HOW HEREWARD FULFILLED HIS WORDS TO THE PRIOR OF THE GOLDEN BOROUGH.
In the course of that winter died good Abbot Brand. Hereward went over
to see him, and found him mumbling to himself texts of Isaiah, and
confessing the sins of his people.
“‘Woe to the vineyard that bringeth forth wild grapes. Woe to those that
join house to house, and field to field,’--like us, and the Godwinssons,
and every man that could, till we ‘stood alone in the land.’ ‘Many
houses, great and fair, shall be without inhabitants.’ It is all
foretold in Holy Writ, Hereward, my son. ‘Woe to those who rise early to
fill themselves with strong drink, and the tabret and harp are in their
feasts; but they regard not the works of the Lord.’ ‘Therefore my people
are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge.’ Ah, those
Frenchmen have knowledge, and too much of it; while we have brains
filled with ale instead of justice. ‘Therefore hell hath enlarged
herself, and opened her mouth without measure’; and all go down into
it, one by one. And dost thou think thou shalt escape, Hereward, thou
stout-hearted?”
“I neither know nor care; but this I know, that whithersoever I go, I
shall go sword in hand.”
“‘They that take the sword shall perish by the sword,’” said Brand, and
blessed Hereward, and died.
A week after came news that Thorold of Malmesbury was coming to take
the Abbey of Peterborough, and had got as far as Stamford, with a right
royal train.
Then Hereward sent Abbot Thorold word, that if he or his Frenchmen put
foot into Peterborough, he, Hereward, would burn it over their heads.
And that if he rode a mile beyond Stamford town, he should walk back
into it barefoot in his shirt.
Whereon Thorold abode at Stamford, and kept up his spirits by singing
the songs of Roland,--which some say he himself composed.
A week after that, and the Danes were come.
A mighty fleet, with Sweyn Ulfsson at their head, went up the Ouse
toward Ely. Another, with Osbiorn at their head, having joined them off
the mouth of the Humber, sailed (it seems) up the Nene. All the chivalry
of Denmark and Ireland was come. And with it, all the chivalry and
the unchivalry of the Baltic shores. Vikings from Jomsburg and Arkona,
Gottlanders from Wisby; and with them savages from Esthonia, Finns from
Äland, Letts who still offered in the forests of Rugen, human victims
to the four-headed Swantowit; foul hordes in sheep-skins and primeval
filth, who might have been scented from Hunstanton Cliff ever since
their ships had rounded the Skaw.
Hereward hurried to them with all his men. He was anxious, of course,
to prevent their plundering the landsfolk as they went,--and that the
savages from the Baltic shore would certainly do, if they could, however
reasonable the Danes, Orkneymen, and Irish Ostmen might be.
Food, of course, they must take where they could find it; but outrages
were not a necessary, though a too common, adjunct to the process of
emptying a farmer’s granaries.
He found the Danes in a dangerous mood, sulky, and disgusted, as they
had good right to be. They had gone to the Humber, and found nothing but
ruin; the land waste; the French holding both the shores of the Humber;
and Osbiorn cowering in Humber-mouth, hardly able to feed his men. They
had come to conquer England, and nothing was left for them to conquer,
but a few peat-bogs. Then they would have what there was in them. Every
one knew that gold grew up in England out of the ground, wherever a monk
put his foot. And they would plunder Crowland. Their forefathers had
done it, and had fared none the worse. English gold they would have, if
they could not get fat English manors.
“No! not Crowland!” said Hereward; “any place but Crowland, endowed
and honored by Canute the Great,--Crowland, whose abbot was a Danish
nobleman, whose monks were Danes to a man, of their own flesh and blood.
Canute’s soul would rise up in Valhalla and curse them, if they took the
value of a penny from St. Guthlac. St. Guthlac was their good friend.
He would send them bread, meat, ale, all they needed. But woe to the man
who set foot upon his ground.”
Hereward sent off messengers to Crowland, warning all to be ready to
escape into the fens; and entreating Ulfketyl to empty his storehouses
into his barges, and send food to the Danes, ere a day was past. And
Ulfketyl worked hard and well, till a string of barges wound its way
through the fens, laden with beeves and bread, and ale-barrels in
plenty, and with monks too, who welcomed the Danes as their brethren,
talked to them in their own tongue, blessed them in St. Guthlac’s name
as the saviors of England, and went home again, chanting so sweetly
their thanks to Heaven for their safety, that the wild Vikings were
awed, and agreed that St. Guthlac’s men were wise folk and open-hearted,
and that it was a shame to do them harm.
But plunder they must have.
“And plunder you shall have!” said Hereward, as a sudden thought struck
him. “I will show you the way to the Golden Borough,--the richest
minster in England; and all the treasures of the Golden Borough shall be
yours, if you will treat Englishmen as friends, and spare the people of
the fens.”
It was a great crime in the eyes of men of that time. A great crime,
taken simply, in Hereward’s own eyes. But necessity knows no law.
