Hereward, the Last of the English Part 89

Alftruda's knights wanted to push on, to see after the Bourne folk; Judith's knights wanted to push on to help the French; and the two parties were ready to fight each other. There was a great tumult. The ladies had much ado to still it.

Alftruda said that it might be but a countryman's rumor; that, at least, it was shame to quarrel with their guests. At last it was agreed that two knights should gallop on into Bourne, and bring back news.

But those knights never came back. So the whole body moved on Bourne, and there they found out the news for themselves.

Hereward had gone home as soon as they had departed, and sat down to eat and drink. His manner was sad and strange. He drank much at the midday meal, and then lay down to sleep, setting guards as usual.

After a while he leapt up with a shriek and a shudder.

They ran to him, asking whether he was ill.

"Ill? No. Yes. Ill at heart. I have had a dream,--an ugly dream. I thought that all the men I ever slew on earth came to me with their wounds all gaping, and cried at me, 'Our luck then, thy luck now.' Chaplain! is there not a verse somewhere,--Uncle Brand said it to me on his deathbed,--'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed'?"

"Surely the master is fey," whispered Gwenoch in fear to the chaplain.

"Answer him out of Scripture."

"Text? None such that I know of," quoth Priest Ailward, a graceless fellow who had taken Leofric's place. "If that were the law, it would be but few honest men that would die in their beds. Let us drink, and drive girls'

fancies out of our heads."

So they drank again; and Hereward fell asleep once more.

"It is thy turn to watch, Priest," said Gwenoch to Ailward. "So keep the door well, for I am worn out with hunting," and so fell asleep.

Ailward shuffled into his harness, and went to the door. The wine was heady; the sun was hot. In a few minutes he was asleep likewise.

Hereward slept, who can tell how long? But at last there was a bustle, a heavy fall; and waking with a start, he sprang up. He saw Ailward lying dead across the gate, and above him a crowd of fierce faces, some of which he knew too well. He saw Ivo Taillebois; he saw Oger; he saw his fellow-Breton, Sir Raoul de Dol; he saw Sir Ascelin; he saw Sir Aswa, Thorold's man; he saw Sir Hugh of Evermue, his own son-in-law; and with them he saw, or seemed to see, the Ogre of Cornwall, and O'Brodar of Ivark, and Dirk Hammerhand of Walcheren, and many another old foe long underground; and in his ear rang the text,--"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." And Hereward knew that his end was come.

There was no time to put on mail or helmet. He saw the old sword and s.h.i.+eld hang on a perch, and tore them down. As he girded the sword on Winter sprang to his side.

"I have three lances,--two for me and one for you, and we can hold the door against twenty."

"Till they fire the house over our heads. Shall Hereward die like a wolf in a cave? Forward, all Hereward's men!"

And he rushed out upon his fate. No man followed him, save Winter. The rest, disperst, unarmed, were running hither and thither helplessly.

"Brothers in arms, and brothers in Valhalla!" shouted Winter as he rushed after him.

A knight was running to and fro in the Court, shouting Hereward's name.

"Where is the villain? Wake! We have caught thee asleep at last."

"I am out," quoth Hereward, as the man almost stumbled against him; "and this is in."

And through s.h.i.+eld, hauberk, and body, as says Gaima, went Hereward's javelin, while all drew back, confounded for the moment at that mighty stroke.

"Felons!" shouted Hereward, "your king has given me his truce; and do you dare break my house, and kill my folk? Is that your Norman law? And is this your Norman honor?--To take a man unawares over his meat? Come on, traitors all, and get what you can of a naked man; [Footnote: i. e.

without armor.] you will buy it dear--Guard my back, Winter!"

And he ran right at the press of knights; and the fight began.

"He gored them like a wood-wild boar, As long as that lance might endure,"

says Gaimar.

"And when that lance did break in hand, Full fell enough he smote with brand."

And as he hewed on silently, with grinding teeth and hard, glittering eyes, of whom did he think? Of Alftruda?

