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

Torfrida had special opportunities of hearing about Hereward; for young Arnulf was to her a pet and almost a foster-brother, and gladly escaped from the convent to tell her the news.

He had now had his first taste of the royal game of war. He had seen Hereward fight by day, and heard him tell stories over the camp-fire by night. Hereward’s beauty, Hereward’s prowess, Hereward’s songs, Hereward’s strange adventures and wanderings, were forever in the young boy’s mouth; and he spent hours in helping Torfrida to guess who the great unknown might be; and then went back to Hereward, and artlessly told him of his beautiful friend, and how they had talked of him, and of nothing else; and in a week or two Hereward knew all about Torfrida; and Torfrida knew—what filled her heart with joy—that Hereward was bound to no lady-love, and owned (so he had told Arnulf) no mistress save the sword on his thigh.

Whereby there had grown up in the hearts of both the man and the maid a curiosity, which easily became the parent of love.

But when Baldwin the great Marquis came to St. Omer, to receive the homage of Eustace of Guisnes, young Arnulf had run into Torfrida’s chamber in great anxiety. “Would his grandfather approve of what he had done? Would he allow his new friendship with the unknown?”

“What care I?” said Torfrida. “But if your friend wishes to have the Marquis’s favor, he would be wise to trust him, at least so far as to tell his name.”

“I have told him so. I have told him that you would tell him so.”

“I? Have you been talking to him about me?”

“Why not?”

“That is not well done, Arnulf, to talk of ladies to men whom they do not know.”

Arnulf looked up, puzzled and pained; for she spoke haughtily.

“I know naught of your new friend. He may be a low-born man, for anything that I can tell.”

“He is not! He is as noble as I am. Everything he says and does—every look—shows it.”

“You are young,—as you have shown by talking of me to him. But I have given you my advice”; and she moved languidly away. “Let him tell your grandfather who he is, or remain suspected.”

The boy went away sadly.

Early the next morning he burst into Torfrida’s room as she was dressing her hair.

“How now? Are these manners for the heir of Flanders?”

“He has told all!”

“He has!” and she started and dropt her comb.

“Pick up that comb, girl. You need not go away. I have no secrets with young gentlemen.”

“I thought you would be glad to hear.”

“I? What can I want in the matter, save that your grandfather should be satisfied that you are entertaining a man worthy to be your guest?”

“And he is worthy: he has told my grandfather who he is.”

“But not you?”

“No. They say I must not know yet. But this I know, that they welcomed him, when he told them, as if he had been an earl’s son; and that he is going with my Uncle Robert against the Frieslanders.”

“And if he be an earl’s son, how comes he here, wandering with rough seamen, and hiding his honest name? He must have done something of which he is ashamed.”

“I shall tell you nothing,” said Arnulf, pouting.

“What care I? I can find out by art magic if I like.”

“I don’t believe all that. Can you find out, for instance, what he has on his throat?”

“A beard.”

“But what is under that beard?”

“A gôitre.”

“You are laughing at me.”

“Of course I am, as I shall at any one who challenges me to find out anything so silly, and so unfit.”

“I shall go.”

“Go then.” For she knew very well that he would come back again.

“Nurse,” said Torfrida to the old Lapp woman, when they were alone, “find out for me what is the name of this strange champion, and what he has beneath his beard.”

“Beneath his beard?”

“Some scar, I suppose, or secret mark. I must know. You will find out for your Torfrida, will you not, nurse?”

“I will make a charm that will bring him to you, were all the icebergs of Quenland between you and him: and then you can see for yourself.”

“No, no, no! not yet, nurse!” and Torfrida smiled. “Only find me out that one thing: that I must know.”

And yet why she wanted to know, she could not tell herself.

The old woman came back to her, ere she went to bed.

“I have found it out all, and more. I know where to get scarlet toadstools, and I put the juice in his men’s ale: they are laughing and roaring now, merry-mad every one of them.”

“But not he?”

“No, no. He is with the Marquis. But in madness comes out truth; and that long hook-nosed body-varlet of his has told us all.”

And she told Torfrida who Hereward was, and the secret mark.

“There is a cross upon his throat, beneath his chin, pricked in after their English fashion.”

Torfrida started.

“Then,—then the spell will not work upon him; the Holy Cross will turn it off.”

“It must be a great Cross and a holy one that will turn off my charms,” said the old hag, with a sneer, “whatever it may do against yours. But on the back of his hand,—that will be a mark to know him by,—there is pricked a bear,—a white bear that he slew.” And she told the story of the fairy bear; which