CHAPTER XXXVI.
HOW ALFTRUDA WROTE TO HEREWARD.
The weary months ran on, from summer into winter, and winter into summeragain, for two years and more, and neither Torfrida nor Hereward werethe better for them. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: and asick heart is but too apt to be a peevish one. So there were fits ofdespondency, jars, mutual recriminations. "If I had not taken youradvice, I should not have been here." "If I had not loved you so well,I might have been very differently off,"--and so forth. The words werewiped away the next hour, perhaps the next minute, by sacred kisses; butthey had been said, and would be recollected, and perhaps said again.
Then, again, the "merry greenwood" was merry enough in the summer tide,when shaughs were green, and
"The woodwele sang, and would not cease, Sitting upon the spray. So loud, it wakened Robin Hood In the greenwood where he lay."
But it was a sad place enough, when the autumn fog crawled round thegorse, and dripped off the hollies, and choked alike the breath andthe eyesight; when the air sickened with the graveyard smell of rottingleaves, and the rain-water stood in the clay holes over the poached andsloppy lawns.
It was merry enough, too, when they were in winter quarters in friendlyfarm-houses, as long as the bright sharp frosts lasted, and they trackedthe hares and deer merrily over the frozen snows; but it was dolefulenough in those same farm-houses in the howling wet weather, when windand rain lashed in through unglazed window, and ill-made roof, and therewere coughs and colds and rheumatisms, and Torfrida ached from head tofoot, and once could not stand upright for a whole month together, andevery cranny was stuffed up with bits of board and rags, keeping outlight and air as well as wind and water; and there was little differencebetween the short day and the long night; and the men gambled andwrangled amid clouds of peat-reek, over draughtboards and chessmen whichthey had carved for themselves, and Torfrida sat stitching and sewing,making and mending, her eyes bleared with peat-smoke, her hands soreand coarse from continual labor, her cheek bronzed, her face thin andhollow, and all her beauty worn away for very trouble. Then sometimesthere was not enough to eat, and every one grumbled at her; or someone's clothes were not mended, and she was grumbled at again. Andsometimes a foraging party brought home liquor, and all who couldgot drunk to drive dull care away; and Hereward, forgetful of all herwarnings, got more than was good for him likewise; and at night shecoiled herself up in her furs, cold and contemptuous; and Herewardcoiled himself up, guilty and defiant, and woke her again and again withstartings and wild words in his sleep. And she felt that her beautywas gone, and that he saw it; and she fancied him (perhaps it was onlyfancy) less tender than of yore; and then in very pride disdained totake any care of her person, and said to herself, though she dare notsay it to him, that if he only loved her for her face, he did not loveher at all. And because she fancied him cold at times, she was coldlikewise, and grew less and less caressing, when for his sake, as wellas her own, she should have grown more so day by day.
Alas for them! there are many excuses. Sorrow may be a softeningmedicine at last, but at first it is apt to be a hardening one; andthat savage outlaw life which they were leading can never have been awholesome one for any soul of man, and its graces must have existedonly in the brains of harpers and gleemen. Away from law, fromself-restraint, from refinement, from elegance, from the very sound of achurch-going bell, they were sinking gradually down to the level of thecoarse men and women whom they saw; the worse and not the better partsof both their characters were getting the upper hand; and it was but toopossible that after a while the hero might sink into the ruffian, thelady into a slattern and a shrew.
But in justice to them be it said, that neither of them had complainedof the other to any living soul. Their love had been as yet too perfect,too sacred, for them to confess to another (and thereby confess tothemselves) that it could in any wise fail. They had each idolized theother, and been too proud of their idolatry to allow that their idolcould crumble or decay.
And yet at last that point, too, was reached. One day they werewrangling about somewhat, as they too often wrangled, and Hereward inhis temper let fall the words. "As I said to Winter the other day, yougrow harder and harder upon me."
Torfrida started and fixed on him wide, terrible, scornful eyes "So youcomplain of me to your boon companions?"
And she turned and went away without a word. A gulf had opened betweenthem. They hardly spoke to each other for a week.
