LORD HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN.
In no time had there been at the house of Ely so great and glorious a
festival of the Nativity as that holden in the year of Grace one
thousand and seventy, the day after the return of the Saxon commander
Hereward, Lord of Brunn. Learned brothers of the house have written
upon it, and even to this day the monks of Ely talk about it. On the
day next after the feast, several hours before sunrise, the mariners in
the unloaded bark were getting all ready to drop down the Ouse to the
good town of Lynn, and Lord Hereward was communing with the Abbat
Thurstan, the Abbat of Crowland, and the Prior of Spalding, in my Lord
Abbat’s bedchamber. The rest of the prelates and lay lords were
sleeping soundly in their several apartments, having taken their leave
of Hereward in a full carouse the night before. Many things had been
settled touching correspondence or communication, and a general
co-operation and union of all the Saxons in the Camp of Refuge and all
that dwelt in the fen country, whether in the isle of Ely, or in the
isle of Thorney, or in Lindsey, or in Holland, or in other parts. Fresh
assurances were given that the chiefs and fighting men would all
acknowledge Hereward as their supreme commander, undertaking nothing
but at his bidding, and looking to none but him for their orders and
instructions. Abbat Thurstan agreed to keep the score of men that had
been brought up to Ely in the bark, but he demurred about receiving and
entertaining, as the commander of these men, the dark stranger with the
hooked nose and sharp eye. Hereward said that the stranger was a man
remarkably skilled in the science of war, and in the art of defending
places. Thurstan asked whether he were sure that he was not a spy of
the Normans, or one that would sell himself to the Normans for gold?
Then the Lord of Brunn told what he knew, or that which he had been
told, concerning the dark stranger. He was from Italie, from a region
not very far removed from Rome and the patrimony of Saint Peter; from
the name of his town he was hight[118] Girolamo of Salerno. His country
has been all invaded, and devastated, and conquered by Norman tribes,
from the same evil hive which had sent these depredators into merry
England to make it a land of woe. Robert Guiscard, one of twelve
brothers that were all conquerors and spoilers, had driven Girolamo
from his home and had seized upon his houses and lands, and had abused
the tombs of his ancestors, even as the followers of William the
Bastard were now doing foul things with the graves of our forefathers.
After enduring wounds, and bonds, and chains, Girolamo of Salerno had
fled from his native land for ever, leaving all that was his in the
hands of the Normans, and had gone over into Sicilie to seek a new home
and settlement among strangers. But the Normans, who thought they had
never robbed enough so long as there were more countries before them
which they could rob and conquer, crossed the sea into Sicilie[119]
under Roger Guiscard, the brother of Robert, and made prey of all that
fair island seven years before the son of the harlot of Falaise crossed
the Channel and came into England. Now Girolamo of Salerno had vowed
upon the relics of all the saints that were in the mother-church of
Salerno, that he would never live under the Norman tyranny; and sundry
of the Norman chiefs that went over with Roger Guiscard to Palermo had
vowed upon the crosses of their swords that they would hang him as a
dangerous man if they could but catch him. So Girolamo shook the dust
of Sicilie and Mongibel[120] from his feet, and, crossing the seas
again, went into Grecia. But go where he would, those incarnate devils
the Normans would be after him! He had not long lived in Grecia ere
Robert Guiscard came over from Otrantum and Brundisium, to spoil the
land and occupy it; therefore Girolamo fled again, cursing the Norman
lance. He had wandered long and far in the countries of the Orient: he
had visited the land of Egypt, he had been in Palestine, in Jerusalem,
in Bethlehem; he had stood and prayed on the spot where our Lord was
born, and on the spot where He was crucified; but, wearying of his
sojourn among Saracens, he had come back to the Christian west to see
if he could find some home where the hated Normans could not penetrate,
or where dwelt some brave Christian people that were hopeful of
fighting against those oppressors. He was roaming over the earth in
quest of enemies to the Normans when Hereward met him, two years ago,
in Flanders, and took his hand in his as a sworn foe to all men of that
race. Was, then, Girolamo of Salerno a likely man to be a spy or fautor
to the Normans in England? Thurstan acknowledged that he was not.
