Ahoi! Martin the silent! Where learnt you so suddenly the trade of preaching? I thought you kept your wind for your running this two years past. You would make as good a talker among the Witan as Godwin himself. You give it us all, word for word, and voice and gesture withal, as if you were King Edwards French Chancellor.
Martin smiled. I am like Falada the horse, my lords, who could only speak to his own true princess. Why I held my tongue of late was only lest they should cut my head off for talking, as they did poor Faladas.
Thou art a very crafty knave, said Brand, and hast had clerk-learning in thy time, I can see, and made bad use of it. I misdoubt very much that thou art some runaway monk.
That am I not, by St. Peters chains! said Martin, in an eager, terrified voice. Lord Hereward, I came hither as your fathers messenger and servant. You will see me safe out of this abbey, like an honorable gentleman!
I will. All I know of him, uncle, is that he used to tell me stories, when I was a boy, of enchanters, and knights, and dragons, and such like, and got into trouble for filling my head with such fancies. Now let him tell his story in peace.
He shall; but I misdoubt the fellow very much. He talks as if he knew Latin; and what business has a foot-running slave to do that?
So Martin went on, somewhat abashed. And, said your father, justice I will have, and leave injustice, and the overlooking of it, to those who wish to profit thereby.
And at that Godwin smiled, and said to the King, The Earl is wise, as usual, and speaks like a very Solomon. Your Majesty must, in spite of your own tenderness of heart, have these letters of outlawry made out.
Then all our men murmured,and I as loud as any. But old Surturbrand the housecarle did more; for out he stepped to your fathers side, and spoke right up before the King.
Bonny times, he said, I have lived to see, when a lad of Earl Oslacs blood is sent out of the land, a beggar and a wolfs head, for playing a boys trick or two, and upsetting a shaveling priest! We managed such wild young colts better, we Vikings who conquered the Danelagh. If Canute had had a son like Herewardas would to God he had had!he would have dealt with him as old Swend Forkbeard (God grant I meet him in Valhalla, in spite of all priests!) did by Canute himself when he was young, and kicked and plunged awhile at being first bitted and saddled.
What does the man say? asked the King, for old Surturbrand was talking broad Danish.
He is a housecarle of mine, Lord King, a good man and true; but old age and rough Danish blood has made him forget that he stands before kings and earls.
By , Earl! says Surturbrand, I have fought knee to knee beside a braver king than that there, and nobler earls than ever a one here; and was never afraid, like a free Dane, to speak my mind to them, by sea or land. And if the King, with his French ways, does not understand a plain mans talk, the two earls yonder do right well, and I say,Deal by this lad in the good old fashion. Give him half a dozen long ships, and what crews he can get together, and send him out, as Canute would have done, to seek his fortune like a Viking; and if he comes home with plenty of wounds, and plenty of plunder, give him an earldom as he deserves. Do you ask your Countess, Earl Godwin:she is of the right Danish blood, God bless her! though she is your wife,and see if she does not know how to bring a naughty lad to his senses.
Then Harold the Earl said: The old man is right. King, listen to what he says. And he told him all, quite eagerly.
How did you know that? Can you understand French?
I am a poor idiot, give me a halfpenny, said Martin, in a doleful voice, as he threw into his face and whole figure a look of helpless stupidity and awkwardness, which set them both laughing.
But Hereward checked himself. And you think he was in earnest?
As sure as there are holy crows in Crowland. But it was of no use. Your father got a parchment, with an outlandish Norman seal hanging to it, and sent me off with it that same night to give to the lawman. So wolfs head you are, my lord, and there is no use crying over spilt milk.
And Harold spoke for me? It will be as well to tell Abbot Leofric that, in case he be inclined to turn traitor, and refuse to open the gates. Once outside them, I care not for mortal man.
My poor boy, there will be many a one whom thou hast wronged only too ready to lie in wait for thee, now thy life is in every mans hand. If the outlawry is published, thou hadst best start to-night, and get past Lincoln before morning.
I shall stay quietly here, and get a good nights rest; and then ride out to-morrow morning in the face of the whole shire. No, not a word! You would not have me sneak away like a coward?
Brand smiled and shrugged his shoulders: being very much of the same mind.
At least, go north.
And why north?
You have no quarrel in Northumberland, and the Kings writ runs very slowly there, if at all. Old Siward Digre may stand your friend.
He? He is a fast friend of my fathers.
What of that? the old Viking will like you none the less for having shown a touch of his own temper. Go to him, I say, and tell him that I sent you.