Hereward complained of Torfrida? What if Torfrida should complain ofHereward? But to whom? Not to the coarse women round her; her priderevolted from that thought;--and yet she longed for counsel, forsympathy,--to open her heart but to one fellow-woman. She would go tothe Lady Godiva at Crowland, and take counsel of her, whether there wasany method (for so she put it to herself) of saving Hereward; for shesaw but too clearly that he was fast forgetting all her teaching, andfalling back to a point lower than that even from which she had raisedhim up.
To go to Crowland was not difficult. It was mid-winter. The dikes wereall frozen. Hereward was out foraging in the Lincolnshire wolds. SoTorfrida, taking advantage of his absence, proposed another foragingparty to Crowland itself. She wanted stuff for clothes, needles, thread,what not. A dozen stout fellows volunteered at once to take her. Thefriendly monks of Crowland would feast them royally, and send themhome heaped with all manner of good things; while as for meeting IvoTaillebois's men, if they had but three to one against them, there wasa fair chance of killing a few, and carrying off their clothes andweapons, which would be useful. So they made a sledge, tied beef-bonesunderneath it, put Torfrida thereon, well wrapped in deer and fox andbadger skin, and then putting on their skates, swept her over the fen toCrowland, singing like larks along the dikes.
And Torfrida went in to Godiva, and wept upon her knees; and Godiva weptlikewise, and gave her such counsel as she could,--how if the woman willkeep the men heroic, she must keep herself not heroic only, but devoutlikewise; how she herself, by that one deed which had rendered her namefamous then, and famous (though she never dreamt thereof) now, and itmay be to the end of time,--had once for all, tamed, chained, and as itwere converted, the heart of her fierce young lord; and enabled her totrain him in good time into the most wise, most just, most pious, of allKing Edward's earls.
And Torfrida said yes, and yes, and yes, and felt in her heart that sheknew all that already. Had not she, too, taught, entreated, softened,civilized? Had not she, too, spent her life upon a man, and that man awolf's-head and a landless outlaw, more utterly than Godiva could everhave spent hers on one who lived lapped in luxury and wealth and power?Torfrida had done her best, and she had failed, or at least fancied inher haste that she had failed.
What she wanted was, not counsel, but love. And she clung round the LadyGodiva, till the broken and ruined widow opened all her heart to her,and took her in her arms, and fondled her as if she had been a babe. Andthe two women spoke few words after that, for indeed there was nothingto be said. Only at last, "My child, my child," cried Godiva, "betterfor thee, body and soul, to be here with me in the house of God, thanthere amid evil spirits and deeds of darkness in the wild woods."
"Not a cloister, not a cloister," cried Torfrida, shuddering, and halfstruggling to get away.
"It is the only place, poor wilful child, the only place this side thegrave, in which, we wretched creatures, who for our sins are women born,can find aught of rest or peace. By us sin came into the world, andEve's curse lies heavy on us to this day, and our desire is to ourlords, and they rule over us; and when the slave can work for her masterno more, what better than to crawl into the house of God, and lay downour crosses at the foot of His cross and die? You too will come here,Torfrida, some day, I know it well. You too will come here to rest."
"Never, never," shrieked Torfrida, "never to these horrid vaults. I willdie in the fresh air! I will be buried under the green hollies; and thenightingales as they wander up from my own Provence, shall build
andsing over my grave. Never, never!" murmured she to herself all the moreeagerly, because something within her said that it would come to pass.
The two women went into the church to Matins, and prayed long andfervently. And at the early daybreak the party went back laden with goodthings and hearty blessings, and caught one of Ivo Taillebois's men bythe way, and slew him, and got off him a new suit of clothes in whichthe poor fellow was going courting; and so they got home safe into theBruneswald.
But Torfrida had not found rest unto her soul. For the first time in herlife since she became the bride of Hereward, she had had a confidenceconcerning him and unknown to him. It was to his own mother,--true. Andyet she felt as if she had betrayed him: but then had he not betrayedher? And to Winter of all men?
It might have been two months afterwards that Martin Lightfoot put aletter into Torfrida's hand.
The letter was addressed to Hereward; but there was nothing strange inMartin's bringing it to his mistress. Ever since their marriage, shehad opened and generally answered the very few epistles with which herhusband was troubled.