“But,” said he, “some men are so prone to suspicion that they suspect
everybody and everything that is near to them; and some men, nay, even
some monks and brothers of this very house, are so envious of my state
and such foes to my peace of mind, that whenever they see me more happy
and fuller of hope than common, they vamp me up some story or conjure
some spectrum to disquiet me and sadden me! Now, what said our prior
and cellarer no later than last night? They said, in the hearing of
many of this house, inexpert novices as well as cloister-monks, that
the dark stranger must be either an unbelieving Jew or a necromancer;
that when, at grand mass, the host was elevated in the church, he shot
glances of fire at it from his sharp eyes; and that when the service
was over they found him standing behind the high altar muttering what
sounded very like an incantation, in a tongue very like unto the Latin.”
Hereward smiled and said, “Assuredly he was but saying a prayer in his
own tongue. My Lord Abbat, this Girolamo of Salerno, hath lived
constantly with me for the term of two years, and I will warrant him as
true a believer as any man in broad England. He is a man of many
sorrows, and no doubt of many sins; but as for his faith!—why he is a
living and walking history of all the saints and martyrs of the church,
and of every miraculous image of Our Ladie that was ever found upon
earth. His troubles and his crosses, and his being unable to speak our
tongue, or to comprehend what is said around him, may make him look
moody and wild, and very strange: and I am told that in the country of
his birth most men have coal-black hair and dark flashing eyes; but
that in Salerno there be no Israelites allowed, and no necromancers or
warlocks or witches whatsoever; albeit, the walnut-tree of Beneventum,
where the witches are said to hold their sabbat, be not very many
leagues distant. In truth, my good Lord Abbat, it was but to serve you
and to serve your friends and retainers, that I proposed he should stay
for a season where he is; for I have seen such good proofs of his skill
in the stratagems of war, and have been promised by him so much aid and
assistance in the enterprises I am going to commence, that I would fain
have him with me. I only thought that if he stayed a while here in
quiet, he might learn to speak our tongue; and that if during my
absence the Normans should make any attempt from the side of Cam-Bridge
upon this blessed shrine of Saint Etheldreda, he might, by his
surpassing skill and knowledge of arms, be of use to your lordship and
the good brothers.”
“These are good motives,” said Thurstan, “and do honour to thee, my
son. It is not in my wont to bid any stranger away from the house....
But—but this stranger doth look so very strange and wild, that I would
rather he were away. Even our sub-sacrist, who hath not the same nature
as the prior and cellarer, saith that all our flaxen-headed novices in
the convent are afraid of that thin dark man, and that they say
whenever the stranger’s large black eye catches theirs they cannot
withdraw their eyes until he turns away from them. I think, my Lord
Hereward, the stranger may learn our tongue in thy camp. I believe that
the Normans will not try on this side now that the waters are all out,
and our rivers and ditches so deep; and if they do we can give a good
account of them—and I really do think that thou wilt more need than we
this knowing man’s services:—what say ye, my brother of Crowland?”
The Abbat of Crowland was wholly of the opinion of the Abbat of Ely,
and so likewise was the Prior of Spalding. It was therefore agreed that
Girolamo of Salerno should accompany the young Lord of Brunn.
“But” said Hereward, “in proposing to leave you this strange man from
Italie, I thought of taking from you, for yet another while, that Saxon
wight Elfric, seeing that he knoweth all this fen country better than
any man in my train; and that, while I am going round by the river and
the Wash, I would fain despatch, by way of the fens, a skilled and
trustful messenger in the direction of Ey....”
“To salute the Ladie Alftrude, and to tell her that thou art come,”
said the Abbat of Crowland.
“Even so,” quoth Hereward; “and to tell her moreover to look well to
her manor-house, and to let her people know that I am come, and that
they ought to come and join me at the proper time.”
“It is clear,” said the Prior of Spalding, “that none can do this
mission an it be not Elfric, who knoweth the goings and comings about
the house at Ey....”
“Aye, and the maid-servant that dwelleth within the gates,” quoth the
Abbat of Crowland.