Something the Danes must have, and ought to have; and St. Peter’s gold
was better in their purses than in that of Thorold and his French monks.
So he led them across the fens and side rivers, till they came into the
old Nene, which men call Catwater and Muscal now.
As he passed Nomanslandhirne, and the mouth of the Crowland river, he
trembled, and trusted that the Danes did not know that they were within
three miles of St. Guthlac’s sanctuary. But they went on ignorant, and
up the Muscal till they saw St. Peter’s towers on the wooded rise, and
behind them the great forest which now is Milton Park.
There were two parties in Peterborough minster: a smaller faction of
stout-hearted English, a larger one who favored William and the French
customs, with Prior Herluin at their head. Herluin wanted not for
foresight, and he knew that evil was coming on him. He knew that the
Danes were in the fen. He knew that Hereward was with them. He knew that
they had come to Crowland. Hereward could never mean to let them sack
it. Peterborough must be their point. And Herluin set his teeth, like a
bold man determined to abide the worst, and barred and barricaded every
gate and door.
That night a hapless churchwarden, Ywar was his name, might have been
seen galloping through Milton and Castor Hanglands, and on by Barnack
quarries over Southorpe heath, with saddlebags of huge size stuffed with
“gospels, mass-robes, cassocks, and other garments, and such other small
things as he could carry away.” And he came before day to Stamford,
where Abbot Thorold lay at his ease in his inn with his _hommes d’armes_
asleep in the hall.
And the churchwarden knocked them up, and drew Abbot Thorold’s curtains
with a face such as his who
“drew Priam’s curtains in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burned”;
and told Abbot Thorold that the monks of Peterborough had sent him; and
that unless he saddled and rode his best that night, with his meinie of
men-at-arms, his Golden Borough would be even as Troy town by morning
light.
“A moi, hommes d’armes!” shouted Thorold, as he used to shout whenever
he wanted to scourge his wretched English monks at Malmesbury into some
French fashion.
The men leaped up, and poured in, growling.
“Take me this monk, and kick him into the street for waking me with such
news.”
“But, gracious lord, the outlaws will surely burn Peterborough; and
folks said that you were a mighty man of war.”
“So I am; but if I were Roland, Oliver, and Turpin rolled into one, how
am I to fight Hereward and the Danes with forty men-at-arms? Answer me
that, thou dunder-headed English porker. Kick him out.”
And Ywar was kicked into the cold, while Thorold raged up and down his
chamber in mantle and slippers, wringing his hands over the treasure
of the Golden Borough, snatched from his fingers just as he was closing
them upon it.
That night the monks of Peterborough prayed in the minster till the long
hours passed into the short. The poor corrodiers, and other servants
of the monastery, fled from the town outside into the Milton woods. The
monks prayed on inside till an hour after matin. When the first flush
of the summer’s dawn began to show in the northeastern sky, they heard
mingling with their own chant another chant, which Peterborough had not
heard since it was Medehampstead, three hundred years ago,--the terrible
Yuch-hey-saa-saa-saa,--the war-song of the Vikings of the north.
Their chant stopped of itself. With blanched faces and trembling knees
they fled, regardless of all discipline, up into the minster tower, and
from the leads looked out northeastward on the fen.
The first rays of the summer sun were just streaming over the vast sheet
of emerald, and glittering upon the winding river; and on a winding
line, too, seemingly endless, of scarlet coats and shields, black
hulls, gilded poops and vanes and beak-heads, and the flash and foam of
innumerable oars.
And nearer and louder came the oar-roll, like thunder working up from
the northeast; and mingled with it that grim yet laughing Heysaa, which
bespoke in its very note the revelry of slaughter.
The ships had all their sails on deck. But as they came nearer, the
monks could see the banners of the two foremost vessels.
The one was the red and white of the terrible Dannebrog. The other, the
scarcely less terrible white bear of Hereward.
“He will burn the minster! He has vowed to do it. As a child he vowed,
and he must do it. In this very minster the fiend entered into him and
possessed him; and to this minster has the fiend brought him back to do
his will. Satan, my brethren, having a special spite (as must needs be)
against St. Peter, rock and pillar of the Holy Church, chose out and
inspired this man, even from his mother’s womb, that he might be the
foe and robber of St. Peter, and the hater of all who, like my humility,
honor him, and strive to bring this English land into due obedience to
that blessed apostle. Bring forth the relics, my brethren. Bring forth,
above all things, those filings of St. Peter’s own chains,--the special
glory of our monastery, and perhaps its safeguard this day.”
Some such bombast would any monk of those days have talked in like case.
And yet, so strange a thing is man, he might have been withal, like
Herluin, a shrewd and valiant man.
They brought out all the relics. They brought out the filings
themselves, in a box of gold. They held them out over the walls at the
ships, and called on all the saints to whom they belonged. But they
stopped that line of scarlet, black, and gold as much as their spiritual
descendants stop the lava-stream of Vesuvius, when they hold out similar
matters at them, with a hope unchanged by the experience of eight
hundred years. The Heysaa rose louder and nearer. The Danes were coming.