She was going to open this one as a matter of course, when glancing atthe superscription she saw, or fancied she saw, that it was in a woman'shand. She looked at it again. It was sealed plainly with a woman's seal;and she looked up at Martin Lightfoot. She had remarked as he gave herthe letter a sly significant look in his face.
"What doest thou know of this letter?" she inquired sharply.
"That it is from the Countess Alftruda, whomsoever she may be."
A chill struck through her heart. True, Alftruda had written before,only to warn Hereward of danger to his life,--and hers. She might bewriting again, only for the same purpose. But still, she did not wishthat either Hereward, or she, should owe Alftruda their lives, oranything. They had struggled on through weal and woe without her, formany a year. Let them do so without her still. That Alftruda had onceloved Hereward she knew well. Why should she not? The wonder was toher that every woman did not love him. But she had long since gaugedAlftruda's character, and seen in it a persistence like her own, yet asshe proudly hoped of a lower temper; the persistence of the base weasel,not of the noble hound: yet the creeping weasel might endure, and win,when the hound was tired out by his own gallant pace. And there was asomething in the tone of Alftruda's last letter which seemed to tell herthat the weasel was still upon the scent of its game. But she was tooproud to mistrust Hereward, or rather, to seem to mistrust him. Andyet--how dangerous Alftruda might be as a rival, if rival she choose tobe. She was up in the world now, free, rich, gay, beautiful, a favoriteat Queen Matilda's court, while she--
"How came this letter into thy hands?" asked she as carelessly as shecould.
"I was in Peterborough last night," said Martin, "concerning littlematters of my own, and there came to me in the street a bonny young pagewith smart jacket on his back, smart cap on his head, and smiles andbows, and 'You are one of Hereward's men,' quoth he."
"'Say that again, young jackanapes,' said I, 'and I'll cut your tongueout,' whereat he took fright and all but cried. He was very sorry, andmeant no harm, but he had a letter for my master, and he heard I was oneof his men.
"Who told him that?"
"Well, one of the monks, he could not justly say which, or wouldn't,and I, thinking the letter of more importance than my own neck, ask himquietly into my friend's house. There he pulls out this and five silverpennies, and I shall have five more if I bring an answer back: but tonone than Hereward must I give it. With that I calling my friend, who isan honest woman, and nigh as strong in the arms as I am, ask her to clapher back against the door, and pull out my axe."
"'Now,' said I, 'I must know a little more about this letter Tell me,knave, who gave it thee, or I'll split thy skull.'
"The young man cries and blubbers; and says that it is the CountessAlftruda, who is staying in the monastery, and that he is her servingman, and that it is as much as my life is worth to touch a hair of hishead, and so forth,--so far so good.
"Then I asked him again, who told him I was my master's man?--and heconfessed that it was Herluin the prior,--he that was Lady Godiva'schaplain of old, whom my master robbed of his money when he had the cellof Bourne years agone. Very well, quoth I to myself, that's one morecount on our score against Master Herluin. Then I asked him how Herluinand the Lady Alftruda came to know aught of each other? and he said thatshe had been questioning all about the monastery without Abbot Thorold'sknowledge, for one that knew Hereward and favored him well. That was allI could get from the knave, he cried so for fright. So I took his moneyand his letter, warning him that if he betrayed me, there were thosewould roast him alive before he was done with me. And so away over thetown wall, and ran here five-and-twenty miles before breakfast, andthought it better as you see to give the letter to my lady first."
"You have been officious," said Torfrida, coldly. "'Tis addressed toyour master. Take it to him. Go."
Martin Lightfoot whistled and obeyed, while Torfrida walked away proudlyand silently with a beating heart.
Again Godiva's words came over her. Should she end in the convent ofCrowland? And suspecting, fearing, imagining all sorts of baselessphantoms, she hardened her heart into a great hardness.
Martin had gone with the letter, and Torfrida never heard any more ofit.
So Hereward had secrets which he would not tell to her. At last!
That, at least, was a misery which she would not confide to Lady Godiva,or to any soul on earth.
