Hereward, the Last of the English by Charles Kingsley (easy to read books for adults list TXT) 📕

“Hereward,” cried Torfrida, “you shall not go on! If you go, I shall be taken. And if I am taken, I shall be burned. And I cannot burn,—I cannot! I shall go mad with terror before I come to the stake. I cannot go stript to my smock before those Frenchmen. I cannot be roasted piecemeal! Hereward, take me away! Take me away! or kill me, now and here!”

He paused. He had never seen Torfrida thus overcome.

“Let us flee! The stars are against us. God is against us! Let us hide,—escape abroad: beg our bread, go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem together,—for together it must be always: but take me away!”

“We will go back to the boats, men,” said Hereward.

But they did not go. They stood there, irresolute, looking towards Ely.

The sky was pitchy dark. The minster roofs, lying northeast, were utterly invisible against the blackness.

“We may at least save some who escape out,” said Hereward. “March on quickly to the left, under the hill to the plough-field.”

They did so.

“Lie down, men. There are the French, close on our right. Down among the bushes.”

And they heard the heavy tramp of men within a quarter of a mile.

“Cover the mare’s eyes, and hold her mouth, lest she neigh,” said Winter.

Hereward and Torfrida lay side by side upon the heath. She was shivering with cold and horror. He laid his cloak over her; put his arm round her.

“Your stars did not foretell you this, Torfrida.” He spoke not bitterly, but in utter sadness.

She burst into an agony of weeping.

“My stars at least foretold me nothing but woe, since first I saw your face.”

“Why did you marry me, then?” asked he, half angrily.

“Because I loved you. Because I love you still.”

“Then you do not regret?”

“Never, never, never! I am quite happy,—quite happy. Why not?”

A low murmur from the men made them look up. They were near enough to the town to hear,—only too much. They heard the tramp of men, shouts and yells. Then the shrill cries of women. All dull and muffled the sounds came to them through the still night; and they lay there spell-bound, as in a nightmare, as men assisting at some horrible tragedy, which they had no power to prevent. Then there was a glare, and a wisp of smoke against the black sky, and then a house began burning brightly, and then another.

“This is the Frenchman’s faith!”

And all the while, as the sack raged in the town below, the minster stood above, dark, silent, and safe. The church had provided for herself, by sacrificing the children beneath her fostering shadow.

They waited nearly an hour: but no fugitives came out.

“Come, men,” said Hereward, wearily, “we may as well to the boats.”

And so they went, walking on like men in a dream, as yet too stunned to realize to themselves the hopeless horror of their situation. Only Hereward and Torfrida saw it all, looking back on the splendid past,—the splendid hopes for the future: glory, honor, an earldom, a free Danish England,—and this was all that was left!

“No it is not!” cried Torfrida suddenly, as if answering her own unspoken thoughts, and his. “Love is still left. The gallows and the stake cannot take that away.” And she clung closer to her husband’s side, and he again to hers.

They reached the shore, and told their tale to their comrades. Whither now?

“To Well. To the wide mere,” said Hereward.

“But their ships will hunt us out there.”

“We shall need no hunting. We must pick up the men at Cissham. You would not leave them to be murdered, too, as we have left the Ely men?”

No. They would go to Well. And then?

“The Bruneswald, and the merry greenwood,” said Hereward.

“Hey for the merry greenwood!” shouted Leofric the Deacon. And the men, in the sudden delight of finding any place, any purpose, answered with a lusty cheer.

“Brave hearts,” said Hereward. “We will live and die together like Englishmen.”

“We will, we will, Viking.”

“Where shall we stow the mare?” asked Geri, “the boats are full already.”

“Leave her to me. On board, Torfrida.”

He got on board last, leading the mare by the bridle.

“Swim, good lass!” said he, as they pushed off; and the good lass, who had done it many a time before, waded in, and was soon swimming behind. Hereward turned, and bent over the side in the darkness. There was a strange gurgle, a splash, and a swirl. He turned round, and sat upright again. They rowed on.

“That mare will never swim all the way to Well,” said one.

“She will not need it,” said Hereward.

“Why,” cried Torfrida, feeling in the darkness, “she is loose. What is this in your hand? Your dagger! And wet!”

“Mare Swallow is at the bottom of the reach. We could never have got her to Well.”

“And you have—” cried a dozen voices.

“Do you think that I would let a cursed Frenchman—ay, even William’s self—say that he had bestridden Hereward’s mare?”

None answered: but Torfrida, as she laid her head upon her husband’s bosom, felt the great tears running down from his cheek on to her own.

None spoke a word. The men were awe-stricken. There was something despairing and ill-omened in the deed. And yet there was a savage grandeur in it, which bound their savage hearts still closer to their chief.

And so mare Swallow’s bones lie somewhere in the peat unto this day.

They got to Well; they sent out spies to find the men who had been “wasting Cissham with fire and sword”; and at last brought them in. Ill news, as usual, had travelled fast. They had heard of the fall of Ely, and hidden themselves “in a certain very small island which is called Stimtench,” where, thinking that the friends in search of them were Frenchmen in pursuit, they hid themselves among the high reeds. There two of them—one Starkwolf by name, the other Broher—hiding near each other, “thought that, as they were monks, it might conduce to their safety if they had shaven crowns; and set to work with their swords to shave each other’s heads as well as they could. But at last, by their war-cries and their speech, recognizing each other, they left off fighting,”