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

What followed, Hereward heard not from flying rumors; but from one who had seen and known and judged of all. [Footnote: For Gyda’s coming to St. Omer that year, see Ordericus Vitalis.]

For one day, about this time, Hereward was riding out of the gate of St. Omer, when the porter appealed to him. Begging for admittance were some twenty women, and a clerk or two; and they must needs see the châtelain. The châtelain was away. What should he do?

Hereward looked at the party, and saw, to his surprise, that they were Englishwomen, and two of them women of rank, to judge from the rich materials of their travel-stained and tattered garments. The ladies rode on sorry country garrons, plainly hired from the peasants who drove them. The rest of the women had walked; and weary and footsore enough they were.

“You are surely Englishwomen?” asked he of the foremost, as he lifted his cap.

The lady bowed assent, beneath a heavy veil.

“Then you are my guests. Let them pass in.” And Hereward threw himself off his horse, and took the lady’s bridle.

“Stay,” she said, with an accent half Wessex, half Danish. “I seek the Countess Judith, if it will please you to tell me where she lives.”

“The Countess Judith, lady, lives no longer in St. Omer. Since her husband’s death, she lives with her mother at Bruges.”

The lady made a gesture of disappointment.

“It were best for you, therefore, to accept my hospitality, till such time as I can send you and your ladies on to Bruges.”

“I must first know who it is who offers me hospitality?”

This was said so proudly, that Hereward answered proudly enough in return,—

“I am Hereward Leofricsson, whom his foes call Hereward the outlaw, and his friends Hereward the master of knights.”

She started, and threw her veil hack, looking intently at him. He, for his part, gave but one glance, and then cried,—

“Mother of Heaven! You are the great Countess!”

“Yes, I was that woman once, if all be not a dream. I am now I know not what, seeking hospitality—if I can believe my eyes and ears—of Godiva’s son.”

“And from Godiva’s son you shall have it, as though you were Godiva’s self. God so deal with my mother, madam, as I will deal with you.”

“His father’s wit, and his mother’s beauty!” said the great Countess, looking upon him. “Too, too like my own lost Harold!”

“Not so, my lady. I am a dwarf compared to him.” And Hereward led the garron on by the bridle, keeping his cap in hand, while all wondered who the dame could be, before whom Hereward the champion would so abase himself.

“Leofric’s son does me too much honor. He has forgotten, in his chivalry, that I am Godwin’s widow.”

“I have not forgotten that you are Sprakaleg’s daughter, and niece of Canute, king of kings. Neither have I forgotten that you are an English lady, in times in which all English folk are one, and all old English feuds are wiped away.”

“In English blood. Ah! if these last words of yours were true, as you, perhaps, might make them true, England might be saved even yet.”

“Saved?”

“If there were one man in it, who cared for aught but himself.”

Hereward was silent and thoughtful.

He had sent Martin back to his house, to tell Torfrida to prepare bath and food; for the Countess Gyda, with all her train, was coming to be her guest. And when they entered the court, Torfrida stood ready.

“Is this your lady?” asked Gyda, as Hereward lifted her from her horse.

“I am his lady, and your servant,” said Torfrida, bowing.

“Child! child! Bow not to me. Talk not of servants to a wretched slave, who only longs to crawl into some hole and die, forgetting all she was and all she had.”

And the great Countess reeled with weariness and woe, and fell upon Torfrida’s neck.

A tall veiled lady next her helped to support her; and between them they almost carried her through the hall, and into Torfrida’s best guest-chamber.

And there they gave her wine, and comforted her, and let her weep awhile in peace.

The second lady had unveiled herself, displaying a beauty which was still brilliant, in spite of sorrow, hunger, the stains of travel, and more than forty years of life.

“She must be Gunhilda,” guessed Torfrida to herself, and not amiss.

She offered Gyda a bath, which she accepted eagerly, like a true Dane.

“I have not washed for weeks. Not since we sat starving on the Flat-Holme there, in the Severn sea. I have become as foul as my own fortunes: and why not? It is all of a piece. Why should not beggars beg unwashed?”

But when Torfrida offered Gunhilda the bath she declined.

“I have done, lady, with such carnal vanities. What use in cleansing that body which is itself unclean, and whitening the outside of this sepulchre? If I can but cleanse my soul fit for my heavenly Bridegroom, the body may become—as it must at last—food for worms.”

“She will needs enter religion, poor child,” said Gyda; “and what wonder?”

“I have chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken from me.”

“Taken! taken! Hark to her! She means to mock me, the proud nun, with that same ‘taken.’”

“God forbid, mother!”

“Then why say taken, to me from whom all is taken?—husband, sons, wealth, land, renown, power,—power which I loved, wretch that I was, as well as husband and as sons? Ah God! the girl is right. Better to rot in the convent, than writhe in the world. Better never to have had, than to have had and lost.”

“Amen!” said Gunhilda. “‘Blessed are the barren, and they that never gave suck,’ saith the Lord.”

“No! Not so!” cried Torfrida. “Better, Countess, to have had and lost, than never to have had at all. The glutton was right, swine as he was, when he said that not even Heaven could take from him the dinners he had eaten. How much more we, if we say, not even Heaven can take from us the love wherewith we have loved. Will not our souls be richer thereby, through all eternity?”

“In Purgatory?” asked Gunhilda.

“In Purgatory, or where else you will. I love my love; and though my love prove false, he has been true;