But he is fighting the Scots beyond the Forth.
So much the better. There will be good work for you to do. And Gislebert of Ghent is up there too, I hear, trying to settle himself among the Scots. He is your mothers kinsman; and as for your being an outlaw, he wants hard hitters and hard riders, and all is fish that comes to his net. Find him out, too, and tell him I sent you.
You are a good old uncle, said Hereward. Why were you not a soldier?
Brand laughed somewhat sadly.
If I had been a soldier, lad, where would you have looked for a friend this day? No. God has done what was merciful with me and my sins. May he do the same by thee and thine.
Hereward made an impatient movement. He disliked any word which seemed likely to soften his own hardness of heart. But he kissed his uncle lovingly on both cheeks.
By the by, Martin,any message from my lady mother?
None!
Quite right and pious. I am an enemy to Holy Church and therefore to her. Good night, uncle.
Hey? asked Brand; where is that footman,Martin you call him? I must have another word with him.
But Martin was gone.
No matter. I shall question him sharply enough to-morrow, I warrant.
And Hereward went out to his lodging; while the good Prior went to his prayers.
When Hereward entered his room, Martin started out of the darkness, and followed him in. Then he shut to the door carefully, and pulled out a bag.
There was no message from my lady: but there was this.
The bag was full of money.
Why did you not tell me of this before?
Never show money before a monk.
Villain! would you mistrust my uncle?
Any man with a shaven crown. St. Peter is his God and Lord and conscience; and if he saw but the shine of a penny, for St. Peter he would want it.
And he shall have it, quoth Hereward; and flung out of the room, and into his uncles.
Uncle, I have money. I am come to pay back what I took from the Steward, and as much more into the bargain. And he told out eight-and-thirty pieces.
Thank God and all his saints! cried Brand, weeping abundantly for joy; for he had acquired, by long devotion, the donum lachrymarum,that lachrymose and somewhat hysterical temperament common among pious monks, and held to be a mark of grace.
Blessed St. Peter, thou art repaid; and thou wilt be merciful!
Brand believed, in common with all monks then, that Hereward had robbed, not merely the Abbey of Peterborough, but, what was more, St. Peter himself; thereby converting into an implacable and internecine foe the chief of the Apostles, the rock on which was founded the whole Church.
Now, uncle, said Hereward, do me one good deed in return. Promise me that, if you can help it, none of my poor housecarles shall suffer for my sins. I led them into trouble. I am punished. I have made restitution,at least to St. Peter. See that my father and mother, if they be the Christians they call themselves, forgive and forget all offences except mine.
I will; so help me all saints and our Lord. O my boy, my boy, thou shouldst have been a kings thane, and not an outlaw!
And he hurried off with the news to the Abbot.
When Hereward returned to his room, Martin was gone.
Farewell, good men of Peterborough, said Hereward, as he leapt into the saddle next morning. I had made a vow against you, and came to try you; to see whether you would force me to fulfil it or not. But you have been so kind that I have half repented of it; and the evil shall not come in the days of Abbot Leofric, nor of Brand the Prior, though it may come in the days of Herluin the Steward, if he live long enough.
What do you mean, you incarnate fiend, only fit to worship Thor and Odin? asked Brand.
That I would burn Goldenborough, and Herluin the Steward within it, ere I die. I fear I shall do it; I fear I must do it. Ten years ago come Lammas, Herluin bade light the peat-stack under me. Do you recollect?
And so he did, the hound! quoth Brand. I had forgotten that.
Little Hereward never forgets foe or friend. Ever since, on Lammas night,hold still, horse!I dream of fire and flame, and of Goldenborough in the glare of it. If it is written in the big book, happen it must; if not, so much the better for Goldenborough, for it is a pretty place, and honest Englishmen in it. Only see that there be not too many Frenchmen crept in when I come back, beside our French friend Herluin; and see, too, that there be not a peat-stack handy: a word is enough to wise men like you. Good by!
God help thee, thou sinful boy! said the Abbot.
Hereward, Hereward! Come back! cried Brand.
But the boy had spurred his horse through the gateway, and was far down the road.
Leofric, my friend, said Brand, sadly, this is my sin, and no mans else. And heavy penance will I do for it, till that lad returns in peace.
Your sin?
Mine, Abbot. I persuaded his mother to send him hither to be a monk. Alas! alas! How long will men try to be wiser than Him who maketh men?
I do not understand thee, quoth the Abbot. And no more he did.