And they came.
And all the while a thousand skylarks rose from off the fen, and chanted
their own chant aloft, as if appealing to Heaven against that which
man’s greed and man’s rage and man’s superstition had made of this fair
earth of God.
The relics had been brought out. But, as they would not work, the only
thing to be done was to put them back again and hide them safe, lest
they should bow down like Bel and stoop like Nebo, and be carried, like
them, into captivity themselves, being worth a very large sum of money
in the eyes of the more Christian part of the Danish host.
Then to hide the treasures as well as they could; which (says the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) they hid somewhere in the steeple.
The Danes were landing now. The shout which they gave, as they leaped
on shore, made the hearts of the poor monks sink low. Would they be
murdered, as well as robbed? Perhaps not,--probably not. Hereward would
see to that. And some wanted to capitulate.
Herluin would not hear of it. They were safe enough. St. Peter’s relic
might not have worked a miracle on the spot; but it must have done
something. St. Peter had been appealed to on his honor, and on his honor
he must surely take the matter up. At all events, the walls and gates
were strong, and the Danes had no artillery. Let them howl and rage
round the holy place, till Abbot Thorold and the Frenchmen of the
country rose and drove them to their ships.
In that last thought the cunning Norman was not so far wrong. The
Danes pushed up through the little town, and to the minster gates: but
entrance was impossible; and they prowled round and round like raging
wolves about a winter steading; but found no crack of entry.
Prior Herluin grew bold; and coming to the leads of the gateway
tower, looked over cautiously, and holding up a certain most sacred
emblem,--not to be profaned in these pages,--cursed them in the name of
his whole Pantheon.
“Aha, Herluin! Are you there?” asked a short, square man in gay armor.
“Have you forgotten the peat-stack outside Bolldyke Gate, and how you
bade light it under me thirty years since?”
“Thou art Winter?” and the Prior uttered what would be considered, from
any but a churchman’s lips, a blasphemous and bloodthirsty curse; but
which was, as their writings sufficiently testify, merely one of the
lawful weapons or “arts” of those Christians who were “forbidden to
fight,”--the other weapon or art being that of lying.
“Aha! That goes like rain off a duck’s back to one who has been a
minster scholar in his time. You! Danes! Ostmen! down! If you shoot at
that man I’ll cut your heads off. He is the oldest foe I have in the
world, and the only one who ever hit me without my hitting him again;
and nobody shall touch him but me. So down bows, I say.”
The Danes--humorous all of them--saw that there was a jest toward, and
perhaps some earnest too, and joined in jeering the Prior.
Herluin had ducked his head behind the parapet; not from cowardice, but
simply because he had on no mail, and might be shot any moment. But when
he heard Winter forbid them to touch him, he lifted up his head, and
gave his old pupil as good as he brought.
With his sharp, swift Norman priest’s tongue he sneered, he jeered, he
scolded, he argued; and then threatened, suddenly changing his tone,
in words of real eloquence. He appealed to the superstitions of his
hearers. He threatened them with supernatural vengeance.
Some of them began to slink away frightened. St. Peter was an ill man to
have a blood feud with.
Winter stood, laughing and jeering again, for full ten minutes. At last:
“I asked, and you have not answered: have you forgotten the peat-stack
outside Bolldyke Gate? For if you have, Hereward has not. He has piled
it against the gate, and it should be burnt through by this time. Go and
see.”
Herluin disappeared with a curse.
“Now, you sea-cocks,” said Winter, springing up, “we’ll to the Bolldyke
Gate, and all start fair.”
The Bolldyke Gate was on fire; and more, so were the suburbs. There was
no time to save them, as Hereward would gladly have done, for the sake
of the poor corrodiers. They must go,--on to the Bolldyke Gate. Who
cared to put out flames behind him, with all the treasures of Golden
Borough before him? In a few minutes all the town was alight. In a few
minutes more, the monastery likewise.
A fire is detestable enough at all times, but most detestable by day.
At night it is customary, a work of darkness which lights up the dark,
picturesque, magnificent, with a fitness Tartarean and diabolic.
But under a glaring sun, amid green fields and blue skies, all its
wickedness is revealed without its beauty. You see its works, and little
more. The flame is hardly noticed. All that is seen is a canker eating
up God’s works, cracking the bones of its prey,--for that horrible
cracking is uglier than all stage-scene glares,--cruelly and shamelessly
under the very eye of the great, honest, kindly sun.
And that felt Hereward, as he saw Peterborough burn. He could not put
his thoughts into words, as men of this day can: so much the better
for him, perhaps. But he felt all the more intensely--as did men of his
day--the things he could not speak. All he said was aside to Winter,--
“It is a dark job. I wish it had been done in the dark.” And Winter knew
what he meant.