The Prior of Spalding laughed, and eke my Lord Abbat of Ely; and when
he had done his laugh, Thurstan said “This is well said, and well
minded; and as we seem to be all agreed that, upon various
considerations, it would be better to unfrock the young man at once,
let us call up Elfric, and release him from his slight obligations, and
give him to Lord Hereward to do with him what he list. What say ye my
brothers?”
The two dignified monks said “yea;” and Elfric being summoned was told
that henceforth he was Lord Hereward’s man, and that he might doff his
cucullis,[121] and let his brown locks grow on his tonsure as fast as
they could grow.
The monk that sleeps in his horse-hair camise,[122] and that has
nothing to put on when he rises but his hose and his cloak, is not long
a-dressing; yet in less time than ever monk attired himself, Elfric put
on the soldier garb that he had worn while abroad. And then, having
received from Hereward a signet-ring and other tokens, and a long
message for the Ladie Alftrude, together with instructions how he was
to proceed after he had seen her; and having bidden a dutiful farewell
and given his thanks to the Prior of Spalding and to the two abbats,
and having gotten the blessing of all three, Elfric girded a good sword
to his loins, took his fen-staff in his hand, and went down to the
water-gate to get a light skerry, for the country was now like one
great lake, and the journey to Ey must be mostly made by boat.
It was now nigh upon day-dawn. The Lord Abbat and a few others
accompanied the Lord of Brunn to the pier, and saw him on board: then
the mariners let go their last mooring, and the bark began to glide
down the river.
Before the light of this winter day ended, Hereward was well up the
Welland, and the whole of his flotilla was anchored in that river not
far from Spalding, behind a thick wood of willows and alders, which
sufficed even in the leafless season to screen the barks from the view
of the Norman monks in the succursal cell.
As soon as it was dark, Hereward the liberator took one score and ten
armed men into the lightest of the barks, and silently and cautiously
ascended the river until he came close to the walls of the convent. The
caution was scarcely needed, for the Normans, albeit they were ever
reproaching the Saxons with gluttony and drunkenness, were feasting and
drinking at an immoderate rate, and had taken no care to set a watch.
Brightly the light of a great wood fire and of many torches shone
through the windows of the hall as Hereward landed with his brave men
and surrounded the house, while the mariners were taken good care of
the ferry-boat.
“If these men were in their own house,” said Hereward, “it is not I
that would disturb their mirth on such a night; but as they are in the
house of other men, we must even pull them forth by the ears. So! where
be the ladders?”
A strong ladder brought from the bark was laid across the moat, and ten
armed men passed one by one over this ladder to the opposite side of
the moat. The well-armed men were led by the brother of Wybert the
wright, and by another of the men who had fled from Spalding town on
that wicked night when Ivo Taille-Bois broke into the house. Now these
two men of Spalding well knew the strong parts and the weak parts of
the cell—as well they might, for they had ofttimes helped to repair
the woodwork and the roof of the building. Having drawn the strong
ladder after them to the narrow ledge of masonry on which they had
landed, they raised it against the wall, and while some steadied it,
first one armed man and then another climbed up by the ladder to the
top of the stone and brick part of the walls. Then the brother of
Wybert climbing still higher, by clutching the beams and the rough
timber got to the house-top, and presently told those below in a
whisper that all was right, that the door at the head of the spiral
staircase was unfastened and wide open.
In a very short time ten armed men and the two hinds from Spalding town
were safe on the roof; and the brother of Wybert said, “Now Saxons!”
and as he heard the signal, Lord Hereward said, “Now Saxons, your
horns!” And three stout Saxons, well skilled in the art of
noise-making, put each his horn to his mouth and sounded a challenge,
as loud as they could blow. Startled and wrathful, but not much
alarmed, was the intrusive prior from Angers when he heard this noise,
and bade his Angevin sacrist go to the window, and see what the Saxon
slaves wanted at this time of night with their rascaille cow-horns! But
when the sacrist reported that he saw a great bark lying in the river,
and many armed men standing at the edge of the moat (in the darkness
the sacrist took sundry stumps of willow-trees for warriors), the man
of Angers became alarmed, and all Ivo Taille-Bois’ kindred became
alarmed, and quitting the blazing fire and their good wine, they all
ran to the windows of the hall to see what was toward. As they were a
ruleless, lawless, unconsecrated rabble, who knew not what was meant by
monastic discipline, and respect, and obedience, they all talked and
shouted together, and shouted and talked so loud and so fast that it
was impossible for any Christian man to be heard in answer to them. But
at length the pseudo-prior silenced the gabble for a minute, and said,
“Saxons, who are you, and what do you want at this hour, disturbing the
repose of holy men at a holy season?”
