CHAPTER XXXIV.
HOW HEREWARD WENT TO THE GREENWOOD.
And now is Hereward to the greenwood gone, to be a bold outlaw; and notonly an outlaw himself, but the father of all outlaws, who held thoseforests for two hundred years, from the fens to the Scottish border.Utlages, forestiers, latrunculi (robberlets), sicarii, cutthroats,sauvages, who prided themselves upon sleeping on the bare ground; theywere accursed by the conquerors, and beloved by the conquered. TheNorman viscount or sheriff commanded to hunt them from hundred tohundred, with hue and cry, horse and bloodhound. The English yeoman leftfor them a keg of ale, or a basket of loaves, beneath the hollins green,as sauce for their meal of "nombles of the dere."
"For hart and hind, and doe and roe, Were in that forest great plentie,"
and
"Swannes and fesauntes they had full good And foules of the rivere. There fayled never so lytell a byrde, That ever was bred on brere."
With the same friendly yeoman "that was a good felawe," they would lodgeby twos and threes during the sharp frosts of midwinter, in the lonelyfarm-house which stood in the "field" or forest-clearing; but for thegreater part of the year their "lodging was on the cold ground" in theholly thickets, or under the hanging rock, or in a lodge of boughs.
And then, after a while, the life which began in terror, and despair,and poverty, and loss of land and kin, became not only tolerable, butpleasant. Bold men and hardy, they cared less and less for
"The thornie wayes, the deep valleys, The snowe, the frost, the rayne, The colde, the hete; for dry or wete We must lodge on the plaine, And us above, none other roofe, But a brake bushe, or twayne."
And they found fair lasses, too, in time, who, like Torfrida and MaidMarian, would answer to their warnings against the outlaw life, with thenut-browne maid, that--
"Amonge the wylde dere, such an archere As men say that ye be, He may not fayle of good vitayle Where is so great plente: And water clere of the rivere, Shall be full swete to me, With which in hele, I shall right wele, Endure, as ye may see."
Then called they themselves "merry men," and the forest the "merrygreenwood"; and sang, with Robin Hood,--
"A merrier man than I, belyye There lives not in Christentie."
They were coaxed back, at times, to civilized life; they got their graceof the king, and entered the king's service; but the craving after thegreenwood was upon them. They dreaded and hated the four stone walls ofa Norman castle, and, like Robin Hood, slipt back to the forest and thedeer.
Gradually, too, law and order rose among them, lawless as they were; theinstinct of discipline and self-government, side by side with that ofpersonal independence, which is the peculiar mark and peculiar strengthof the English character. Who knows not how, in the "Lytell Geste ofRobin Hood," they shot at "pluck-buffet," the king among them, disguisedas an abbot; and every man who missed the rose-garland, "his tackle heshould tyne";--
"And bere a buffet on his head, Iwys ryght all bare, And all that fell on Robyn's lote, He smote them wonder sair.
"Till Robyn fayled of the garlonde, Three fyngers and mair."
Then good Gilbert bids him in his turn
"'Stand forth and take his pay.'
"'If it be so,' sayd Robyn, 'That may no better be, Syr Abbot, I delyver thee myn arrowe, I pray thee, Syr, serve thou me.'
"'It falleth not for myne order,' saith the kynge, 'Robyn, by thy leve, For to smyte no good yeman, For doute I should hym greve.'
"'Smyte on boldly,' sayd Robyn, 'I give thee large leve.' Anon our kynge, with that word, He folde up his sleve.
"And such a buffet he gave Robyn, To grounde he yode full nere. 'I make myn avowe,' sayd Robyn, 'Thou art a stalwarte frere.
"'There is pyth in thyn arme,' sayd Robyn, 'I trowe thou canst well shoote.' Thus our kynge and Hobyn Hode Together they are met."
Hard knocks in good humor, strict rules, fair play, and equal justice,for high and low; this was the old outlaw spirit, which has descended totheir inlawed descendants; and makes, to this day, the life and marrowof an English public school.
One fixed idea the outlaw had,--hatred of the invader. If "his herdewere the king's deer," "his treasure was the earl's purse"; and stilloftener the purse of the foreign churchman, Norman or Italian, who hadexpelled the outlaw's English cousins from their convents; shamefullyscourged and cruelly imprisoned them, as the blessed Archbishop Lanfrancdid at Canterbury, because they would not own allegiance to a Frenchabbot; or murdered them at the high altar, as did the new abbot ofGlastonbury, because they would not change their old Gregorian chant forthat of William of Fecamp. [Footnote: See the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle".]