Then the men rushed into the Bolldyke Gate, while Hereward and Winter
stood and looked with their men, whom they kept close together, waiting
their commands. The Danes and their allies cared not for the great
glowing heap of peat. They cared not for each other, hardly for
themselves. They rushed into the gap; they thrust the glowing heap
inward through the gateway with their lances; they thrust each other
down into it, and trampled over them to fall themselves, rising scorched
and withered, and yet struggling on toward the gold of the Golden
Borough. One savage Lett caught another round the waist, and hurled him
bodily into the fire, crying in his wild tongue:--
“You will make a good stepping-stone for me.”
“That is not fair,” quoth Hereward, and clove him to the chine.
It was wild work. But the Golden Borough was won.
“We must in now and save the monks,” said Hereward, and dashed over the
embers.
He was only just in time. In the midst of the great court were all
the monks, huddled together like a flock of sheep, some kneeling, most
weeping bitterly, after the fashion of monks.
Only Herluin stood in front of them, at bay, a lofty crucifix in his
hand. He had no mind to weep. But with a face of calm and bitter wrath,
he preferred words of peace and entreaty. They were what the time
needed. Therefore they should be given. To-morrow he would write to
Bishop Egelsin, to excommunicate with bell, book, and candle, to the
lowest pit of Tartarus, all who had done the deed.
But to-day he spoke them fair. However, his fair speeches profited
little, not being understood by a horde of Letts and Finns, who howled
and bayed at him, and tried to tear the crucifix from his hands; but
feared “the white Christ.”
They were already gaining courage from their own yells; in a moment
more blood would have been shed, and then a general massacre must have
ensued.
Hereward saw it, and shouting, “After me, Hereward’s men! a bear! a
bear!” swung Letts and Finns right and left like corn-sheaves, and stood
face to face with Herluin.
An angry Finn smote him on the hind-head full with a stone axe. He
staggered, and then looked round and laughed.
“Fool! hast thou not heard that Hereward’s armor was forged by dwarfs in
the mountain-bowels? Off, and hunt for gold, or it will be all gone.”
The Finn, who was astonished at getting no more from his blow than a few
sparks, and expected instant death in return, took the hint and vanished
jabbering, as did his fellows.
“Now, Herluin, the Frenchman!” said Hereward.
“Now, Hereward, the robber of saints!” said Herluin.
It was a fine sight. The soldier and the churchman, the Englishman
and the Frenchman, the man of the then world, and the man of the then
Church, pitted fairly, face to face.
Hereward tried, for one moment, to stare down Herluin. But those
terrible eye-glances, before which Vikings had quailed, turned off
harmless from the more terrible glance of the man who believed himself
backed by the Maker of the universe, and all the hierarchy of heaven.
A sharp, unlovely face it was: though, like many a great churchman’s
face of those days, it was neither thin nor haggard; but rather round,
sleek, of a puffy and unwholesome paleness. But there was a thin lip
above a broad square jaw, which showed that Herluin was neither fool nor
coward.
“A robber and a child of Belial thou hast been from thy cradle; and a
robber and a child of Belial thou art now. Dare thy last iniquity, and
slay the servants of St. Peter on St. Peter’s altar, with thy worthy
comrades, the heathen Saracens [Footnote: The Danes were continually
mistaken, by Norman churchmen, for Saracens, and the Saracens considered
to be idolaters. A maumee, or idol, means a Mahomet.], and set up
Mahound with them in the holy place.”
Hereward laughed so jolly a laugh, that the Prior was taken aback.
“Slay St. Peter’s rats? I kill men, not monks. There shall not a hair
of your head be touched. Here! Hereward’s men! march these traitors and
their French Prior safe out of the walls, and into Milton Woods, to look
after their poor corrodiers, and comfort their souls, after they have
ruined their bodies by their treason!”
“Out of this place I stir not. Here I am, and here I will live or die,
as St. Peter shall send aid.”
But as he spoke, he was precipitated rudely forward, and hurried
almost into Hereward’s arms. The whole body of monks, when they heard
Hereward’s words, cared to hear no more, but desperate between fear and
joy, rushed forward, bearing away their Prior in the midst.
“So go the rats out of Peterborough, and so is my dream fulfilled. Now
for the treasure, and then to Ely.”
But Herluin burst himself clear of the frantic mob of monks, and turned
back on Hereward.
“Thou wast dubbed knight in that church!”
“I know it, man; and that church and the relics of the saints in it are
safe, therefore. Hereward gives his word.”
“That,--but not that only, if thou art a true knight, as thou holdest,
Englishman.”
Hereward growled savagely, and made an ugly step toward Herluin. That
was a point which he would not have questioned.
“Then behave as a knight, and save, save,”--as the monks dragged him
away,--“save the hospice! There are women,--ladies there!” shouted he,
as he was borne off.
They never met again on earth; but both comforted themselves in after
years, that two old enemies’ last deed in common had been one of mercy.
Hereward uttered a cry of horror. If the wild Letts, even the
Jomsburgers, had got in, all was lost. He rushed to the door. It was not
yet burst: but a bench, swung by strong arms, was battering it in fast.
