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.
The man came up; and behold, he was none other than Martin Lightfoot.
What! art thou here? asked Hereward, suspiciously, and half cross at seeing any visitor from the old world which he had just cast off. How gottest thou out of St. Peters last night?
Martins tongue was hanging out of his mouth like a running hounds, but he seemed, like a hound, to perspire through his mouth, for he answered without the least sign of distress, without even pulling in his tongue,
Over the wall, the moment the Priors back was turned. I was not going to wait till I was chained up in some rats-hole with a half-hundred of iron on my leg, and flogged till I confessed that I was what I am not,a runaway monk.
And why art here?
Because I am going with you.
Going with me? said Hereward; what can I do for thee?
I can do for you, said Martin.
What?
Groom your horse, wash your shirt, clean your weapons, find your inn, fight your enemies, cheat your friends,anything and everything. You are going to see the world. I am going with you.
Thou canst be my servant? A right slippery one, I expect, said Hereward, looking down on him with some suspicion.
Some are not the rogues they seem. I can keep my secrets and yours too.
Before I can trust thee with my secrets, I shall expect to know some of thine, said Hereward.
Martin Lightfoot looked up with a cunning smile. A servant can always know his masters secrets if he likes. But that is no reason a master should know his servants.
Thou shalt tell me thine, man, or I shall ride off and leave thee.
Not so easy, my lord. Where that heavy horse can go, Martin Lightfoot can follow. But I will tell you one secret, which I never told to living man. I can read and write like any clerk.
Thou read and write?
Ay, good Latin enough, and Irish too, what is more. And now, because I love you, and because you I will serve, willy nilly, I will tell you all the secrets I have, as long as my breath lasts, for my tongue is rather stiff after that long story about the bell-wether. I was born in Ireland, in Waterford town. My mother was an English slave, one of those that Earl Godwins wifenot this one that is now, Gyda, but the old one, King Canutes sisterused to sell out of England by the score, tied together with ropes, boys and girls from Bristol town. Her master, my father that was (I shall know him again), got tired of her, and wanted to give her away to one of his kernes. She would not have that; so he hung her up hand and foot, and beat her that she died. There was an abbey hard by, and the Church laid on him a penance,all that they dared get out of him,that he should give me to the monks, being then a seven-years boy. Well, I grew up in that abbey; they taught me my fa fa mi fa: but I liked better conning of ballads and hearing stories of ghosts and enchanters, such as I used to tell you. Ill tell you plenty more whenever youre tired. Then they made me work; and that I never could abide at all. Then they beat me every day; and that I could abide still less; but always I stuck to my book, for one thing I saw,that learning is power, my lord; and that the reason why the monks are masters of the land is, they are scholars, and you fighting men are none. Then I fell in love (as young blood will) with an Irish lass, when I was full seventeen years old; and when they found out that, they held me down on the floor and beat me till I was wellnigh dead. They put me in prison for a month; and between bread-and-water and darkness I went nigh foolish. They let me out, thinking I could do no more harm to man or lass; and when I found out how profitable folly was, foolish I remained, at least as foolish as seemed good to me. But one night I got into the abbey church, stole therefrom that which I have with me now, and which shall serve you and me in good stead yet,out and away aboard a ship among the buscarles, and off into the Norway sea. But after a voyage or two, so it befell, I was wrecked in the Wash by Botulfston Deeps, and, begging my way inland, met with your father, and took service with him, as I have taken service now with you.
Now, what has made thee take service with me?
Because you are you.
Give me none of your parables and dark sayings, but speak out like a man. What canst see in me that thou shouldest share an outlaws fortune with me?
I had run away from a monastery, so had you; I hated the monks, so did you; I liked to tell stories,since I found good to shut my mouth I tell them to myself all day long, sometimes all night too. When I found out you liked to hear them, I loved you all the more. Then they told me not to speak to you; I held my tongue. I bided my time. I knew you would be outlawed some day. I knew you would turn Viking and kempery-man, and kill giants and enchanters, and win yourself honor and glory; and I knew I should have my share in it. I knew you would need me some day; and you need me now, and here I am; and if you try to cut me down with your sword, I will dodge you, and follow you, and dodge you again, till I force you to let me be your man, for with you I will live and die. And now I can talk no more.
And with me thou shalt live and die, said Hereward, pulling up his horse, and frankly holding out his hand to his new friend.
Martin Lightfoot took his hand, kissed it, licked it almost as a dog would have done. I am your man, he said, amen; and true man I will prove to you, if you will prove true to me. And he dropped quietly back behind Herewards horse, as if the business of his life was settled, and his mind utterly at rest.