On these mitred tyrants the outlaw had no mercy, as far as their purseswere concerned. Their persons, as consecrated, were even to him sacredand inviolable,--at least, from wounds and death; and one may supposeHereward himself to have been the first author of the laws afterwardattributed to Robin Hood. As for "robbing and reving, beting andbynding," free warren was allowed against the Norman.
"'Thereof no fors,' said Robyn, 'We shall do well enow. But look ye do no housbonde harme, That tilleth wyth his plough.
"'No more ye shall no good yeman, That walketh by grene wood shawe; Ne no knyght, ne no squyer, That will be good felawe.
"'These bysshoppes, and these archbysshoppes, Ye shall them bete and binde; The hye sheryff of Nottingham, Hym holde in your mynde.'
"Robyn loved our dere Ladye, For doubt of dedely synne, Wolde he never do company harme That any woman was ynne."
And even so it was with Hereward in the Bruneswald, if the oldchroniclers, Leofric especially, are to be believed.
And now Torfrida was astonished. She had given way utterly at Ely, fromwoman's fear, and woman's disappointment. All was over. All was lost.What was left, save to die?
But--and it was a new and unexpected fact to one of her excitableSouthern blood, easily raised, and easily depressed--she discovered thatneither her husband, nor Winter, nor Geri, nor Wenoch, nor Ranald ofRamsey, nor even the romancing harping Leofric, thought that allwas lost. She argued it with them, not to persuade them into basesubmission, but to satisfy her own surprise.
"But what will you do?"
"Live in the greenwood."
"And what then?"
"Burn every town which a Frenchman holds, and kill every Frenchman wemeet."
"But what plan have you?"
"Who wants a plan, as you call it, while he has the green holliesoverhead, the dun deer on the lawn, bow in his hand, and sword by hisside?"
"But what will be the end of it all?"
"We shall live till we die."
"But William is master of all England."
"What is that to us? He is not our master."
"But he must be some day. You will grow fewer and fewer. His governmentwill grow stronger and stronger."
"What is that to us? When we are dead, there will be brave yeomen inplenty to take our place. You would not turn traitor?"
"I? Never! never! I will live and die with you in your greenwood, as youcall it. Only--I did not understand you English."
Torfrida did not. She was discovering the fact, which her nation havemore than once discovered since, that the stupid valor of the Englishmannever knows when it is beaten; and sometimes, by that self-satisfiedignorance, succeeds in not being beaten after all.
So Hereward--if the chronicles speak truth--assembled a formidableforce, well-nigh, at last, four hundred men. Winter, Geri, Wenoch,Grogan, one of the Azers of Lincoln, were still with him. Ranaldthe butler still carried his standard. Of Duti and Outi, the famousbrothers, no more is heard. A valiant Matelgar takes their place; Alfricand Sexwold and many another gallant fugitive cast up, like scatteredhounds, at the sound of "The Wake's" war-horn. There were those amongthem (says Gaimar) who scorned to figh
t single-handed less than threeNormans. As for Hereward, he would fight seven.
"Les quatre oscist, les treis fuirent; Naffrez, sanglant, cil s'en partirent En plusurs lius issi avint, K'encontre seit tres bien se tuit De seit hommes avait vertu, Un plus hardi ne fu veu."
They ranged up the Bruneswald, dashing out to the war-cry of "A Wake! aWake!" laying all waste with fire and sword, that is, such towns aswere in the hands of Normans. And a noble range they must have had forgallant sportsmen. Away south, between the Nene and Welland, stretchedfrom Stamford and Peterborough the still vast forests of Rockingham,nigh twenty miles in length as the crow flies, down beyond Rockinghamtown, and Geddington Chase. To the west, they had the range of the"hunting counties," dotted still, in the more eastern part, withinnumerable copses and shaughs, the remnants of the great forest, out ofwhich, as out of Rockinghamshire, have been cut those fair parks and
"Handsome houses, Where the wealthy nobles dwell";
past which the Lord of Burleigh led his Welsh bride to that BurghleyHouse by Stamford town, well-nigh the noblest of them all, which was,in Hereward's time, deep wood, and freestone down. Round Exton, andNormanton, and that other Burley on the Hill; on through those Morkerywoods, which still retain the name of Hereward's ill-fated nephew;north by Irnham and Corby; on to Belton and Syston (_par nobile_), andsouthwest again to those still wooded heights, whence all-but-royalBelvoir looks out over the rich green vale below, did Hereward and hismen range far and wide, harrying the Frenchman, and hunting thedun deer. Stags there were in plenty. There remain to this day, inGrimsthorpe Park by Bourne, the descendants of the very deer which EarlLeofric and Earl Algar, and after them Hereward the outlaw, hunted inthe Bruneswald.