Even this was said in Norman-French, which no man understood or could
speak, except Hereward and the dark stranger who had attended him
hither. But the Lord of Brunn gave out in good round French, “We are
Saxons true, and true men to King Harold, and we be come to pull you
out of this good nest which ye have defiled too long!”
“Get ye gone, traitors and slaves!” cried the false prior from Angers;
“ye cannot cross our moat nor force our gates, and fifty Norman lances
are lying hard by.”
“False monk, we will see,” quoth the Lord of Brunn. “Now, Saxons, your
blast-horns again; blow ye our second signal!”
The hornmen blew might and main; and before their last blast had ceased
echoing from an angle of the walls, another horn was heard blowing
inside the house, and then was heard a rushing and stamping of heavy
feet, and a clanging of swords in the hall, and a voice roaring, “Let
me cleave the skull of two of these shavelings for the sake of Wybert
the wright!”
“Thou art cold and shivering, Girolamo,” said Hereward; “but step out
of that quagmire where thou art standing, and follow me. We will
presently warm ourselves at the fireside of these Frenchmen.” Girolamo
followed the Lord of Brunn to the front of the house; and they were
scarcely there ere the drawbridge was down, and the gate thrown open.
“Well done, Ralph of Spalding,” said Hereward, who rushed into the
house followed by the score of armed men. But those who had descended
from above by the spiral staircase had left nothing to be done by those
who ascended from below. The false prior and all his false fraternity
had been seized, and had been bound with their own girdles, and had all
been thrown in a corner, where they all lay sprawling the one on the
top of the other, and screaming and begging for Misericorde. The
brother of Wybert the wright had given a bloody coxcomb to the prior,
and one of Hereward’s soldiers had slit the nose of a French monk that
had aimed at him with a pike; but otherwise little blood had been shed,
and no great harm done, save that all the stoups of wine and all the
wine-cups had been upset in the scuffle. The brother of Wybert begged
as a favour that he might be allowed to cut the throats of two of the
false monks; but the Lord of Brunn, so fierce in battle, was aye
merciful in the hour of victory, and never would allow the slaying of
prisoners, and so he told the good man of Spalding town that the monks
must not be slain; but that, before he had done with them, they should
be made to pay the price of his brother’s blood; nay, three times the
price that the Saxon laws put upon the life of a man of Wybert’s degree.
“I would give up that bot for a little of their blood!” said Wybert’s
brother. But, nevertheless, he was obliged to rest satisfied; for who
should dare gainsay the young Lord of Brunn?
Girolamo of Salerno, who understood nought of the debate between
Hereward and the brother of Wybert, thought that the intrusive monks
ought to be put into sacks and thrown into the river, inasmuch as that
the Normans, when they conquered Salerno, threw a score of good monks
of that town and vicinity into the sea; but when he delivered this
thought unto the Lord Hereward, that bold-hearted and kind-hearted
Saxon said that it was not the right way to correct cruelties by
committing cruelties, and that it was not in the true English nature to
be prone to revenge. All this while, and a little longer, the false
alien monks, with their hands tied behind them, lay sprawling and
crying Misericorde: howbeit, when they saw and understood that death
was not intended, they plucked up their courage and began to complain
and reprove.
“This is a foul deed,” said one of them, “a very foul deed, to disturb
and break in upon, and smite with the edge of the sword, the servants
of the Lord.”
“Not half so foul a deed,” quoth Hereward, “as that done by Ivo
Taille-Bois, the cousin of ye all, and the man who put ye here, and
thrust out the Saxon brotherhood at the dead of night, slaying their
cook. Ye may or may not have been servants of the Lord in the countries
from which ye came, but here are ye nought but intruders and usurpers,
and the devourers of better men’s goods.”
