CHAPTER XVI.
HOW HEREWARD WAS ASKED TO SLAY AN OLD COMRADE.
In those days Hereward went into Bruges, to Marquis Baldwin, abouthis business. And as he walked in Bruges street, he met an old friend,Gilbert of Ghent.
He had grown somewhat stouter, and somewhat grayer, in the last tenyears: but he was as hearty as ever; and as honest, according to his ownnotions of honesty.
He shook Hereward by both hands, clapt him on the back, swore with manyoaths, that he had heard of his fame in all lands, that he always saidthat he would turn out a champion and a gallant knight, and had said itlong before he killed the bear. As for killing it, it was no more thanhe expected, and nothing to what Hereward had done since, and would doyet.
Wherefrom Hereward opined that Gilbert had need of him.
They chatted on: Hereward asking after old friends, and sometimes afterold foes, whom he had long since forgiven; for though he always avengedan injury, he never bore malice for one; a distinction less common nowthan then, when a man's honor, as well as his safety, depended on hisstriking again, when he was struck.
"And how is little Alftruda? Big she must be now?" asked he at last.
"The fiend fly away with her,--or rather, would that he had flown awaywith her, before ever I saw the troublesome little jade. Big? She isgrown into the most beautiful lass that ever was seen,--which is, whata young fellow like you cares for; and more trouble to me than all mymoney, which is what an old fellow like me cares for. It is partly abouther that I am over here now. Fool that I was, ever to let an Etheliza[Footnote: A princess of the royal blood of Cerdic, and therefore ofEdward the Confessor.] into my house"; and Gilbert swore a great deal.
"How was she an Etheliza?" asked Hereward, who cared nothing about thematter. "And how came she into your house? I never could understandthat, any more than how the bear came there."
"Ah! As to the bear, I have my secrets, which I tell no one. He is deadand buried, thanks to you."
"And I sleep on his skin every night."
"You do, my little Champion? Well, warm is the bed that is well earned.But as for her;--see here, and I'll tell you. She was Gospatrick's wardand kinswoman,--how, I do not rightly know. But this I know, that shecomes from Uchtred, the earl whom Canute slew, and that she is heir togreat estates in Northumberland.
"Gospatrick, that fought at Dunsinane?"
"Yes, not the old Thane, his uncle, whom Tosti has murdered; butGospatrick, King Malcolm's cousin, Dolfin's father. Well, she was hisward. He gave me her to keep, for he wanted her out of harm's way--thelass having a bonny dower, lands and money--till he could marry her upto one of his sons. I took her; of course I was not going to do othermen's work for naught; so I would have married her up to my poor boy, ifhe had but lived. But he would not live, as you know. Then I would havemarried her to you, and made you my heir, I tell you honestly, if youhad not flown off, like a hot-headed young springald, as you were then."
"You were very kind. But how is she an Etheliza?"
"Etheliza? Twice over. Her father was of high blood among those Saxons;and if not, are not all the Gospatricks Ethelings? Their grandmother,Uchtred's wife, was Ethelred, Evil-Counsel's daughter, King Edward ofLondon's sister; and I have heard that this girl's grandfather was theirson,--but died young,--or was killed with his father. Who cares?"
"Not I," quoth Hereward.
"Well--he wants to marry her to Dolfin, his eldest son."
"Why, Dolfin had a wife when I was at Dunsinane."
"But she is dead since, and young Ulf, her son, murdered by Tosti lastwinter."
"I know."
"Whereon Gospatrick sends to me for the girl and her dowry. What was Ito do? Give her up? Little it is, lad, that I ever gave up, after I hadit once in my grip, or I should be a poorer man than I am now. Have andhold, is my rule. What should I do? What I did. I was coming hitheron business of my own, so I put her on board ship, and half herdower,--where the other half is, I know; and man must draw me with wildhorses, before he finds out;--and came here to my kinsman, Baldwin, tosee if he had any proper young fellow to whom we might marry the lass,and so go shares in her money and the family connection. Could a man domore wisely?"
"Impossible," quoth Hereward.
"But see how a wise man is lost by fortune. When I come here, whomshould I find but Dolfin himself? The dog had scent of my plan, allthe way from Dolfinston there, by Peebles. He hunts me out, the hungryScotch wolf; rides for Leith, takes ship, and is here to meet me, havingaccused me before Baldwin as a robber and ravisher, and offers to provehis right to the jade on my body in single combat."
"The villain!" quoth Hereward. "There is no modesty left on earth, norprudence either. To come here, where he might have stumbled on Tosti,who murdered his son, and I would surely do the like by him, himself.Lucky for him that Tosti is off to Norway on his own errand."