Deep-tangled forest filled the lower claylands, swarming with pheasant,roe, badger, and more wolves than were needed. Broken, park-like gladescovered the upper freestones, where the red deer came out from harborfor their evening graze, and the partridges and plovers whirred up, andthe hares and rabbits loped away, innumerable; and where hollies andferns always gave dry lying for the night. What did men need more, whosebodies were as stout as their hearts?
They were poachers and robbers; and why not? The deer had once beentheirs, the game, the land, the serfs; and if Godric of Corby slew theIrnham deer, burned Irnham Hall over the head of the new Norman lord,and thought no harm, he did but what he would with that which had beenonce his own.
Easy it was to dash out by night and make a raid; to harry the placeswhich they once had owned themselves, in the vale of Belvoir to thewest, or to the east in the strip of fertile land which sloped down intothe fen, and levy black-mail in Rippinghale, or Folkingham, or Aslackby,or Sleaford, or any other of the "Vills" (now thriving villages) whichstill remain in Domesday-book, and written against them the ugly andsignificant,--
"In Tatenai habuerunt Turgisle et Suen IIII. Carrucas terae," &c. "HocIvo Taillebosc ibi habet in dominio,"--all, that is, that the wars hadleft of them.
The said Turgisle (Torkill or Turketil misspelt by Frenchmen) and Sweyn,and many a good man more,--for Ivo's possessions were enormous,--werethorns in the sides of Ivo and his men which must be extracted, and theBruneswald a nest of hornets, which must be smoked out at any cost.
Wherefore it befell, that once upon a day there came riding to Herewardin the Bruneswald a horseman all alone.
And meeting with Hereward and his men he made signs of amity, and bowedhimself low, and pulled out of his purse a letter, protesting that hewas an Englishman and a "good felawe," and that, though he came fromLincoln town, a friend to the English had sent him.
That was believable enough, for Hereward had his friends and his spiesfar and wide.
And when he opened the letter, and looked first, like a wary man, at thesignature, a sudden thrill went through him.
It was Alftruda's.
If he was interested in her, considering what had passed between themfrom her childhood, it was nothing to be ashamed of. And yet somehow hefelt ashamed of that same sudden thrill.
And Hereward had reason to be ashamed. He had been faithful toTorfrida,--a virtue most rare in those days. Few were faithful then,save, it may be, Baldwin of Mons to his tyrant and idol, the sorceressRichilda; and William of Normandy,--whatever were his other sins,--tohis wise and sweet and beautiful Matilda. The stories of his coldnessand cruelty to her seem to rest on no foundation. One need believe themas little as one does the myth of one chronicler, that when she triedto stop him from some expedition, and clung to him as he sat upon hishorse, he smote his spur so deep into her breast that she fell dead. Theman had self-control, and feared God in his own wild way,--therefore itwas, perhaps, that he conquered.
And Hereward had been faithful likewise to Torfrida, and loved herwith an overwhelming adoration, as all true men love. And for that veryreason he was the more aware that his feeling for Alftruda was strangelylike his feeling for Torfrida, and yet strangely different.
There was nothing in the letter that he should not have read. She calledhim her best and dearest friend, twice the savior of her life. Whatcould she do in return, but, at any risk to herself, try and save hislife? The French were upon him. The _posse comitatus_ of seven countieswas raising. "Northampton, Cambridge, Lincoln, Holland, Leicester,Huntingdon, Warwick," were coming to the Bruneswald to root him out.