Here the prior from Angers spoke from the heap in the corner, and said,
“For this night’s work thou wilt be answerable unto the king.”
“That will I,” quoth the Lord of Brunn, “when bold King Harold returns.”
“I will excommunicate thee and thy fautors,” said the intrusive prior.
“Thou hadst better not attempt it,” said Hereward, “for among my merry
men be some that know enough of church Latin to make out the difference
between a Maledicite and a Benedicite; and I might find it difficult to
prevent their cutting your weazens.”[123]
“Yet would I do it by bell, book and candle, if I could get the bell
and candle, and read the book,” said the intrusive prior.
“Thou hadst better not attempt it,” said two or three voices from the
heap; but another voice, which seemed buried under stout bodies and
habits and hoods, said, “There is no danger, for our prior cannot read,
and never had memory enough to say by heart more Latin than lies in a
Credo. Beshrew you, brothers all, bespeak these Saxons gently, so that
they may give us leave to go back into Normandie. If I had bethought me
that I was to play the monk in this fashion, Ivo Taille-Bois should
never have brought me from the plough-tail!”
When the Lord of Brunn and Girolamo of Salerno had done laughing, the
Lord Hereward said, “Let this goodly hall be cleared of this foul
rubbish. Girolamo, see these intruders carried on board the bark and
thrown into the hold. We will send them to my Lord Abbat at Ely, that
they may be kept as hostages. But tell the shipmen not to hurt a hair
of their heads.”
When the alien monks understood that they must go, they clamoured about
their goods and properties. This made Hereward wroth, and he said,
“When ye thrust out the good English monks, ye gave them nought!
Nevertheless I will give ye all that ye brought with ye.”
Here the voice that had spoken before from under the heap said, “We all
know we brought nothing with us—no, not so much as the gear we wear!
Therefore let us claim nothing, but hasten to be gone, and so hope to
get back the sooner into Normandie.”
But the prior and the sacrist and divers others continued to make a
great outcry about their goods, their holy-books, their altar vases,
their beds and their bed-clothes; and as this moved Lord Hereward’s
ire, he said to his merry men that they must turn them out; and the
merry men all did turn them out by pulling them before and kicking them
behind: and in this manner the unlettered and unholy crew that Ivo
Taille-Bois had thrust into the succursal cell of Spalding were lugged
and driven on shipboard, and there they were made fast under the
hatches. As soon as they were all cleared out of the convent, Lord
Hereward bade his Saxons put more fuel on the fire, and bring up more
wine, and likewise see what might be in the buttery. The brother of
Wybert the wright knew the way well both to cellar and buttery; and
finding both well filled, he soon re-appeared with wine and viands
enough. And so Hereward and his men warmed themselves by the blazing
fire, and ate and drank most merrily and abundantly: and when all had
their fill, and all had drunk a deep health to Hereward the liberator,
they went into the monk’s snug cells, and so fast to sleep.