But a misery it was. Such a misery as none can delineate, save those whohave endured it themselves, or had it confided to them by another. Andhappy are they to whom neither has befallen.
She wandered on and into the wild-wood, and sat down by a spring. Shelooked in it--her only mirror--at her wan, coarse face, with wild blackelf-locks hanging round it, and wondered whether Alftruda, in her luxuryand prosperity, was still so very beautiful. Ah, that that fountainwere the fountain of Jouvence, the spring of perpetual youth, which allbelieved in those days to exist somewhere,--how would she plunge intoit, and be young and fair once more!
No! she would not! She had lived her life, and lived it well, gallantly,lovingly, heroically. She had given that man her youth, her beauty, herwealth, her wit. He should not have them a second time. He had had hiswill of her. If he chose to throw her away when he had done with her, toprove himself base at last, unworthy of all her care, her counsels, hertraining,--dreadful thought! To have lived to keep that man for her own,and just when her work seemed done, to lose him! No, there was worsethan that. To have lived that she might make that man a perfect knight,and just when her work seemed done, to see him lose himself!
And she wept till she could weep no more. Then she washed away her tearsin that well. Had it been in Greece of old, that well would have becomea sacred well thenceforth, and Torfrida's tears have changed intoforget-me-nots, and fringed its marge with azure evermore.
Then she went back, calm, all but cold: but determined not to betrayherself, let him do what he would. Perhaps it was all a mistake, afancy. At least she would not degrade him, and herself, by showingsuspicion. It would be dreadful, shameful to herself, wickedly unjust tohim, to accuse him, were he innocent after all.
Hereward, she remarked, was more kind to her now. But it was a kindnesswhich she did not like. It was shy, faltering, as of a man guilty andashamed; and she repelled it as much as she dared, and then, once ortwice, returned it passionately, madly, in hopes--
But he never spoke a word of that letter.
After a dreadful month, Martin came mysteriously to her again. Shetrembled, for she had remarked in him lately a strange change. He hadlost his usual loquacity and quaint humor; and had fallen back into thatsullen taciturnity, which, so she heard, he had kept up in his youth.He, too, must know evil which he dared not tell.
"There is another letter come. It came last night," said he.
"What is that to thee or me? My lord has his state secrets. Is it for usto pry i
nto them? Go!"
"I thought--I thought--"
"Go, I say!"
"That your ladyship might wish for a guide to Crowland."
"Crowland?" almost shrieked Torfrida, for the thought of Crowlandhad risen in her own wretched mind instantly and involuntarily. "Go,madman!"
Martin went. Torfrida paced madly up and down the farmhouse. Then shesettled herself into fierce despair.
There was a noise of trampling horses outside. The men were arming andsaddling, seemingly for a raid.
Hereward hurried in for his armor. When he saw Torfrida, he blushedscarlet.
"You want your arms," said she, quietly; "let me fetch them."
"No, never mind. I can harness myself; I am going southwest, to payTaillebois a visit. I am in a great hurry, I shall be back in threedays. Then--good-by."
He snatched his arms off a perch, and hurried out again, dragging themon. As he passed her, he offered to kiss her; she put him back, andhelped him on with his armor, while he thanked her confusedly.
"He was as glad not to kiss me, after all!"
She looked after him as he stood, his hand on his horse's withers. Hownoble he looked! And a great yearning came over her. To throw her armsround his neck once, and then to stab herself, and set him free, dying,as she had lived, for him.
Two bonny boys were wrestling on the lawn, young outlaws who had grownup in the forest with ruddy cheeks and iron limbs.
"Ah, Winter!" she heard him say, "had I had such a boy as that!--"
She heard no more. She turned away, her heart dead within her. She knewall that these words implied, in days when the possession of land waseverything to the free man; and the possession of a son necessary, topass that land on in the ancestral line. Only to have a son; only toprevent the old estate passing, with an heiress, into the hands ofstrangers, what crimes did not men commit in those days, and findthemselves excused for them by public opinion. And now,--her otherchildren (if she ever had any) had died in childhood; the littleTorfrida, named after herself, was all that she had brought to Hereward;and he was the last of his house. In him the race of Leofric, of Godiva,of Earl Oslac, would become extinct; and that girl would marry--whom?Whom but some French conqueror,--or at best some English outlaw. Ineither case Hereward would have no descendants for whom it was worth hiswhile to labor or to fight. What wonder if he longed for a son,--andnot a son of hers, the barren tree,--to pass his name down to futuregenerations? It might be worth while, for that, to come in to the king,to recover his lands, to----She saw it all now, and her heart was deadwithin her.