“Winter! Geri! Siwards! To me, Hereward’s men! Stand back, fellows. Here
are friends here inside. If you do not, I’ll cut you down.”
But in vain. The door was burst, and in poured the savage mob. Hereward,
unable to stop them, headed them, or pretended to do so, with five or
six of his own men round him, and went into the hall.
On the rushes lay some half-dozen grooms. They were butchered instantly,
simply because they were there. Hereward saw, but could not prevent. He
ran as hard as he could to the foot of the wooden stair which led to the
upper floor.
“Guard the stair-foot, Winter!” and he ran up.
Two women cowered upon the floor, shrieking and praying with hands
clasped over their heads. He saw that the arms of one of them were of
the most exquisite whiteness, and judging her to be the lady, bent over
her. “Lady! you are safe. I will protect you. I am Hereward.”
She sprang up, and threw herself with a scream into his arms.
“Hereward! Hereward! Save me. I am--”
“Alftruda!” said Hereward.
It was Alftruda; if possible more beautiful than ever.
“I have got you!” she cried. “I am safe now. Take me away,--out of this
horrible place! Take me into the woods,--anywhere. Only do not let me
be burnt here,--stifled like a rat. Give me air! Give me water!” And she
clung to him so madly, that Hereward, as he held her in his arms, and
gazed on her extraordinary beauty, forgot Torfrida for the second time.
But there was no time to indulge in evil thoughts, even had any crossed
his mind. He caught her in his arms, and commanding the maid to follow,
hurried down the stair.
Winter and the Siwards were defending the foot with swinging blades.
The savages were howling round like curs about a bull; and when Hereward
appeared above with the women, there was a loud yell of rage and envy.
He should not have the women to himself,--they would share the plunder
equally,--was shouted in half a dozen barbarous dialects.
“Have you left any valuables in the chamber?” whispered he to Alftruda.
“Yes, jewels,--robes. Let them have all, only save me!”
“Let me pass!” roared Hereward. “There is rich booty in the room above,
and you may have it as these ladies’ ransom. Them you do not touch.
Back, I say, let me pass!”
And he rushed forward. Winter and the housecarles formed round him and
the women, and hurried down the hall, while the savages hurried up the
ladder, to quarrel over their spoil.
They were out in the court-yard, and safe for the moment. But whither
should he take her?
“To Earl Osbiorn,” said one of the Siwards. But how to find him?
“There is Bishop Christiern!” And the Bishop was caught and stopped.
“This is an evil day’s work, Sir Hereward.”
“Then help to mend it by taking care of these ladies, like a man of
God.” And he explained the case.
“You may come safely with me, my poor lambs,” said the Bishop. “I
am glad to find something to do fit for a churchman. To me, my
housecarles.”
But they were all off plundering.
“We will stand by you and the ladies, and see you safe down to the
ships,” said Winter, and so they went off.
Hereward would gladly have gone with them, as Alftruda piteously
entreated him. But he heard his name called on every side in angry
tones.
“Who wants Hereward?”
“Earl Osbiorn,--here he is.”
“Those scoundrel monks have hidden all the altar furniture. If you wish
to save them from being tortured to death, you had best find it.”
Hereward ran with him into the Cathedral. It was a hideous sight; torn
books and vestments; broken tabernacle work; foul savages swarming in
and out of every dark aisle and cloister, like wolves in search of prey;
five or six ruffians aloft upon the rood screen; one tearing the golden
crown from the head of the crucifix, another the golden footstool from
its feet. [Footnote: The crucifix was probably of the Greek pattern, in
which the figure stood upon a flat slab, projecting from the cross.]
As Hereward came up, crucifix and man fell together, crashing upon the
pavement, amid shouts of brutal laughter.
He hurried past them, shuddering, into the choir. The altar was bare,
the golden pallium which covered it, gone.
“It may be in the crypt below. I suppose the monks keep their relics
there,” said Osbiorn.
“No! Not there. Do not touch the relics! Would you have the curse of all
the saints? Stay! I know an old hiding-place. It may be there. Up into
the steeple with me.”
And in a chamber in the steeple they found the golden pall, and
treasures countless and wonderful.
“We had better keep the knowledge of this to ourselves awhile,” said
Earl Osbiorn, looking with greedy eyes on a heap of wealth such as he
had never beheld before.
“Not we! Hereward is a man of his word, and we will share and share
alike.” And he turned and went down the narrow winding stair.
Earl Osbiorn gave one look at his turned back; an evil spirit of
covetousness came over him; and he smote Hereward full and strong upon
the hind-head.
The sword turned upon the magic helm, and the sparks flashed out bright
and wide.
Earl Osbiorn shrunk back, appalled and trembling.