On the morrow morning they rose betimes. So featly had the thing been
done over night, that none knew it but those who had been present. The
good folk that yet remained in Spalding town, though so close at hand,
had heard nothing of the matter. Hereward now summoned them to the
house; but having his reasons for wishing not to be known at this
present, he deputed one of his men to hold a conference with them, and
to tell the few good men of Spalding that the hour of deliverance was
at hand, that their false monks had been driven away, and that Father
Adhelm and their true monks would soon return: whereat the Spalding
folk heartily rejoiced. In the present state of the road, or rather of
the waters, there was no fear of any Norman force approaching the
succursal cell. Therefore Lord Hereward ordered that much of his
munition of war should be landed and deposited in the convent: and
leaving therein all his armed men with Girolamo of Salerno, he embarked
alone in the lightest of his barks, and went up the river as far as the
point that was nearest to Brunn. There, leaving the bark and all the
sailors, and taking with him nought but his sword and his fen-staff,
and covering himself with an old and tattered seaman’s coat, he landed
and struck across the fens, and walked, waded, leaped, and swam, until
he came within sight of his own old manor-house and the little township
of Brunn.[124] It was eventide, and the blue smoke was rising from the
manor-house and from the town, as peacefully as in the most peaceful
days. Hereward stopped and looked upon the tranquil scene, as he had
done so many times before at the same hour in the days of his youth,
when returning homeward from some visit, or from some fowling in the
fens; and as he looked, all that had since passed became as a dream;
and then he whistled and stepped gaily forward, as if his father’s
house was still his own house,[125] and his father there to meet and
bless him. But, alack! his father was six feet under the sod of the
churchyard, and a fierce Norman was in the house, with many
men-at-arms. Awakening from his evening dream, and feeling that the
invasion of England was no dream—the bloody battle of Hastings no
dream—the death of his father no dream—and that it was a sad reality
that he was a dispossessed man, barred out by force and by fraud from
his own, the young Lord of Brunn avoided the direct path to the
manor-house, and struck into a narrow sloppy lane which led into the
township. As he came among the low houses, or huts, the good people
where beginning to bar their doors for the night. “They will open,”
said Hereward, “when they know who is come among them!” He made
straight for the abode of one who had been his foster brother; and he
said as he entered it, “Be there true Saxon folk in the house?”
“Yea,” said the man of the house.
“Then wilt thou not be sorry to see Hereward the Saxon and thy
foster-brother;” and so saying he unmuffled himself and threw off his
dirty ship cloak; and his foster brother fell at his feet, and kissed
his hand, and hugged his knee, and said, “Is it even my young Lord
Hereward?” and so wept for joy.
“It is even I,” said the young Lord of Brunn; “it is even I come back
to get mine own, and to get back for every honest man his own. But
honest men must up and help. Will the honest folk of Brunn strike a
blow for Hereward and for themselves? Will the town-people, and my kith
and kindred and friends in the old days, receive and acknowledge me?”
It was the wife of the foster-brother that was now kneeling and
clasping Hereward’s knee, and that said, “The women of Brunn would
brand every catiff in the township that did not throw up his cap and
rejoice, and take his bill-hook and bow in his hand for the young Lord
of Brunn!”
Every one of the notables was summoned presently; and they all
recognised Hereward as their true lord and leader, vowing at the same
time that they would follow him into battle against the Normans, and do
his bidding whatever it might be. Many were the times that Hereward was
forced to put his finger upon his lip to recommend silence; for they
all wanted to hail his return with hearty Saxon shouts, and he wanted
to avoid rousing the Normans in the manor-house for the present. The
welcome he received left him no room to doubt of the entire affection
and devotion of the town-folk; and the intelligence he gleaned was more
satisfactory than he had anticipated. Raoul, a Norman knight, and, next
to Ivo Taille-Bois, the most powerful and diabolical of all the Normans
in or near to the fen-country, held the manor-house, and levied dues
and fees in the township; but many of those who dwelt in the
neighbourhood, and who had held their lands under the last quiet old
Lord of Brunn, had never submitted to the intruder, nor had Raoul and
his men-at-arms been able to get at them in their islands among the
fens and deep waters. There was John of the Bogs, who had kept his
house and gear untouched, and who could muster a score or twain of
lusty hinds, well armed with pikes and bill-hooks and bows; there was
Ralph of the Dyke, the chamberlain of the last Lord of Brunn, who had
beaten off Raoul and his men-at-arms in a dozen encounters; there were
other men, little less powerful than these two, who would be up and
doing if Lord Hereward would only show himself, or only raise his
little finger. The manor-house was well fortified and garrisoned; but
what of that? For Lord Hereward it should be stormed and taken, though
it should cost a score or twain of lives. Here the young Lord of Brunn
told them that he hoped to get back his house without wasting a single
drop of the blood of any of them, inasmuch as he had practised men of
war not far from hand, together with engines of war proper for sieges.
He bade them spread far and near the news of his return: he begged them
to do this cautiously, and to remain quiet until he should come back
among them; in the meanwhile they might be making such preparations for
war as their means allowed. To-morrow night it would be the full of
moon; and as soon as the good town-folk should see the moon rising over
Elsey Wood[126] they might expect him and his force. And now he must
take a short repast and a little sleep, so as to be able to commence
his return to the Welland river before midnight.