"Modesty and prudence? None now-a-days, young sire; nor justice either,I think; for when Baldwin hears us both--and I told my story as cannilyas I could--he tells me that he is very sorry for an old vassal andkinsman, and so forth,--but I must either disgorge or fight."
"Then fight," quoth Hereward.
"'Per se aut per campioneem,'--that's the old law, you know."
"Not a doubt of it."
"Look you, Hereward. I am no coward, nor a clumsy man of my hands."
"He is either fool or liar who says so."
"But see. I find it hard work to hold my own in Scotland now. Folksdon't like me, or trust me; I can't say why."
"How unreasonable!" quoth Hereward.
"And if I kill this youth, and so have a blood-feud with Gospatrick, Ihave a hornet's nest about my ears. Not only he and his sons,--whoare masters of Scotch Northumberland, [Footnote: Between Tweed andForth.]--but all his cousins; King Malcolm, and Donaldbain, and, foraught I know, Harold and the Godwinssons, if he bid them take up thequarrel. And beside, that Dolfin is a big man. If you cross Scot andSaxon, you breed a very big man. If you cross again with a Dane or aNorseman, you breed a giant. His grandfather was a Scots prince, hisgrandmother an English Etheliza, his mother a Norse princess, as youknow,--and how big he is, you should remember. He weighs half as muchagain as I, and twice as much as you."
"Butchers count by weight, and knights by courage," quoth Hereward.
"Very well for you, who are young and active; but I take him to be abetter man than that ogre of Cornwall, whom they say you killed."
"What care I? Let him be twice as good, I'd try him."
"Ah! I knew you were the old Hereward still. Now hearken to me. Be mychampion. You owe me a service, lad. Fight that man, challenge him inopen field. Kill him, as you are sure to do. Claim the lass, and winher,--and then we will part her dower. And (though it is little that Icare for young lasses' fancies), to tell you truth, she never favoredany man but you."
Hereward started at the snare which had been laid for him; and then fellinto a very great laughter.
"My most dear and generous host: you are the wiser, the older you grow.A plan worthy of Solomon! You are rid of Sieur Dolfin without any blameto yourself."
"Just so."
"While I win the lass, and, living here in Flanders, am tolerably safefrom any blood-feud of the Gospatricks."
"Just so."
"Perfect: but there is only one small hindrance to the plan; and thatis--that I am married already."
Gilbert stopped short, and swore a great oath.
"But," he said, after a while, "does that matter so much after all?"
"Very little, indeed, as all the world knows, if one has money enough,and power enough."
"And you have both," they say.
"But, still more unhappily, my money is my wife's."
"Peste!"
"And more unhappily still, I am so foolishly fond of her, that I wouldsooner have her in her smock, than any other woman with half England fora dower."
"Then I suppose I must look out for another champion."
"Or save yourse
lf the trouble, by being--just as a change--an honestman."
"I believe you are right," said Gilbert, laughing; "but it is hard tobegin so late in life."
"And after one has had so little practice."
"Aha! Thou art the same merry dog of a Hereward. Come along. But couldwe not poison this Dolfin, after all?"
To which proposal Hereward gave no encouragement.
"And now, my tres beausire, may I ask you, in return, what businessbrings you to Flanders?"
"Have I not told you?"
"No, but I have guessed. Gilbert of Ghent is on his way to William ofNormandy."
"Well. Why not?"
"Why not?--certainly. And has brought out of Scotland a few gallantgentlemen, and stout housecarles of my acquaintance."
Gilbert laughed.
"You may well say that. To tell you the truth, we have flitted, bag andbaggage. I don't believe that we have left a dog behind."
"So you intend to 'colonize' in England, as the learned clerks wouldcall it? To settle; to own land; and enter, like the Jews of old, intogoodly houses which you builded not, farms which you tilled not, wellswhich you digged not, and orchards which you planted not?"
"Why, what a clerk you are! That sounds like Scripture."
"And so it is. I heard it in a French priest's sermon, which he preachedhere in St. Omer a Sunday or two back, exhorting all good Catholics, inthe Pope's name, to enter upon the barbarous land of England, taintedwith the sin of Simon Magus, and expel thence the heretical priests, andso forth, promising them that they should have free leave to cut longthongs out of other men's hides."
Gilbert chuckled.
"You laugh. The priest did not; for after sermon I went up to him, andtold him how I was an Englishman, and an outlaw, and a desperate man,who feared neither saint nor devil; and if I heard such talk as thatagain in St. Omer, I would so shave the speaker's crown that he shouldnever need razor to his dying day."
"And what is that to me?" said Gilbert, in an uneasy, half-defiant tone;for Hereward's tone had been more than half-defiant.