“Aha!” said Hereward without looking round. “I never thought there would
be loose stones in the roof. Here! Up here, Vikings, Berserker, and
sea-cocks all! Here, Jutlanders, Jomsburgers, Letts, Finns, witches’
sons and devils’ sons all! Here!” cried he, while Osbiorn profited by
that moment to thrust an especially brilliant jewel into his boot. “Here
is gold, here is the dwarfs work! Come up and take your Polotaswarf! You
would not get a richer out of the Kaiser’s treasury. Here, wolves and
ravens, eat gold, drink gold, roll in gold, and know that Hereward is a
man of his word, and pays his soldiers’ wages royally!”
They rushed up the narrow stair, trampling each other to death, and
thrust Hereward and the Earl, choking, into a corner. The room was so
full for a few moments, that some died in it. Hereward and Osbiorn,
protected by their strong armor, forced their way to the narrow window,
and breathed through it, looking out upon the sea of flame below.
“That was an unlucky blow,” said Hereward, “that fell upon my head.”
“Very unlucky. I saw it coming, but had no time to warn you. Why do you
hold my wrist?”
“Men’s daggers are apt to get loose at such times as these.”
“What do you mean?” and Earl Osbiorn went from him, and into the now
thinning press. Soon only a few remained, to search, by the glare of the
flames, for what their fellows might have overlooked.
“Now the play is played out,” said Hereward, “we may as well go down,
and to our ships.”
Some drunken ruffians would have burnt the church for mere mischief. But
Osbiorn, as well as Hereward, stopped that. And gradually they got the
men down to the ships; some drunk, some struggling under plunder; some
cursing and quarrelling because nothing had fallen to their lot. It was
a hideous scene; but one to which Hereward, as well as Osbiorn, was too
well accustomed to see aught in it save an hour’s inevitable trouble in
getting the men on board.
The monks had all fled. Only Leofwin the Long was left, and he lay sick
in the infirmary. Whether he was burned therein, or saved by Hereward’s
men, is not told.
And so was the Golden Borough sacked and burnt. Now then, whither?
The Danes were to go to Ely and join the army there. Hereward would
march on to Stamford; secure that town if he could; then to Huntingdon,
to secure it likewise; and on to Ely afterwards.
“You will not leave me among these savages?” said Alftruda.
“Heaven forbid! You shall come with me as far as Stamford, and then I
will set you on your way.”
“My way?” said Alftruda, in a bitter and hopeless tone.
Hereward mounted her on a good horse, and rode beside her, looking--and
he well knew it--a very perfect knight. Soon they began to talk. What
had brought Alftruda to Peterborough, of all places on earth?
“A woman’s fortune. Because I am rich,--and some say fair,--I am a
puppet, and a slave, a prey. I was going back to my,--to Dolfin.”
“Have you been away from him, then?”
“What! Do you not know?”
“How should I know, lady?”
“Yes, most true. How should Hereward know anything about Alftruda? But I
will tell you. Maybe you may not care to hear?”
“About you? Anything. I have often longed to know how,--what you were
doing.”
“Is it possible? Is there one human being left on earth who cares to
hear about Alftruda? Then listen. You know when Gospatrick fled to
Scotland his sons went with him. Young Gospatrick, Waltheof, [Footnote:
This Waltheof Gospatricksson must not be confounded with Waltheof
Siwardsson, the young Earl. He became a wild border chieftain, then
Baron of Atterdale, and then gave Atterdale to his sister Queen
Ethelreda, and turned monk, and at last Abbot, of Crowland: crawling
home, poor fellow, like many another, to die in peace in the sanctuary
of the Danes.] and he,--Dolfin. Ethelreda, his girl, went too,--and she
is to marry, they say, Duncan, Malcolm’s eldest son by Ingebiorg. So
Gospatrick will find himself, some day, father-in-law of the King of
Scots.”
“I will warrant him to find his nest well lined, wherever he be. But of
yourself?”
“I refused to go. I could not face again that bleak black North.
Beside--but that is no concern of Hereward’s--”
Hereward was on the point of saying, “Can anything concern you, and not
be interesting to me?”
But she went on,--
“I refused, and--”
“And he misused you?” asked he, fiercely.
“Better if he had. Better if he had tied me to his stirrup, and scourged
me along into Scotland, than have left me to new dangers and to old
temptations.”
“What temptations?”
Alftruda did not answer; but went on,--
“He told me, in his lofty Scots’ fashion, that I was free to do what I
list. That he had long since seen that I cared not for him; and that he
would find many a fairer lady in his own land.”
“There he lied. So you did not care for him? He is a noble knight.”
“What is that to me? Women’s hearts are not to be bought and sold with
their bodies, as I was sold. Care for him? I care for no creature upon
earth. Once I cared for Hereward, like a silly child. Now I care not
even for him.”
Hereward was sorry to hear that. Men are vainer than women, just as
peacocks are vainer than peahens; and Hereward was--alas for him!--a
specially vain man. Of course, for him to fall in love with Alftruda
would have been a shameful sin,--he would not have committed it for all
the treasures of Constantinople; but it was a not unpleasant thought
that Alftruda should fall in love with him. But he only said, tenderly
and courteously,--
“Alas, poor lady!”
“Poor lady. Too true, that last. For whither am I going now? Back to
that man once more.”
