Hereward, the Last of the English Part 34

As they rode side by side, Hereward got more details of the fight.

"I knew it would fall out so. I foretold it!" said Thord. "I had a dream.

I saw us come to English land, and fight; and I saw the banners floating.

And before the English army was a great witchwife, and rode upon a wolf, and he had a corpse in his b.l.o.o.d.y jaws. And when he had eaten one up, she threw him another, till he had swallowed all."

"Did she throw him thine?" asked Martin, who ran holding by the stirrup.

"That did she, and eaten I saw myself. Yet here I am alive."

"Then thy dreams were naught."

"I do not know that. The wolf may have me yet."

"I fear thou art fey." [Footnote: Prophesying his own death.]

"What the devil is it to thee if I be?"

"Naught. But be comforted. I am a necromancer; and this I know by my art, that the weapon that will slay thee was never forged in Flanders here."

"There was another man had a dream," said Thord, turning from Martin angrily. "He was standing in the king's s.h.i.+p, and he saw a great witchwife with a fork and a trough stand on the island. And he saw a fowl on every s.h.i.+p's stem, a raven, or else an eagle, and he heard the witchwife sing an evil song."

By this time they were in St. Omer.

Hereward rode straight to the Countess Judith's house. He never had entered it yet, and was likely to be attacked if he entered it now. But when the door was opened, he thrust in with so earnest and sad a face that the servants let him pa.s.s, but not without growling and motions as of getting their weapons.

"I come in peace, my men, I come in peace: this is no time for brawls.

Where is the steward, or one of the Countess's ladies? Tell her, madam, that Hereward waits her commands, and entreats her, in the name of St.

Mary and all Saints, to vouchsafe him one word in private."

The lady hurried into the bower. The next moment Judith hurried out into the hall, her fair face blanched, her fair eyes wide with terror.

Hereward fell on his knee.

"What is this? It must be bad news if you bring it."

"Madam, the grave covers all feuds. Earl Tosti was a very valiant hero; and would to G.o.d that we had been friends!"

She did not hear the end of the sentence, but fell back with a shriek into the women's arms.

Hereward told them all that they needed to know of that fratricidal strife; and then to Thord Gunlaugsson,--

"Have you any token that this is true? Mind what I warned you, if you lied!"

"This have I, Earl and ladies," and he drew from his bosom a reliquary.

"Ulf the marshal took this off his neck, and bade me give it to none but his lady. Therefore, with your pardon, Sir Earl, I did not tell you that I had it, not knowing whether you were an honest man."

"Thou hast done well, and an honest man thou shall find me. Come home, and I will feed thee at my own table; for I have been a sea-rover and a Viking myself."

They left the reliquary with the ladies, and went.

"See to this good man, Martin."

"That will I, as the apple of my eye."

And Hereward went into Torfrida's room.

"I have news, news!"

"So have I."

"Harold Hardraade is slain, and Tosti too!"

"Where? how?"

"Harold G.o.dwinsson slew them by York."

"Brother has slain brother? O G.o.d that died on cross!" murmured Torfrida, "when will men look to thee, and have mercy on their own souls? But, Hereward, I have news,--news more terrible by far. It came an hour ago. I have been dreading your coming back."

"Say on. If Harold Hardraade is dead, no worse can happen."

"But Harold G.o.dwinsson is dead!"

"Dead! Who next? William of Normandy? The world seems coming to an end, as the monks say it will soon." [Footnote: There was a general rumor abroad that the end of the world was at hand, that the "one thousand years" of prophecy had expired.]

"A great battle has been fought at a place they call Heathfield."

"Close by Hastings? Close to the landing-place? Harold must have flown thither back from York. What a captain the man is, after all."

"Was. He is dead, and all the G.o.dwinssons, and England lost."

If Torfrida had feared the effect of her news, her heart was lightened at once as Hereward answered haughtily,--

"England lost? Suss.e.x is not England, nor Wess.e.x either, any more than Harold was king thereof. England lost? Let the tanner try to cross the Watling street, and he will find out that he has another stamp of Englishmen to deal with."

"Hereward, Hereward, do not be unjust to the dead. Men say--the Normans say--that they fought like heroes."

"I never doubted that; but it makes me mad--as it does all Eastern and Northern men--to hear these Wess.e.x churls and G.o.dwinssons calling themselves all England."

Torfrida shook her head. To her, as to most foreigners, Wess.e.x and the southeast counties were England; the most civilized; the most Norman; the seat of royalty; having all the prestige of law, and order, and wealth.

And she was shrewd enough to see, that as it was the part of England which had most sympathy with Norman civilization, it was the very part where the Norman could most easily gain and keep his hold. The event proved that Torfrida was right: but all she said was, "It is dangerously near to France, at least."

"It is that. I would sooner see 100,000 French north of the Humber, than 10,000 in Kent and Suss.e.x, where he can hurry over supplies and men every week. It is the starting-point for him, if he means to conquer England piecemeal."

"And he does."

"And he shall not!" and Hereward started up, and walked to and fro. "If all the G.o.dwinssons be dead, there are Leofricssons left, I trust, and Siward's kin, and the Gospatricks in Northumbria. Ah? Where were my nephews in the battle? Not killed too, I trust?"

"They were not in the battle."