It was four oclock on a May morning, when Hereward set out to see the world, with good armor on his back, good weapon by his side, good horse between his knees, and good money in his purse. What could a lad of eighteen want more, who under the harsh family rule of those times had known nothing of a fathers, and but too little of a mothers, love? He rode away northward through the Bruneswald, over the higher land of Lincolnshire, through primeval glades of mighty oak and ash, holly and thorn, swarming with game, which was as highly preserved then as now, under Canutes severe forest laws. The yellow roes stood and stared at him knee-deep in the young fern; the pheasant called his hens out to feed in the dewy grass; the blackbird and thrush sang out from every bough; the wood-lark trilled above the high oak-tops, and sank down on them as his song sank down. And Hereward rode on, rejoicing in it all. It was a fine world in the Bruneswald. What was it then outside? Not to him, as to us, a world circular, sailed round, circumscribed, mapped, botanized, zoologized; a tiny planet about which everybody knows, or thinks they know everything: but a world infinite, magical, supernatural,because unknown; a vast flat plain reaching no one knew whence or where, save that the mountains stood on the four corners thereof to keep it steady, and the four winds of heaven blew out of them; and in the centre, which was to him the Bruneswald, such things as he saw; but beyond, things unspeakable,dragons, giants, rocs, orcs, witch-whales, griffins, chimeras, satyrs, enchanters, Paynims, Saracen Emirs and Sultans, Kaisers of Constantinople, Kaisers of Ind and of Cathay, and beyond them again of lands as yet unknown. At the very least he could go to Brittany, to the forest of Brocheliaunde, where (so all men said) fairies might be seen bathing in the fountains, and possibly be won and wedded by a bold and dexterous knight after the fashion of Sir Gruelan. [Footnote: Wace, author of the Roman de Rou, went to Brittany a generation later, to see those same fairies: but had no sport; and sang,
Fol i alai, fol men revins;
Folie quis, por fol me tins]
What was there not to be seen and conquered? Where would he go? Where would he not go? For the spirit of Odin the Goer, the spirit which has sent his children round the world, was strong within him. He would go to Ireland, to the Ostmen, or Irish Danes men at Dublin, Waterford, or Cork, and marry some beautiful Irish Princess with gray eyes, and raven locks, and saffron smock, and great gold bracelets from her native hills. No; he would go off to the Orkneys, and join Bruce and Ranald, and the Vikings of the northern seas, and all the hot blood which had found even Norway too hot to hold it; and sail through witch-whales and icebergs to Iceland and Greenland, and the sunny lands which they said lay even beyond, across the all but unknown ocean. He would go up the Baltic to the Jomsburg Vikings, and fight against Lett and Esthonian heathen, and pierce inland, perhaps, through Puleyn and the bison forests, to the land from whence came the magic swords and the old Persian coins which he had seen so often in the halls of his forefathers. No; he would go South, to the land of sun and wine; and see the magicians of Cordova and Seville; and beard Mussulman hounds worshipping their Mahomets; and perhaps bring home an Emirs daughter,
With more gay gold about her middle,
Than would buy half Northumberlee.
Or he would go up the Straits, and on to Constantinople and the great Kaiser of the Greeks, and join the Varanger Guard, and perhaps, like Harold Hardraade in his own days, after being cast to the lion for carrying off a fair Greek lady, tear out the monsters tongue with his own hands, and show the Easterns what a Vikings son could do. And as he dreamed of the infinite world and its infinite wonders, the enchanters he might meet, the jewels he might find, the adventures he might essay, he held that he must succeed in all, with hope and wit and a strong arm; and forgot altogether that, mixed up with the cosmogony of an infinite flat plain called the Earth, there was joined also the belief in a flat roof above called Heaven, on which (seen at times in visions through clouds and stars) sat saints, angels, and archangels, forevermore harping on their golden harps, and knowing neither vanity nor vexation of spirit, lust nor pride, murder nor war;and underneath a floor, the name whereof was Hell; the mouths whereof (as all men knew) might be seen on Hecla and Aetna and Stromboli; and the fiends heard within, tormenting, amid fire, and smoke, and clanking chains, the souls of the eternally lost.
As he rode on slowly though cheerfully, as a man who will not tire his horse at the beginning of a long days journey, and knows not where he shall pass the night, he was aware of a man on foot coming up behind him at a slow, steady, loping, wolf-like trot, which in spite of its slowness gained ground on him so fast, that he saw at once that the man could be no common runner.