Hereward, the Last of the English by Charles Kingsley (i am reading a book .TXT) 📖

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Author: Charles Kingsley

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come? Night after night I am haunted with spectres, eyeless, handless—”

“This is cold comfort for a man just out of hard fighting in the ague-fens!”

She threw her arms round him, and held him as if she would never let him go.

“When you die, I die. And you will not die: you will be great and glorious, and your name will be sung by scald and minstrel through many a land, far and wide. Only be not rash. Be not high-minded. Promise me to answer this man wisely. The more crafty he is, the more crafty must you be likewise.”

“Let us tell this mighty hero, then,” said Hereward,—trying to laugh away her fears, and perhaps his own,—“that while he has the Holy Father on his side, he can need no help from a poor sinful worm like me.”

“Hereward, Hereward!”

“Why, is there aught about hides in that?”

“I want,—I want an answer which may not cut off all hope in case of the worst.”

“Then let us say boldly, ‘On the day that William is King of all England, Hereward will come and put his hands between his, and be his man.’”

That message was sent to William at Rouen. He laughed,—

“It is a fair challenge from a valiant man. The day shall come when I will claim it.”

Tosti and Hereward passed that winter in St. Omer, living in the same street, passing each other day by day, and never spoke a word one to the other.

Robert the Frison heard of it, and tried to persuade Hereward.

“Let him purge himself of the murder of Ulf, the boy, son of my friend Dolfin; and after that, of Gamel, son of Orm; and after that, again, of Gospatrick, my father’s friend, whom his sister slew for his sake; and then an honest man may talk with him. Were he not my good lord’s brother-in-law, as he is, more’s the pity, I would challenge him to fight à l’outrance, with any weapons he might choose.”

“Heaven protect him in that case,” quoth Robert the Frison.

“As it is, I will keep the peace. And I will see that my men keep the peace, though there are Scarborough and Bamborough lads among them, who long to cut his throat upon the streets. But more I will not do.”

So Tosti sulked through the winter at St. Omer, and then went off to get help from Sweyn, of Denmark, and failing that, from Harold Hardraade of Norway. But how he sped there must be read in the words of a cunninger saga-man than this chronicler, even in those of the “Icelandic Homer,” Snorro Sturleson.

CHAPTER XVI. — HOW HEREWARD WAS ASKED TO SLAY AN OLD COMRADE.

In those days Hereward went into Bruges, to Marquis Baldwin, about his business. And as he walked in Bruges street, he met an old friend, Gilbert of Ghent.

He had grown somewhat stouter, and somewhat grayer, in the last ten years: but he was as hearty as ever; and as honest, according to his own notions of honesty.

He shook Hereward by both hands, clapt him on the back, swore with many oaths, that he had heard of his fame in all lands, that he always said that he would turn out a champion and a gallant knight, and had said it long before he killed the bear. As for killing it, it was no more than he expected, and nothing to what Hereward had done since, and would do yet.

Wherefrom Hereward opined that Gilbert had need of him.

They chatted on: Hereward asking after old friends, and sometimes after old foes, whom he had long since forgiven; for though he always avenged an injury, he never bore malice for one; a distinction less common now than then, when a man’s honor, as well as his safety, depended on his striking again, when he was struck.

“And how is little Alftruda? Big she must be now?” asked he at last.

“The fiend fly away with her,—or rather, would that he had flown away with her, before ever I saw the troublesome little jade. Big? She is grown into the most beautiful lass that ever was seen,—which is, what a young fellow like you cares for; and more trouble to me than all my money, which is what an old fellow like me cares for. It is partly about her that I am over here now. Fool that I was, ever to let an Etheliza [Footnote: A princess of the royal blood of Cerdic, and therefore of Edward the Confessor.] into my house”; and Gilbert swore a great deal.

“How was she an Etheliza?” asked Hereward, who cared nothing about the matter. “And how came she into your house? I never could understand that, any more than how the bear came there.”

“Ah! As to the bear, I have my secrets, which I tell no one. He is dead and buried, thanks to you.”

“And I sleep on his skin every night.”

“You do, my little Champion? Well, warm is the bed that is well earned. But as for her;—see here, and I’ll tell you. She was Gospatrick’s ward and kinswoman,—how, I do not rightly know. But this I know, that she comes from Uchtred, the earl whom Canute slew, and that she is heir to great estates in Northumberland.

“Gospatrick, that fought at Dunsinane?”

“Yes, not the old Thane, his uncle, whom Tosti has murdered; but Gospatrick, King Malcolm’s cousin, Dolfin’s father. Well, she was his ward. He gave me her to keep, for he wanted her out of harm’s way—the lass having a bonny dower, lands and money—till he could marry her up to one of his sons. I took her; of course I was not going to do other men’s work for naught; so I would have married her up to my poor boy, if he had but lived. But he would not live, as you know. Then I would have married her to you, and made you my heir, I tell you honestly, if you had not flown off, like a hot-headed young springald, as you were then.”

“You were very kind. But how is she an Etheliza?”

“Etheliza? Twice over. Her father was of high blood among those Saxons; and if not, are not all the Gospatricks Ethelings? Their grandmother, Uchtred’s wife, was Ethelred, Evil-Counsel’s daughter, King Edward of London’s sister; and I have heard that this girl’s grandfather was their son,—but died young,—or was killed with his father. Who cares?”

“Not I,” quoth Hereward.

“Well—he wants to marry her to Dolfin, his eldest son.”

“Why, Dolfin had a wife when I was at Dunsinane.”

“But she is dead since, and young Ulf, her son, murdered by Tosti last