel than we could give him here with rod; and has fasted in the wilderness more sorely, many a time, than we have fasted here."

And all the monks agreed, that no penance should be laid on Leofric. Only that he should abstain from singing vain and carnal ballads, which turned the heads of the young brothers, and made them dream of naught but battles, and giants, and enchanters, and ladies' love.

Hereward came back on the third day, and found his wife and daughter gone.

His guilty conscience told him in the first instant why. For he went into the chamber, and there, upon the floor, lay the letter which he had looked for in vain.

No one had touched it where it lay. Perhaps no one had dared to enter the chamber. If they had, they would not have dared to meddle with writing, which they could not read, and which might contain some magic spell.

Letters were very safe in those old days.

There are moods of man which no one will dare to describe, unless, like Shakespeare, he is Shakespeare, and like Shakespeare knows it not.

Therefore what Hereward thought and felt will not be told. What he did was this. He raged and bl.u.s.tered. He must hide his shame. He must justify himself to his knights; and much more to himself; or if not justify himself, must s.h.i.+ft some of the blame over to the opposite side. So he raged and bl.u.s.tered. He had been robbed of his wife and daughter. They had been cajoled away by the monks of Crowland. What villains were those, to rob an honest man of his family while he was fighting for his country?

So he rode down to the river, and there took two great barges, and rowed away to Crowland, with forty men-at-arms.

And all the while he thought of Alftruda, as he hai seen her at Peterborough.

And of no one else?

Not so. For all the while he felt that he loved Torfrida's little finger better than Alftruda's whole body, and soul into the bargain.

What a long way it was to Crowland. How wearying were the hours through mere and sea. How wearying the monotonous pulse of the oars. If tobacco had been known then, Hereward would have smoked all the way, and been none the wiser, though the happier, for it; for the herb that drives away the evil spirits of anxiety, drives away also the good, though stern, spirits of remorse.

But in those days a man could only escape facts by drinking; and Hereward was too much afraid of what he should meet in Crowland, to go thither drunk.

Sometimes he hoped that Torfrida might hold her purpose, and set him free to follow his wicked will. All the lower nature in him, so long crushed under, leapt up chuckling and grinning and tumbling head over heels, and cried,--Now I shall have a holiday!

Sometimes he hoped that Torfrida might come out to the sh.o.r.e, and settle the matter in one moment, by a glance of her great hawk's eyes. If she would but quell him by one look; leap on board, seize the helm, and a.s.sume without a word the command of his men and him; steer them back to Bourne, and sit down beside him with a kiss, as if nothing had happened. If she would but do that, and ignore the past, would he not ignore it? Would he not forget Alftruda, and King William, and all the world, and go up with her into Sherwood, and then north to Scotland and Gospatrick, and be a man once more?

No. He would go with her to the Baltic or the Mediterranean.