There is one more likeness between us, said Hereward, after a few minutes thought. If I have robbed a church, thou hast robbed one too. What is this precious spoil which is to serve me and thee in such mighty stead?
Martin drew from inside his shirt and under his waistband a small battle-axe, and handed it up to Hereward. It was a tool the like of which in shape Hereward had seldom seen, and never its equal in beauty. The handle was some fifteen inches long, made of thick strips of black whalebone, curiously bound with silver, and butted with narwhal ivory. This handle was evidently the work of some cunning Norseman of old. But who was the maker of the blade? It was some eight inches long, with a sharp edge on one side, a sharp crooked pick on the other; of the finest steel, inlaid with strange characters in gold, the work probably of some Circassian, Tartar, or Persian; such a battle-axe as Rustum or Zohrab may have wielded in fight upon the banks of Oxus; one of those magic weapons, brought, men knew not how, out of the magic East, which were hereditary in many a Norse family and sung of in many a Norse saga.
Look at it, said Martin Lightfoot. There is magic on it. It must bring us luck. Whoever holds that must kill his man. It will pick a lock of steel. It will crack a mail corslet as a nut-hatch cracks a nut. It will hew a lance in two at a single blow. Devils and spirits forged it,I know that; Virgilius the Enchanter, perhaps, or Solomon the Great, or whosoevers name is on it, graven there in letters of gold. Handle it, feel its balance; but no,do not handle it too much. There is a devil in it, who would make you kill me. Whenever I play with it I long to kill a man. It would be so easy,so easy. Give it me back, my lord, give it me back, lest the devil come through the handle into your palm, and possess you.
Hereward laughed, and gave him back his battle-axe. But he had hardly less doubt of the magic virtues of such a blade than had Martin himself.
Magical or not, thou wilt not have to hit a man twice with that, Martin, my lad. So we two outlaws are both well armed; and having neither wife nor child, land nor beeves to lose, ought to be a match for any six honest men who may have a grudge against us, and sound reasons at home for running away.
And so those two went northward through the green Bruneswald, and northward again through merry Sherwood, and were not seen in that land again for many a year.
CHAPTER II. HOW HEREWARD SLEW THE BEAR
Of Herewards doings for the next few months naught is known. He may very likely have joined Siward in the Scotch war. He may have looked, wondering, for the first time in his life, upon the bones of the old world, where they rise at Dunkeld out of the lowlands of the Tay; and have trembled lest the black crags of Birnam should topple on his head with all their pines. He may have marched down from that famous leaguer with the Gospatricks and Dolfins, and the rest of the kindred of Crinan (abthane or abbot,let antiquaries decide),of Dunkeld, and of Duncan, and of Siward, and of the outraged Sibilla. He may have helped himself to bring Birnam Wood to Dunsinane, on the day of the Seven Sleepers, and heard Siward, when his son Asbiorns corpse was carried into camp, [Footnote: Shakespeare makes young Siward his son. He, too, was slain in the battle: but he was Siwards nephew.] ask only, Has he all his wounds in front? He may have seen old Siward, after Macbeths defeat (not death, as Shakespeare relates the story), go back to Northumbria with such booty as no man had obtained before,a proof, if the fact be fact, that the Scotch lowlands were not, in the eleventh century, the poor and barbarous country which some have reported them to have been.
All this is not only possible, but probable enough, the dates considered: the chroniclers, however, are silent. They only say that Hereward was in those days beyond Northumberland with Gisebert of Ghent.
Gisebert, Gislebert, Gilbert, Guibert, Goisbricht, of Ghent, who afterwards owned, by chance of war, many a fair manor about Lincoln city, was one of those valiant Flemings who settled along the east and northeast coast of Scotland in the eleventh century. They fought with the Celtic princes, and then married with their daughters; got to themselves lands by the title-deed of the sword; and so becamethe famous Freskin the Fleming especiallythe ancestors of the finest aristocracy, both physically and intellectually, in the world. They had their connections, moreover, with the Norman court of Rouen, through the Duchess Matilda, daughter of their old Seigneur, Baldwin, Marquis of Flanders; their connections, too, with the English Court, through Countess Judith, wife of Earl Tosti Godwinsson, another daughter of Baldwins. Their friendship was sought, their enmity feared, far and wide throughout the north. They seem to have been civilizers and cultivators and traders,with the instinct of true Flemings,as well as conquerors; they were in those very days bringing to order and tillage the rich lands of the north-east, from the Frith of Moray to that of Forth; and forming a rampart for Scotland against the invasions of Sweyn, Hardraade, and all the wild Vikings of the northern seas.
