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

insinuating, moreover, that Hereward might as well have brought that mare home with him as a trophy.

Hereward answered, in his boasting vein, that he would bring home that mare, or aught else that he had a liking to.

“You will find it not so easy. Her owner, they say, is a mighty strong churl of a horse-breeder, Dirk Hammerhand by name; and as for cutting his throat, that you must not do; for he has been loyal to Countess Gertrude, and sent her horses whenever she needed.”

“One may pick a fair quarrel with him nevertheless.”

“Then you must bide such a buffet as you never abode before. They say his arm has seven men’s strength; and whosoever visits him, he challenges to give and take a blow; but every man that has taken a blow as yet has never needed another.”

“Hereward will have need of his magic head-piece, if he tries that adventure,” quoth another.

“Ay,” retorted the first speaker; “but the helmet may stand the rap well enough, and yet the brains inside be the worse.”

“Not a doubt. I knew a man once, who was so strong, that he would shake a nut till the kernel went to powder, and yet never break the shell.”

“That is a lie!” quoth Hereward. And so it was, and told purposely to make him expose himself.

Whereon high words followed, which Torfrida tried in vain to stop. Hereward was flushed with ire and scorn.

“Magic armor, forsooth!” cried he at last. “What care I for armor or for magic? I will wager to you”—“my armor,” he was on the point of saying, but he checked himself in time—“any horse in my stable, that I go in my shirt to Scaldmariland, and bring back that mare single-handed.”

“Hark to the Englishman. He has turned Berserk at last, like his forefathers. You will surely start in a pair of hose as well, or the ladies will be shamed.”

And so forth, till Torfrida was purple with shame, and wished herself fathoms deep; and Adela of France called sternly from the head of the table to ask what the wrangling meant.

“It is only the English Berserker, the Lady Torfrida’s champion,” said some one, in his most courteous tone, “who is not yet as well acquainted with the customs of knighthood as that fair lady hopes to make him hereafter.”

“Torfrida’s champion?” asked Adela, in a tone of surprise, if not scorn.

“If any knight quarrels with my Hereward, he quarrels with Robert himself!” thundered Count Robert. “Silence!”

And so the matter was hushed up.

The banquet ended; and they walked out into the garden to cool their heads, and play at games, and dance.

Torfrida avoided Hereward: but he, with the foolish pertinacity of a man who knows he has had too much wine, and yet pretends to himself that he has not, would follow her, and speak to her.

She turned away more than once. At last she was forced to speak to him.

“So! You have made me a laughing-stock to these knights. You have scorned at my gifts. You have said—and before these men, too—that you need neither helm nor hauberk. Give me them back, then, Berserker as you are, and go sleep off your wine.”

“That will I,” laughed Hereward boisterously.

“You are tipsy,” said she, “and do not know what you say.”

“You are angry, and do not know what you say. Hearken, proud lass. I will take care of one thing, and that is, that you shall speak the truth.”

“Did I not say that you were tipsy?”

“Pish! You said that I was a Berserker. And truth you shall speak; for baresark I go to-morrow to the war, and baresark I win that mare or die.”

“That will be very fit for you.”

And the two turned haughtily from each other.

Ere Torfrida went to bed that night, there was a violent knocking. Angry as she was, she was yet anxious enough to hurry out of her chamber, and open the door herself.

Martin Lightfoot stood there with a large leather case, which he flung at her feet somewhat unceremoniously.

“There is some gear of yours,” said he, as it clanged and rattled on the floor.

“What do you mean, man?”

“Only that my master bid me say that he cares as little for his own life as you do.” And he turned away.

She caught him by the arm:—

“What is the meaning of this? What is in this mail?”

“You should know best. If young folks cannot be content when they are well off, they will go farther and fare worse,” says Martin Lightfoot. And he slipt from her grasp and fled into the night.

She took the mail to her room and opened it. It contained the magic armor.

All her anger was melted away. She cried; she blamed herself. He would be killed; his blood would be on her head. She would have carried it back to him with her own hands; she would have entreated him on her knees to take it back. But how face the courtiers? and how find him? Very probably, too, he was by that time hopelessly drunk. And at that thought she drew herself into herself, and trying to harden her heart again, went to bed, but not to sleep; and bitterly she cried as she thought over the old hag’s croon:—

“Quick joy, long pain, You will take your gift again.”

It might have been five o’clock the next morning when the clarion rang down the street. She sprang up and drest herself quickly; but never more carefully or gayly. She heard the tramp of horse-hoofs. He was moving a-field early, indeed. Should she go to the window to bid him farewell? Should she hide herself in just anger?

She looked out stealthily through the blind of the little window in the gable. There rode down the street Robert le Frison in full armor, and behind him, knight after knight, a wall of shining steel. But by his side rode one bare-headed, his long yellow curls floating over his shoulders. His boots had golden spurs, a gilt belt held up his sword; but his only dress was a silk shirt and silk hose. He laughed and sang, and made his horse caracol, and tossed his lance in the air, and caught it by the point, like Taillefer at Hastings, as he passed under the window.

She threw open the blind, careless of all appearances. She would have called to him: but the words choked her; and what should she say?

He looked up boldly, and smiled.

“Farewell, fair lady mine. Drunk I was last night: but not so drunk as to forget