“To Dolfin?”
“To my master, like a runaway slave. I went down south to Queen Matilda.
I knew her well, and she was kind to me, as she is to all things that
breathe. But now that Gospatrick is come into the king’s grace again,
and has bought the earldom of Northumbria, from Tweed to Tyne--”
“Bought the earldom?”
“That has he; and paid for it right heavily.”
“Traitor and fool! He will not keep it seven years. The Frenchman will
pick a quarrel with him, and cheat him out of earldom and money too.”
The which William did, within three years.
“May it be so! But when he came into the king’s grace, he must needs
demand me back in his son’s name.”
“What does Dolfin want with you?”
“His father wants my money, and stipulated for it with the king. And
besides, I suppose I am a pretty plaything enough still.”
“You? You are divine, perfect. Dolfin is right. How could a man who had
once enjoyed you live without you?”
Alftruda laughed,--a laugh full of meaning; but what that meaning was,
Hereward could not divine.
“So now,” she said, “what Hereward has to do, as a true and courteous
knight, is to give Alftruda safe conduct, and, if he can, a guard;
and to deliver her up loyally and knightly to his old friend and
fellow-warrior, Dolfin Gospatricksson, earl of whatever he can lay hold
of for the current month.”
“Are you in earnest?”
Alftruda laughed one of her strange laughs, looking straight before her.
Indeed, she had never looked Hereward in the face during the whole ride.
“What are those open holes? Graves?”
“They are Barnack stone-quarries, which Alfgar my brother gave to
Crowland.”
“So? That is pity. I thought they had been graves; and then you might
have covered me up in one of them, and left me to sleep in peace.”
“What can I do for you, Alftruda, my old play-fellow: Alftruda, whom I
saved from the bear?”
“If she had foreseen the second monster into whose jaws she was to fall,
she would have prayed you to hold that terrible hand of yours, which
never since, men say, has struck without victory and renown. You won
your first honor for my sake. But who am I now, that you should turn out
of your glorious path for me?”
“I will do anything,--anything. But why miscall this noble prince a
monster?”
“If he were fairer than St. John, more wise than Solomon, and more
valiant than King William, he is to me a monster; for I loathe him, and
I know not why. But do your duty as a knight, sir. Convey the lawful
wife to her lawful spouse.”
“What cares an outlaw for law, in a land where law is dead and gone? I
will do what I--what you like. Come with me to Torfrida at Bourne; and
let me see the man who dares try to take you out of my hand.”
Alftruda laughed again.
“No, no. I should interrupt the little doves in their nest. Beside, the
billing and cooing might make me envious. And I, alas! who carry misery
with me round the land, might make your Torfrida jealous.”
Hereward was of the same opinion, and rode silent and thoughtful through
the great woods which are now the noble park of Burghley.
“I have found it!” said he at last. “Why not go to Gilbert of Ghent, at
Lincoln?”
“Gilbert? Why should he befriend me?”
“He will do that, or anything else, which is for his own profit.”
“Profit? All the world seems determined to make profit out of me. I
presume you would, if I had come with you to Bourne.”
“I do not doubt it. This is a very wild sea to swim in; and a man must
be forgiven, if he catches at every bit of drift-timber.”
“Selfishness, selfishness everywhere;--and I suppose you expect to gain
by sending me to Gilbert of Ghent?”
“I shall gain nothing, Alftruda, save the thought that you are not so
far from me--from us--but that we can hear of you,--send succor to you
if you need.”
Alftruda was silent. At last--
“And you think that Gilbert would not be afraid of angering the king?”
“He would not anger the king. Gilbert’s friendship is more important
to William, at this moment, than that of a dozen Gospatricks. He holds
Lincoln town, and with it the key of Waltheof’s earldom: and things may
happen, Alftruda--I tell you; but if you tell Gilbert, may Hereward’s
curse be on you!”
“Not that! Any man’s curse save yours!” said she in so passionate a
voice that a thrill of fire ran through Hereward. And he recollected
her scoff at Bruges,--“So he could not wait for me?” And a storm of
evil thoughts swept through him. “Would to heaven!” said he to himself,
crushing them gallantly down, “I had never thought of Lincoln. But there
is no other plan.”
But he did not tell Alftruda, as he meant to do, that she might see him
soon in Lincoln Castle as its conqueror and lord. He half hoped that
when that day came, Alftruda might be somewhere else.
“Gilbert can say,” he went on, steadying himself again, “that you feared
to go north on account of the disturbed state of the country; and that,
as you had given yourself up to him of your own accord, he thought it
wisest to detain you, as a hostage for Dolfin’s allegiance.”
“He shall say so. I will make him say so.”
“So be it, Now, here we are at Stamford town; and I must to my trade. Do
you like to see fighting, Alftruda,--the man’s game, the royal game, the
only game worth a thought on earth? For you are like to see a little in
the next ten minutes.”