"Lincoln?" thought Hereward. "That must be Gilbert of Ghent, and Ogerthe Breton. No! Gilbert is not coming, Sir Ascelin is coming for him.Holland? That is my friend Ivo Taillebois. Well, we shall have thechance of paying off old scores. Northampton? The earl thereof just nowis the pious and loyal Waltheof, as he is of Huntingdon and Cambridge.Is he going to join young Fitz-Osbern from Warwick and Leicester, toroot out the last Englishman? Why not? That would be a deed worthy ofthe man who married Judith, and believes in the powers that be, and eatsdirt daily at William's table."
Then he read on.
Ascelin had been mentioned, he remarked, three or four times in theletter, which was long, as from one lingering over the paper, wishing tosay more than she dared. At the end was a hint of the reason:--
"O, that having saved me twice, you could save me once more. Know youthat Gospatrick has been driven from his earldom on charge of treason,and that Waltheof has Northumbria in his place, as well as the partsround you? And that Gospatrick is fled to Scotland again, with hissons,--my man among them? And now the report comes, that my man is slainin battle on the Border; and that I am to be given away,--as I have beengiven away twice before,--to Ascelin. This I know, as I know all, notonly from him of Ghent, but from him of Peterborough, Ascelin's uncle."
Hereward laughed a laugh of cynical triumph,--pardonable enough in abroken man.
"Gospatrick! the wittol! the woodcock! looking at the springe, and thencoolly putting his head therein. Throwing the hatchet after the helve!selling his soul and never getting the price of it! I foresaw it,foretold it, I believe to Alftruda herself,--foretold that he would notkeep his bought earldom three years. What a people we are, we English,if Gospatrick is,--as he is,--the shrewdest man among us, with a dashof canny Scots blood too. 'Among the one-eyed, the blind is king,' saysTorfrida, out of her wise ancients, and blind we are, if he is our best.No. There is one better man left I trust, one that will never be foolenough to put his head into the wolf's mouth, and trust the Norman, andthat is Hereward the outlaw."
And Hereward boasted to himself, at Gospatrick's expense, of his ownsuperior wisdom, till his eye caught a line or two, which finished theletter.
"O that you would change your mind, much as I honor you for it. O thatyou would come in to the king, who loves and trusts you, having seenyour constancy and faith, proved by so many years of affliction. Greatthings are open to you, and great joys;--I dare not tell you what: butI know them, if you would come in. You, to waste yourself in the forest,an outlaw and a savage! Opportunity once lost, never returns; time fliesfast, Hereward, my friend, and we shall all grow old,--I think at timesthat I shall soon grow old. And
the joys of life will be impossible, andnothing left but vain regrets."
"Hey?" said Hereward, "a very clerkly letter. I did not think she was sogood a scholar. Almost as good a one as Torfrida."
That was all he said; and as for thinking, he had the _posse comitatus_of seven counties to think of. But what could those great fortunes andjoys be, which Alftruda did not dare to describe?
She growing old, too? Impossible, that was woman's vanity. It was buttwo years since she was as fair as a saint in a window. "She shall notmarry Ascelin. I will cut his head off. She shall have her own choicefor once, poor child."
And Hereward found himself worked up to a great height of paternalsolicitude for Alftruda, and righteous indignation against Ascelin. Hedid not confess to himself that he disliked much, in his selfish vanity,the notion of Alftruda's marrying any one at all. He did not want tomarry her himself,--of course not. But there is no dog in the mangerso churlish on such points as a vain man. There are those who will notwillingly let their own sisters, their own daughters, their own servantsmarry. Why should a woman wish to marry any one but them?
But Hereward, however vain, was no dreamer or sluggard. He set to work,joyfully, cheerfully, scenting battle afar off, like Job's war-horse,and pawing for the battle. He sent back Alftruda's messenger, with thisanswer:--
"Tell your lady that I kiss her hands and feet. That I cannot write, foroutlaws carry no pen and ink. But that what she has commanded, that willI perform."
It is noteworthy, that when Hereward showed Torfrida (which he didfrankly) Alftruda's letter, he did not tell her the exact words of hisanswer, and stumbled and varied much, vexing her thereby, when she,naturally, wished to hear them word for word.
Then he sent out spies to the four airts of heaven. And his spies,finding a friend and a meal in every hovel, brought home all the news heneeded.
He withdrew Torfrida and his men into the heart of the forest,--no hintof the place is given by the chronicler,--cut down trees, formed anabattis of trunks and branches, and awaited the enemy.