Long before midnight Hereward was on his way; but he travelled with
much more ease than he had done in coming to Brunn, for his
foster-brother and two other trusty men carried him in a boat the
greater part of the way.
Being again at Spalding, the approaches to which had been curiously
strengthened, during his short absence, by Girolamo of Salerno,
Hereward sent off one of the barks for Ely to convey the news of his
first success and the prisoners he had made to the Lord Abbat, and to
bring back the good prior of Spalding to his own cell; he left one bark
moored below Spalding to watch the lower part of the river, and prevent
any but friendly boats from ascending (there was little danger of any
Norman coming this way; but a good commander like the Lord of Brunn
leaves nothing to chance, and neglects no precaution); and with the
three other barks and Girolamo and twenty of his armed men he began to
move up the river on the following morning. Ten men were left to hold
the succursal cell, and protect the township of Spalding; and all such
war-stores as were not immediately required were left in the convent.
The three barks were to be moored near to the point of debarkation, so
as to prevent any communication between Crowland and Spalding, it being
very expedient to keep the intrusive monks at Crowland ignorant of what
had passed and what was passing. True, these unholy Norman friars were
feasting and keeping their Christmas, and were little likely to move
out at such a season, or to take heed of anything that was happening
beyond the walls of their own house: but Hereward, as we have said,
neglected no precaution; and therefore it was that the Lord of Brunn
was ever successful in war. When he and his troops landed at the bend
of the river that was nearest to Brunn, it was made visible to all, and
not without manifest astonishment, that Girolamo of Salerno could do
many wondrous things. Under his direction light and shallow skerries,
and boats made of wicker-work, and lined with skins, had been prepared;
and while these were capable of carrying men and stores across the
deeper streams that lay between the bend of the Welland and the town of
Brunn, they were so light that they could easily be carried on the
men’s shoulders. A catapult and another engine which Hereward had
purchased in Flanders were taken to pieces in order to be carried in
these boats and skerries; the more precious parts of the munition of
war which Girolamo had made with his own hands before embarking for
England were most carefully wrapped up in many cloths and skins, so
that even in that wettest of countries they could not be wetted. There
was one small package, a very small package was it, of which the dark
stranger took especial care, carrying it himself, and telling Hereward
that with its contents he could open the gates of the strongest of
houses.
Notwithstanding the weight of their arms, and of the other burdens they
had to bear from one stream or mere to another, the whole party pushed
steadily forward across the more than half-inundated fens; and although
some of the men, not being native fen-men, were not practised in such
travelling, and although some of them could not swim, they all reached
in safety a broad dry dyke[127] near to the back of the township of
Brunn a good hour before the full moon began to rise over Elsey-Wood.
Having seen everything safely landed, Hereward walked alone into the
town, going straight to the house of his foster-brother. But before he
got into the rambling street he was accosted by three tall Saxons, who
said, “Is it our Lord Hereward?”
“Yea; and are ye ready to be stirring? Have ye collected a few true men
that will strike a blow for the houseless Lord of Brunn?”
“Thou shalt see, my Lord,” said one of the three, who was no less a man
than John of the Bogs, and clapping his hands thrice, three score and
more Saxons armed with bows and bills, and some of them with swords and
battle-axes, started forth from behind so many alders and willow-trees;
and at that moment the broad full moon showed her bright, full face
over the bare trees of Elsey-Wood. The men had been well taught, and so
they did not rend the air with a shout which might have startled the
Normans in the manor-house; but every man of them, whether freeman or
serf, knelt at Lord Hereward’s feet, and kissed his hand.
The score of armed men and all that had been brought with them from
Spalding were soon carried into town. A supper was all ready, and
smoking on the table of Lord Hereward’s foster-brother. Every man was
welcomed as one amongst brethren, albeit these simple-minded men of
Brunn started and looked askance when they saw the dark stranger with
the hooked nose and fiery eyes; and much they marvelled all when they
heard the young Lord of Brunn talking with this stranger in an unknown
tongue.