Not so. But of that pale ghost, with great black hollow eyes, who sat in Crowland, with thin bare feet, and sackcloth on her tender limbs, watching, praying, longing, loving, uncomplaining. That ghost had been for many a month the background of all his thoughts and dreams. It was so clear before his mind's eye now, that, unawares to himself, he shouted "Torfrida!" as he struck, and struck the harder at the sound of his old battle-cry.

And now he is all wounded and be-bled; and Winter, who has fought back to back with him, has fallen on his face; and Hereward stands alone, turning from side to side, as he sweeps his sword right and left till the forest rings with the blows, but staggering as he turns. Within a ring of eleven corpses he stands. Who will go in and make the twelfth?

A knight rushes in, to fall headlong down, cloven through the helm: but Hereward's blade snaps short, and he hurls it away as his foes rush in with a shout of joy. He tears his s.h.i.+eld from his left arm, and with it, says Gaimar, brains two more.

But the end is come. Taillebois and Evermue are behind him now; four lances are through his back, and bear him down to his knees.

"Cut off his head, Breton!" shouted Ivo. Raoul de Dol rushed forward, sword in hand. At that cry Hereward lifted up his dying head. One stroke more ere it was all done forever.

And with a shout of "Torfrida!" which made the Bruneswald ring, he hurled the s.h.i.+eld full in the Breton's face, and fell forward dead.

The knights drew their lances from that terrible corpse slowly and with caution, as men who have felled a bear, yet dare not step within reach of the seemingly lifeless paw.

"The dog died hard," said Ivo. "Lucky for us that Sir Ascelin had news of his knights being gone to Crowland. If he had had them to back him, we had not done this deed to-day."

"I will make sure," said Ascelin, as he struck off the once fair and golden head.

"Ho, Breton," cried Ivo, "the villain is dead. Get up, man, and see for yourself. What ails him?"

But when they lifted up Raoul de Dol his brains were running down his face; and all men stood astonished at that last mighty stroke.

"That blow," said Ascelin, "will be sung hereafter by minstrel and maiden as the last blow of the last Englishman. Knights, we have slain a better knight than ourselves. If there had been three more such men in this realm, they would have driven us and King William back again into the sea."

So said Ascelin; those words of his, too, were sung by many a jongleur, Norman as well as English, in the times that were to come.

"Likely enough," said Ivo; "but that is the more reason why we should set that head of his up over the hall-door, as a warning to these English churls that their last man is dead, and their last stake thrown and lost."

So perished "the last of the English."

It was the third day. The Normans were drinking in the hall of Bourne, casting lots among themselves who should espouse the fair Alftruda, who sat weeping within over the headless corpse; when in the afternoon a servant came in, and told them how a barge full of monks had come to the sh.o.r.e, and that they seemed to be monks from Crowland. Ivo Taillebois bade drive them back again into the barge with whips. But Hugh of Evermue spoke up.

"I am lord and master in Bourne this day, and if Ivo have a quarrel against St. Guthlac, I have none. This Ingulf of Fontenelle, the new abbot who has come thither since old Ulfketyl was sent to prison, is a loyal man, and a friend of King William's, and my friend he shall be till he behaves himself as my foe. Let them come up in peace."

Taillebois growled and cursed: but the monks came up, and into the hall; and at their head Ingulf himself, to receive whom all men rose, save Taillebois.

"I come," said Ingulf, in most courtly French, "n.o.ble knights, to ask a boon and in the name of the Most Merciful, on behalf of a n.o.ble and unhappy lady. Let it be enough to have avenged yourself on the living.

Gentlemen and Christians war not against the dead."

"No, no, Master Abbot!" shouted Taillebois; "Waltheof is enough to keep Crowland in miracles for the present. You shall not make a martyr of another Saxon churl. He wants the barbarian's body, knights, and you will be fools if you let him have it."

"Churl? barbarian?" said a haughty voice; and a nun stepped forward who had stood just behind Ingulf. She was clothed entirely in black. Her bare feet were bleeding from the stones; her hand, as she lifted it, was as thin as a skeleton's.