Amongst them, in those days, Gilbert of Ghent seems to have been a notable personage, to judge from the great house which he kept, and the milites tyrones, or squires in training for the honor of knighthood, who fed at his table. Where he lived, the chroniclers report not. To them the country ultra Northumbriam, beyond the Forth, was as Russia or Cathay, where
Geographers on pathless downs
Put elephants for want of towns.
As indeed it was to that French map-maker who, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century (not having been to Aberdeen or Elgin), leaves all the country north of the Tay a blank, with the inscription: Terre inculte et sauvage, habitée par les Higlanders.
Wherever Gilbert lived, however, he heard that Hereward was outlawed, and sent for him, says the story. And there he lived, doubtless happily enough, fighting Highlanders and hunting deer, so that as yet the pains and penalties of exile did not press very hardly upon him. The handsome, petulant, good-humored lad had become in a few weeks the darling of Gilberts ladies, and the envy of all his knights and gentlemen. Hereward the singer, harp-player, dancer, Hereward the rider and hunter, was in all mouths; but he himself was discontented at having as yet fallen in with no adventure worthy of a man, and looked curiously and longingly at the menagerie of wild beasts enclosed in strong wooden cages, which Gilbert kept in one corner of the great court-yard, not for any scientific purposes, but to try with them, at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, the mettle of the young gentlemen who were candidates for the honor of knighthood. But after looking over the bulls and stags, wolves and bears, Hereward settled it in his mind that there was none worthy of his steel, save one huge white bear, whom no man had yet dared to face, and whom Hereward, indeed, had never seen, hidden as he was all day within the old oven-shaped Picts house of stone, which had been turned into his den. There was a mystery about the uncanny brute which charmed Hereward. He was said to be half-human, perhaps wholly human; to be the son of the Fairy Bear, near kinsman, if not uncle or cousin, of Siward Digre. He had, like his fairy father, iron claws; he had human intellect, and understood human speech, and the arts of war,at least so all in the place believed, and not as absurdly as at first sight seems.
For the brown bear, and much more the white, was, among the Northern nations, in himself a creature magical and superhuman. He is Gods dog, whispered the Lapp, and called him the old man in the fur cloak, afraid to use his right name, even inside the tent, for fear of his overhearing and avenging the insult. He has twelve mens strength, and eleven mens wit, sang the Norseman, and prided himself accordingly, like a true Norseman, on outwitting and slaying the enchanted monster.
Terrible was the brown bear: but more terrible the white sea-deer, as the Saxons called him; the hound of Hrymir, the whales bane, the seals dread, the rider of the iceberg, the sailor of the floe, who ranged for his prey under the six months night, lighted by Surturs fires, even to the gates of Muspelheim. To slay him was a feat worthy of Beowulfs self; and the greatest wonder, perhaps, among all the wealth of Crowland, was the twelve white bear-skins which lay before the altars, the gift of the great Canute. How Gilbert had obtained his white bear, and why he kept him there in durance vile, was a mystery over which men shook their heads. Again and again Hereward asked his host to let him try his strength against the monster of the North. Again and again the shrieks of the ladies, and Gilberts own pity for the stripling youth, brought a refusal. But Hereward settled it in his heart, nevertheless, that somehow or other, when Christmas time came round, he would extract from Gilbert, drunk or sober, leave to fight that bear; and then either make himself a name, or die like a man.
Meanwhile Hereward made a friend. Among all the ladies of Gilberts household, however kind they were inclined to be to him, he took a fancy but to one,and that was to a little girl of eight years old. Alftruda was her name. He liked to amuse himself with this child, without, as he fancied, any danger of falling in love; for already his dreams of love were of the highest and most fantastic; and an Emirs daughter, or a Princess of Constantinople, were the very lowest game at which he meant to fly. Alftruda was beautiful, too, exceedingly, and precocious, and, it may be, vain enough to repay his attentions in good earnest. Moreover she was English as he was, and royal likewise; a relation of Elfgiva, daughter of Ethelred, once King of England, who, as all know, married Uchtred, prince of Northumberland and grandfather of Gospatrick, Earl of Northumberland, and ancestor of all the Dunbars. Between the English lad then and the English maiden grew up in a few weeks an innocent friendship, which had almost become more than friendship, through the intervention of the Fairy Bear.