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

“Does Hereward know that?” asked Ulfketyl, looking keenly at her.

“What is that to thee?” said she, fiercely, and flung out of the minster. But Hereward did not know. There were many things abroad of which she told him nothing.

They went back and were landed at Deeping town, and making their way along the King Street, or old Roman road, to Bourne. Thereon a man met them, running. They had best stay where they were. The Frenchmen were out, and there was fighting up in Bourne.

Alftruda’s knights wanted to push on, to see after the Bourne folk; Judith’s knights wanted to push on to help the French; and the two parties were ready to fight each other. There was a great tumult. The ladies had much ado to still it.

Alftruda said that it might be but a countryman’s rumor; that, at least, it was shame to quarrel with their guests. At last it was agreed that two knights should gallop on into Bourne, and bring back news.

But those knights never came back. So the whole body moved on Bourne, and there they found out the news for themselves.

Hereward had gone home as soon as they had departed, and sat down to eat and drink. His manner was sad and strange. He drank much at the midday meal, and then lay down to sleep, setting guards as usual.

After a while he leapt up with a shriek and a shudder.

They ran to him, asking whether he was ill.

“Ill? No. Yes. Ill at heart. I have had a dream,—an ugly dream. I thought that all the men I ever slew on earth came to me with their wounds all gaping, and cried at me, ‘Our luck then, thy luck now.’ Chaplain! is there not a verse somewhere,—Uncle Brand said it to me on his deathbed,—‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed’?”

“Surely the master is fey,” whispered Gwenoch in fear to the chaplain. “Answer him out of Scripture.”

“Text? None such that I know of,” quoth Priest Ailward, a graceless fellow who had taken Leofric’s place. “If that were the law, it would be but few honest men that would die in their beds. Let us drink, and drive girls’ fancies out of our heads.”

So they drank again; and Hereward fell asleep once more.

“It is thy turn to watch, Priest,” said Gwenoch to Ailward. “So keep the door well, for I am worn out with hunting,” and so fell asleep.

Ailward shuffled into his harness, and went to the door. The wine was heady; the sun was hot. In a few minutes he was asleep likewise.

Hereward slept, who can tell how long? But at last there was a bustle, a heavy fall; and waking with a start, he sprang up. He saw Ailward lying dead across the gate, and above him a crowd of fierce faces, some of which he knew too well. He saw Ivo Taillebois; he saw Oger; he saw his fellow-Breton, Sir Raoul de Dol; he saw Sir Ascelin; he saw Sir Aswa, Thorold’s man; he saw Sir Hugh of Evermue, his own son-in-law; and with them he saw, or seemed to see, the Ogre of Cornwall, and O’Brodar of Ivark, and Dirk Hammerhand of Walcheren, and many another old foe long underground; and in his ear rang the text,—“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” And Hereward knew that his end was come.

There was no time to put on mail or helmet. He saw the old sword and shield hang on a perch, and tore them down. As he girded the sword on Winter sprang to his side.

“I have three lances,—two for me and one for you, and we can hold the door against twenty.”

“Till they fire the house over our heads. Shall Hereward die like a wolf in a cave? Forward, all Hereward’s men!”

And he rushed out upon his fate. No man followed him, save Winter. The rest, disperst, unarmed, were running hither and thither helplessly.

“Brothers in arms, and brothers in Valhalla!” shouted Winter as he rushed after him.

A knight was running to and fro in the Court, shouting Hereward’s name. “Where is the villain? Wake! We have caught thee asleep at last.”

“I am out,” quoth Hereward, as the man almost stumbled against him; “and this is in.”

And through shield, hauberk, and body, as says Gaima, went Hereward’s javelin, while all drew back, confounded for the moment at that mighty stroke.

“Felons!” shouted Hereward, “your king has given me his truce; and do you dare break my house, and kill my folk? Is that your Norman law? And is this your Norman honor?—To take a man unawares over his meat? Come on, traitors all, and get what you can of a naked man; [Footnote: i. e. without armor.] you will buy it dear—Guard my back, Winter!”

And he ran right at the press of knights; and the fight began.

“He gored them like a wood-wild boar, As long as that lance might endure,”

says Gaimar.

“And when that lance did break in hand, Full fell enough he smote with brand.”

And as he hewed on silently, with grinding teeth and hard, glittering eyes, of whom did he think? Of Alftruda?

Not so. But of that pale ghost, with great black hollow eyes, who sat in Crowland, with thin bare feet, and sackcloth on her tender limbs, watching, praying, longing, loving, uncomplaining. That ghost had been for many a month the background of all his thoughts and dreams. It was so clear before his mind’s eye now, that, unawares to himself, he shouted “Torfrida!” as he struck, and struck the harder at the sound of his old battle-cry.

And now he is all wounded and be-bled; and Winter, who has fought back to back with him, has fallen on his face; and Hereward stands alone, turning from side to side, as he sweeps his sword right and left till the forest rings with the blows, but staggering as he turns. Within a ring of eleven corpses he stands. Who will go in and make the twelfth?

A knight rushes in, to fall headlong down, cloven through the helm: but Hereward’s blade snaps short, and he hurls it away as his foes rush in with a shout of joy. He tears his shield from his left arm, and with it, says Gaimar, brains two more.

But the end is come. Taillebois and Evermue are behind him now; four lances are through his back, and bear him down to his knees.

“Cut off his head, Breton!” shouted Ivo. Raoul de Dol rushed forward, sword in hand. At that cry Hereward lifted up his dying head. One stroke more ere it was all done forever.

And with a shout of “Torfrida!” which made the Bruneswald ring, he hurled the shield full in the Breton’s face, and fell forward dead.

The knights drew their lances from that terrible corpse slowly and with caution, as men who have felled a bear, yet