“Wouldst thou have possession of thine house to-night or to-morrow
morning?” said Girolamo. “At the hazard of burning a part of it I could
gain thee admittance in less then half an hour by means of my Greek
fire.”
“I would not have a plank of the dear old place burned,” said Hereward.
“I would rather delay my entrance till the morning.”
“Then this must be a busy night,” replied the dark man.
And a busy night it was; for lo! in the morning, when Raoul the Norman
knight awoke from the deep sleep which had followed his heavy
overnight’s carouse, and looked forth from his chamber in the tower
over the gateway of the manor-house, he saw what seemed another and a
taller tower on the opposite side of the moat; and what seemed a bridge
of boats laid across the moat; and in the tower were archers with their
bows bent, and men-at-arms with swords and battle-axes. Raoul rubbed
his eyes, and still seeing the same sight, thought it all magic or a
dream. But there was more magic than this, for when he called up his
sleepy household, and his careless and over-confident men-at-arms, and
went round the house, he saw another bridge of boats leading to the
postern-gate at the back of the house, and beyond that bridge he saw a
catapult with a score of armed men standing by it. But look where he
would, there were armed men; the manor-house was surrounded, and
surrounded in such fashion that there could be no egress from it, and
small hope of defending it. The despairing Norman knight, therefore,
went back to his tower over the gateway, and called a parley.
“What would ye, O Saxons?” said Raoul; “know ye not that ye are
breaking the king’s peace? Who is your leader, and what wants he?”
“I am their leader and lord,” quoth Hereward, speaking from that
marvellous wooden tower which Girolamo had caused to be raised; “I am
their leader and the Lord of Brunn, and all that I want is to get
possession of my house and lands. So come forth, Norman, and fear not!
Thou and thy men shall have quarter and kindly treatment. But if ye
seek to resist, or let fly so much as one arrow upon these my good
people, by all the saints of old England I will hang ye all on one
gibbet.”
“What shall we do in this strait?” said Raoul to his seneschal.
“Take terms and surrender,” quoth the seneschal; “for the house cannot
be defended against the host that is come against it, and against the
engines of war that are raised against it. Three butts of that catapult
would shiver the postern gate; that tower in front commands the
battlements; the bridges of boats will give access to every part of the
walls. This could not be done in one short night, except by magic; but
magic is not to be withstood by sinful men-at-arms, and our chaplain is
gone to feast with the monks of Crowland. Moreover, oh Raoul, we have
consumed nearly all our provisions in our own feastings, and so should
starve in a day or two if we could hold out so long—but that is
impossible.”
“But,” said Raoul, “be there not some twenty or thirty Norman lances no
farther off than in the town of Stamford?”[128]
“But they cannot cross the wide watery fens; and if they were here they
could not charge among these accursed bogs.”
“’Tis all too true,” quoth Raoul, “and therefore must we surrender.”
The Norman knight spoke again to Hereward, who stood on the tower,
looking like the good soldier and great lord that he was; and Raoul
bargained to give immediate admittance to the Saxons, if the Saxons
would only grant life and liberty to him and his garrison, with
permission to carry off such arms and property as were their own.
“Life and security of limb ye shall have,” said Hereward, “and liberty
ye shall have likewise when good King Harold comes back and peace is
restored; but, in the meantime, I must have ye kept as hostages, and
sent to Ely to do penance for your sins: your arms must remain with us
who want them; but an ye brought any other property with ye beyond the
clothes on your backs, it shall be restored upon your solemn oaths that
ye did not get it by robbery here in England!”
“These are harsh terms,” muttered Raoul; “but, Saxon, thou art no
knight.”
“I soon shall be one,” quoth Hereward; “but that is nought to thee. So
come out of mine house, and save me the trouble of hanging thee. Come
out, I say, ye Norman thieves, and give me up mine own!”
And Raoul, seeing nothing better for it, pulled down a flag which some
too confident wight had raised over the battlements; and the drawbridge
being let down, and the front gate opened, he and all his Normans came
forth and laid down their armour and their arms at the feet of Hereward
the Saxon.
Even thus did the young Lord of Brunn get his own again.