“I should like to see you fight. They tell me none is so swift and
terrible in the battle as Hereward. How can you be otherwise, who slew
the bear,--when we were two happy children together? But shall I be
safe?”
“Safe? of course,” said Hereward, who longed, peacock-like, to show off
his prowess before a lady who was--there was no denying it--far more
beautiful than even Torfrida.
But he had no opportunity to show off his prowess. For as he galloped in
over Stamford Bridge, Abbot Thorold galloped out at the opposite end of
the town through Casterton, and up the Roman road to Grantham.
After whom Hereward sent Alftruda (for he heard that Thorold was going
to Gilbert at Lincoln) with a guard of knights, bidding them do him no
harm, but say that Hereward knew him to be a _preux chevalier_ and
lover of fair ladies; that he had sent him a right fair one to bear him
company to Lincoln, and hoped that he would sing to her on the way the
song of Roland.
And Alftruda, who knew Thorold, went willingly, since it could no better
be.
After which, according to Gaimar, Hereward tarried three days at
Stamford, laying a heavy tribute on the burgesses for harboring Thorold
and his Normans; and also surprised at a drinking-bout a certain special
enemy of his, and chased him from room to room sword in hand, till he
took refuge shamefully in an outhouse, and begged his life. And when his
knights came back from Grantham, he marched to Bourne.
“The next night,” says Leofric the deacon, or rather the monk who
paraphrased his saga in Latin prose,--“Hereward saw in his dreams a
man standing by him of inestimable beauty, old of years, terrible of
countenance, in all the raiment of his body more splendid than all
things which he had ever seen, or conceived in his mind; who threatened
him with a great club which he carried in his hand, and with a fearful
doom, that he should take back to his church all that had been carried
off the night before, and have them restored utterly, each in its place,
if he wished to provide for the salvation of his soul, and escape on the
spot a pitiable death. But when awakened, he was seized with a divine
terror, and restored in the same hour all that he took away, and so
departed, going onward with all his men.”
So says Leofric, wishing, as may be well believed, to advance the glory
of St. Peter, and purge his master’s name from the stain of sacrilege.
Beside, the monks of Peterborough, no doubt, had no wish that the world
should spy out their nakedness, and become aware that the Golden Borough
was stript of all its gold.
Nevertheless, truth will out. Golden Borough was Golden Borough no more.
The treasures were never restored; they went to sea with the Danes, and
were scattered far and wide,--to Norway, to Ireland, to Denmark; “all
the spoils,” says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, “which reached the latter
country, being the pallium and some of the shrines and crosses; and many
of the other treasures they brought to one of the king’s towns, and laid
them up in the church. But one night, through their carelessness and
drunkenness, the church was burned, with all that was therein. Thus was
the minster of Peterborough burned and pillaged. May Almighty God have
pity on it in His great mercy.”
Hereward, when blamed for the deed, said always that he did it “because
of his allegiance to the monastery.” Rather than that the treasures
gathered by Danish monks should fall into the hands of the French
robbers, let them be given to their own Danish kinsmen, in payment for
their help to English liberty.
But some of the treasure, at least, he must have surely given back,
it so appeased the angry shade of St. Peter. For on that night, when
marching past Stamford, they lost their way. “To whom, when they had
lost their way, a certain wonder happened, and a miracle, if it can be
said that such would be worked in favor of men of blood. For while in
the wild night and dark they wandered in the wood, a huge wolf met them,
wagging his tail like a tame dog, and went before them on a path. And
they, taking the gray beast in the darkness for a white dog, cheered on
each other to follow him to his farm, which ought to be hard by. And
in the silence of the midnight, that they might see their way, suddenly
candles appeared, burning, and clinging to the lances of all the
knights,--not very bright, however; but like those which the folk call
_candelae nympharum_,--wills of the wisp. But none could pull them off,
or altogether extinguish them, or throw them from their hands. And thus
they saw their way, and went on, although astonished out of mind, with
the wolf leading them, until day dawned, and they saw, to their
great astonishment, that he was a wolf. And as they questioned
among themselves about what had befallen, the wolf and the candles
disappeared, and they came whither they had been minded,--beyond
Stamford town,--thanking God, and wondering at what had happened.”
After which Hereward took Torfrida, and his child, and all he had, and
took ship at Bardeney, and went for Ely. Which when Earl Warrenne heard,
he laid wait for him, seemingly near Southery: but got nothing thereby,
according to Leofric, but the pleasure of giving and taking a great deal
of bad language; and (after his men had refused, reasonably enough, to
swim the Ouse and attack Hereward) an arrow, which Hereward, “_modicum
se inclinans_,” stooping forward, says Leofric,--who probably saw the
deed,--shot at him across the Ouse, as the Earl stood cursing on the top
of the dike. Which arrow flew so stout and strong, that though it sprang
back from Earl Warrenne’s hauberk, it knocked him almost senseless off
his horse, and forced him to defer his purpose of avenging Sir Frederic
his brother.
After which Hereward threw himself into Ely, and assumed, by consent of
all, the command of the English who were therein.