Hereward, the Last of the English Part 22

And when they had pa.s.sed down the street, tramping and jingling and caracoling, young Arnulf ran into the house with eyes full of tears, because he was not allowed to go likewise; and with a message for Torfrida, from no other than Hereward.

"I was to tell you this and no more: that if he meets your favor in the field, he that wears it will have hard work to keep it."

Torfrida turned pale as ashes; first with wild delight, and then with wild fear.

"Ha?--does he know who--Sir Ascelin?"

"He knows well enough. Why not? Every one knows. Are you afraid that he is not a match for that great bullock?"

"Afraid? Who said I was afraid? Sir Ascelin is no bullock either; but a courteous and gallant knight."

"You are as pale as death, and so--"

"Never mind what I am," said she, putting her hands over his eyes, and kissing him again and again, as a vent for her joy.

The next few days seemed years for length: but she could wait. She was sure of him now. She needed no charms. "Perhaps," thought she, as she looked in the gla.s.s, "I was my own charm." And, indeed, she had every fair right to say so.

At last news came.

She was sitting over her books; her mother, as usual, was praying in the churches; when the old Lapp nurse came in. A knight was at the door. His name, he said, was Siward the White, and he came from Hereward.

From Hereward! He was at least alive: he might be wounded, though; and she rushed out of the chamber into the hall, looking never more beautiful; her color heightened by the quick beating of her heart; her dark hair, worn loose and long, after the fas.h.i.+on of those days, streaming around her and behind her.

A handsome young man stood in the door-way, armed from head to foot.

"You are Siward, Hereward's nephew?"

He bowed a.s.sent. She took him by the hands, and, after the fas.h.i.+on of those days, kissed him on the small s.p.a.ce on either cheek, which was left bare between the nose-piece and the chain-mail.

"You are welcome. Hereward is--is alive?"

"Alive and gay, and all the more gay at being able to send to the Lady Torfrida by me something which was once hers, and now is hers once more."

And he drew from his bosom the ribbon of the knight of St. Valeri.

She almost s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his hand, in her delight at recovering her favor.

"How--where--did he get this?"

"He saw it, in the thick of the tournament, on the helm of a knight who, he knew, had vowed to maim him or take his life; and, wis.h.i.+ng to give him a chance of fulfilling his vow, rode him down, horse and man. The knight's Norman friends attacked us in force; and we Flemings, with Hereward at our head, beat them off, and overthrew so many, that we are almost all horsed at the Norman's expense. Three more knights, with their horses, fell before Hereward's lance."

"And what of this favor?"

"He sends it to its owner. Let her say what shall be done with it."

Torfrida was on the point of saying, "He has won it; let him wear it for my sake." But she paused. She longed to see Hereward face to face; to speak to him, if but one word. If she allowed him to wear the favor, she must at least have the pleasure of giving it with her own hands. And she paused.

"And he is killed?"

"Who? Hereward?"

"Sir Ascelin."

"Only bruised; but he shall be killed, if you will."

"G.o.d forbid!"

"Then," said Siward, mistaking her meaning, "all I have to tell Hereward is, it seems, that he has wasted his blow. He will return, therefore, to the Knight of St. Valeri his horse, and, if the Lady Torfrida chooses, the favor which he has taken by mistake from its rightful owner." And he set his teeth, and could not prevent stamping on the ground, in evident pa.s.sion. There was a tone, too, of deep disappointment in his voice, which made Torfrida look keenly at him. Why should Hereward's nephew feel so deeply about that favor? And as she looked,--could that man be the youth Siward? Young he was, but surely thirty years old at least. His face could hardly be seen, hidden by helmet and nose-piece above, and mailed up to the mouth below. But his long mustache was that of a grown man; his vast breadth of shoulder, his hard hand, his st.u.r.dy limbs,--these surely belonged not to the slim youth whom she had seen from her lattice riding at Hereward's side. And, as she looked, she saw upon his hand the bear of which her nurse had told her.

"You are deceiving me!" and she turned first deadly pale, and then crimson. "You--you are Hereward himself!"

"I? Pardon me, my lady. Ten minutes ago I should have been glad enough to have been Hereward. Now, I am thankful enough that I am only Siward; and not Hereward, who wins for himself contempt by overthrowing a knight more fortunate than he." And he bowed, and turned away to go.

"Hereward! Hereward!" and, in her pa.s.sion, she seized him by both his hands. "I know you! I know that device upon your hand. At last! at last my hero,--my idol! How I have longed for this moment! How I have toiled for it, and not in vain! Good heavens! what am I saying?" And she tried, in her turn, to escape from Hereward's mailed arms.

"Then you do not care for that man?"

"For him? Here! take my favor, wear it before all the world, and guard it as you only can; and let them all know that Torfrida is your love."

And with hands trembling with pa.s.sion, she bound the ribbon round his helm.

"Yes! I am Hereward," he almost shouted; "the Berserker, the brain-hewer, the land-thief, the sea-thief, the feeder of wolf and raven,--Aoi! Ere my beard was grown, I was a match for giants. How much more now, that I am a man whom ladies love? Many a champion has quailed before my very glance.

How much more, now that I wear Torfrida's gift? Aoi!"

Torfrida had often heard that wild battle-cry of Aoi! of which the early minstrels were so fond,--with which the great poet who wrote the "Song of Roland" ends every paragraph; which has now fallen (displaced by our modern Hurrah), to be merely a sailor's call or hunter's cry. But she shuddered as she heard it close to her ears, and saw, from the flas.h.i.+ng eye and dilated nostril, the temper of the man on whom she had thrown herself so utterly. She laid her hand upon his lips.

"Silence! silence for pity's sake. Remember that you are in a maiden's house; and think of her good fame."

Hereward collected himself instantly, and then holding her at arm's length, gazed upon her. "I was mad a moment. But is it not enough to make me mad to look at you?"

"Do not look at me so, I cannot bear it," said she, hanging down her head.

"You forget that I am a poor weak girl."

"Ah! we are rough wooers, we sea-rovers. We cannot pay glozing French compliments like your knights here, who fawn on a damsel with soft words in the hall, and will kiss the dust off their queen's feet, and die for a hair of their G.o.ddess's eyebrow; and then if they catch her in the forest, show themselves as very ruffians as if they were Paynim Moors. We are rough, lady, we English: but those who trust us, find us true."

"And I can trust you?" she asked, still trembling.

"On G.o.d's cross there round your neck," and he took her crucifix and kissed it. "You only I love, you only I will love, and you will I love in all honesty, before the angels of heaven, till we be wedded man and wife.

Who but a fool would soil the flower which he means to wear before all the world?"

"I knew Hereward was n.o.ble! I knew I had not trusted him in vain!"

"I kept faith and honor with the Princess of Cornwall, when I had her at my will, and shall I not keep faith and honor with you?"

"The Princess of Cornwall?" asked Torfrida.

"Do not be jealous, fair queen. I brought her safe to her betrothed; and wedded she is, long ago. I will tell you that story some day. And now--I must go."