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

round the world. And there were two long ships ready, and twenty good mariners in each. So when the Danes made the South Foreland the next morning, they were aware of two gallant ships bearing down on them, with a great white bear embroidered on their sails.

A proud man was Hereward that day, as he sailed into the midst of the Danish fleet, and up to the royal ships, and shouted: “I am Hereward the Berserker, and I come to take service under my rightful lord, Sweyn, king of England.”

“Come on board, then; we know you well, and right glad we are to have Hereward with us.”

And Hereward laid his ship’s bow upon the quarter of the royal ship (to lay alongside was impossible, for fear of breaking oars), and came on board.

“And thou art Hereward?” asked a tall and noble warrior.

“I am. And thou art Swend Ulfsson, the king?”

“I am Earl Osbiorn, his brother.”

“Then, where is the king?”

“He is in Denmark, and I command his fleet; and with me are Canute and Harold, Sweyn’s sons, and earls and bishops enough for all England.”

This was spoken in a somewhat haughty tone, in answer to the look of surprise and disappointment which Hereward had, unawares, allowed to pass over his face.

“Thou art better than none,” said Hereward. “Now, hearken, Osbiorn the Earl. Had Swend been here, I would have put my hand between his, and said in my own name, and that of all the men in Kesteven and the fens, Swend’s men we are, to live and die! But now, as it is, I say, for me and them, thy men we are, to live and die, as long as thou art true to us.”

“True to you I will be,” said Osbiorn.

“Be it so,” said Hereward. “True we shall be, whatever betide. Now, whither goes Earl Osbiorn, and all his great meinie?”

“We purpose to try Dover.”

“You will not take it. The Frenchman has strengthened it with one of his accursed keeps, and without battering-engines you may sit before it a month.”

“What if I asked you to go in thither yourself, and try the mettle and the luck which, they say, never failed Hereward yet?”

“I should say that it was a child’s trick to throw away against a paltry stone wall the life of a man who was ready to raise for you in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, five times as many men as you will lose in taking Dover.”

“Hereward is right,” said more than one Earl. “We shall need him in his own country.”

“If you are wise, to that country you yourselves will go. It is ready to receive you. This is ready to oppose you. You are attacking the Frenchman at his strongest point instead of his weakest. Did I not send again and again, entreating you to cross from Scheldtmouth to the Wash, and send me word that I might come and raise the Fen-men for you, and then we would all go north together?”

“I have heard, ere now,” said Earl Osbiorn, haughtily, “that Hereward, though he be a valiant Viking, is more fond of giving advice than of taking it.”

Hereward was about to answer very fiercely. If he had, no one would have thought any harm, in those plain-spoken times. But he was wise; and restrained himself, remembering that Torfrida was there, all but alone, in the midst of a fleet of savage men; and that beside, he had a great deed to do, and must do it as he could. So he answered,—

“Osbiorn the Earl has not, it seems, heard this of Hereward: that because he is accustomed to command, he is also accustomed to obey. What thou wilt do, do, and bid me do. He that quarrels with his captain cuts his own throat and his fellows’ too.”

“Wisely spoken!” said the earls; and Hereward went back to his ship.

“Torfrida,” said he, bitterly, “the game is lost before it is begun.”

“God forbid, my beloved! What words are these?”

“Swend—fool that he is with his over-caution,—always the same!—has let the prize slip from between his fingers. He has sent Osbiorn instead of himself.”

“But why is that so terrible a mistake?”

“We do not want a fleet of Vikings in England, to plunder the French and English alike. We want a king, a king, a king!” and Hereward stamped with rage. “And instead of a king, we have this Osbiorn,—all men know him, greedy and false and weak-headed. Here he is going to be beaten off at Dover; and then, I suppose, at the next port; and so forth, till the whole season is wasted, and the ships and men lost by driblets. Pray for us to God and his saints, Torfrida, you who are nearer to Heaven than I; for we never needed it more.”

And Osbiorn went in; tried to take Dover; and was beaten off with heavy loss.

Then the earls bade him take Hereward’s advice. But he would not.

So he went round the Foreland, and tried Sandwich,—as if, landing there, he would have been safe in marching on London, in the teeth of the élite of Normandy.

But he was beaten off there, with more loss. Then, too late, he took Hereward’s advice,—or, rather, half of it,—and sailed north; but only to commit more follies.

He dared not enter the Thames. He would not go on to the Wash; but he went into the Orwell, and attacked Ipswich, plundering right and left, instead of proclaiming King Sweyn, and calling the Danish folk around him. The Danish folk of Suffolk rose, and, like valiant men, beat him off; while Hereward lay outside the river mouth, his soul within him black with disappointment, rage, and shame. He would not go in. He would not fight against his own countrymen. He would not help to turn the whole plan into a marauding raid. And he told Earl Osbiorn so, so fiercely, that his life would have been in danger, had not the force of his arm been as much feared as the force of his name was needed.

At last they came to Yarmouth. Osbiorn would needs land there, and try Norwich.

Hereward was nigh desperate: but he hit upon a plan. Let Osbiorn do so, if he would. He himself would sail round to the Wash, raise the Fen-men, and march eastward at their head through Norfolk to meet him. Osbiorn himself could not refuse so rational a proposal. All the earls and bishops approved loudly; and away Hereward went to the Wash, his heart well-nigh broken, foreseeing nothing but evil.