"This. That there are certain broad lands in England, which were myfather's, and are now my nephews' and my mother's, and some which shouldby right be mine. And I advise you, as a friend, not to make entry onthose lands, lest Hereward in turn make entry on you. And who is he thatwill deliver you out of my hand?"
"God and his Saints alone, thou fiend out of the pit!" quoth Gilbert,laughing. But he was growing warm, and began to tutoyer Hereward.
"I am in earnest, Gilbert of Ghent, my good friend of old time."
"I know thee well enough, man. Why in the name of all glory and plunderart thou not coming with us? They say William has offered thee theearldom of Northumberland."
"He has not. And if he has, it is not his to give. And if it were, itis by right neither mine nor my nephews', but Waltheof Siwardsson's. Nowhearken unto me; and settle it in your mind, thou and William both, thatyour quarrel is against none but Harold and the Godwinssons, and theirmen of Wessex; but that if you go to cross the Watling street, andmeddle with the free Danes, who are none of Harold's men--"
"Stay. Harold has large manors in Lincolnshire, and so has Edith hissister; and what of them, Sir Hereward?"
"That the man who touches them, even though the men on them may fighton Harold's side, had better have put his head into a hornet's nest.Unjustly were they seized from their true owners by Harold and hisfathers; and the holders of them will owe no service to him a day longerthan they can help; but will, if he fall, demand an earl of their ownrace, or fight to the death."
"Best make young Waltheof earl, then."
"Best keep thy foot out of them, and the foot of any man for whom thoucarest. Now, good by. Friends we are, and friends let us be."
"Ah, that thou wert coming to England!"
"I bide my time. Come I may, when I see fit. But whether I come asfriend or foe depends on that of which I have given thee fair warning."
So they parted for the time.
It will be seen hereafter how Gilbert took his own advice about youngWaltheof, but did not take Hereward's advice about the Lincoln manors.
In Baldwin's hall that day Hereward met Dolfin; and when the magnificentyoung Scot sprang to him, embraced him, talked over old passages,complimented him on his fame, lamented that he himself had won no suchhonors in the field, Hereward felt much more inclined to fight for himthan against him.
Presently the ladies entered from the bower inside the hall. A buzz ofexpectation rose from all the knights, and Alftruda's name was whisperedround.
She came in, and Hereward saw at the first glance that Gilbert had foronce in his life spoken truth. So beautiful a girl he had never beheld;and as she swept down toward him he for one moment forgot Torfrida, andstood spell-bound like the rest.
Her eye caught his. If his face showed recognition, hers showed none.The remembrance of their early friendship, of her deliverance from themonster, had plainly passed away.
"Fickle, ungrateful things, these women," thought Hereward,
She passed him close. And as she did so, she turned her head and lookedhim full in the face one moment, haughty and cold.
"So you could not wait for me?" said she, in a quiet whisper, and wenton straight to Dolfin, who stood trembling with expectation and delight.
She put her hand into his.
"Here stands my champion," said she.
"Say, here kneels your slave," cried the Scot, dropping to the pavementa true Highland knee. Whereon forth shrieked a bagpipe, and Dolfin'sminstrel sang, in most melodious Gaelic,--
"Strong as a horse's hock, shaggy as a stag's brisket, Is the knee of the young torrent-leaper, the pride of the house of Crinan. It bent not to Macbeth the accursed, it bends not even to Malcolm the Anointed, But it bends like a harebell--who shall blame it?-- before the breath of beauty."
Which magnificent effusion being interpreted by Hereward for theinstruction of the ladies, procured for the red-headed bard more thanone handsome gift.
A sturdy voice arose out of the crowd.
"The fair lady, my Lord Count, and knights all, will need no champion asfar as I am concerned. When one sees so fair a pair together, what cana knight say, in the name of all knighthood, but that the heavens havemade them for each other, and that it were sin and shame to sunderthem?"
The voice was that of Gilbert of Ghent, who, making a virtue ofnecessity, walked up to the pair, his weather-beaten countenancewreathed into what were meant for paternal smiles.
"Why did you not say as much in Scotland, and save me all this trouble?"pertinently asked the plain-spoken Scot.
"My lord prince, you owe me a debt for my caution. Without it, the poorlady had never known the whole fervency of your love; or these nobleknights and yourself the whole evenness of Count Baldwin's justice."
Alftruda turned her head away half contemptuously; and as she did so,she let her hand drop listlessly from Dolfin's grasp, and drew back tothe other ladies.
A suspicion crossed Hereward's mind. Did she really love the Prince? Didthose strange words of hers mean that she had not yet forgotten Herewardhimself?
However, he said to himself that it was no concern of his, as itcertainly was not: went home to Torfrida, told her everything that hadhappened, laughed over it with her, and then forgot Alftruda, Dolfin,and Gilbert, in the prospect of a great campaign in Holland.