She spent that evening neither eating nor drinking, but sitting over thelog embers, her head upon her hands, and thinking over all her past lifeand love, since she saw him, from the gable window, ride the first timeinto St. Omer. She went through it all, with a certain stern delight inthe self-torture, deliberately day by day, year by year,--all its loftyaspirations, all its blissful passages, all its deep disappointments,and found in it--so she chose to fancy in the wilfulness of hermisery--nothing but cause for remorse. Self in all, vanity, and vexationof spirit; for herself she had loved him; for herself she had tried toraise him; for herself she had set her heart on man, and not on God. Shehad sown the wind: and behold, she had reaped the whirlwind. She couldnot repent; she could not pray. But oh! that she could die.
She was unjust to herself, in her great nobleness. It was not true, nothalf, not a tenth part true. But perhaps it was good for her that itshould seem true, for that moment; that she should be emptied of allearthly things for once, if so she might be filled from above.
At last she went into the inner room to lie down and try to sleep. Ather feet, under the perch where Hereward's armor had hung, lay an openletter.
She picked it up, surprised at seeing such a thing there, and kneelingdown, held it eagerly to the wax candle which was on a spike at thebed's head.
She knew the handwriting in a moment. It was Alftruda's.
This, then, was why Hereward had been so strangely hurried. He must havehad that letter, and dropped it.
Her eye and mind took it all in, in one instant, as the lightning flashreveals a whole landscape. And then her mind became as dark as thatlandscape, when the flash is past.
It congratulated Hereward on having shaken himself free from thefascination of that sorceress. It said that all was settled with KingWilliam. Hereward was to come to Winchester. She had the King's writfor his safety ready to send to him. The King would receive him as hisliegeman. Alftruda would receive him as her husband. Archbishop Lanfranchad made difficulties about the dissolution of the marriage withTorfrida: but gold would do all things at Rome; and Lanfranc was hervery good friend, and a reasonable man,--and so forth.
Men, and beasts likewise, when stricken with a mortal wound, will run,and run on, blindly, aimless, impelled by the mere instinct of escapefrom intolerable agony. And so did Torfrida. Half undrest as she was,she fled forth into the forest, she knew not whither, running as onedoes wrapt in fire: but the fire was not without her, but within.
She cast a passing glance at the girl who lay by her, sleeping a pureand gentle sleep--
"O that thou hadst but been a boy!" Then she thought no more of her, noteven of Hereward: but all of which she was conscious was a breast andbrain bursting; an intolerable choking, from which she must escape.
She ran, and ran on, for miles. She knew not whether the night was lightor dark, warm or cold. Her tender feet might have been ankle deep insnow. The branches over her head might have been howling in the tempest,or dripping with rain. She knew not, and heeded not. The owls hooted toeach other under the staring moon, but she heard them not. The wolvesglared at her from the brakes, and slunk off appalled at the whiteghostly figure: but she saw them not. The deer stood at gaze in theglades till she was close upon them, and then bounded into the wood. Sheran right at them, past them, heedless. She had but one thought. To fleefrom the agony of a soul alone in the universe with its own misery.
At last she was aware of a man close beside her. He had been followingher a long way, she recollected now; but she had not feared him, evenheeded him. But when he laid his hand upon her arm, she turned fiercely,but without dread.
She looked to see if it was Hereward. To meet him would be death. Ifit were not he, she cared not who it was. It was not Hereward; and shecried angrily, "Off! off!" and hurried on.
"But you are going the wrong way! The wrong way!" said the voice ofMartin Lightfoot.
"The wrong way! Fool, which is the right way for me, save the path whichleads to a land where all is forgotten?"
"To Crowland! To Crowland! To the minster! To the monks! That is theonly right way for poor wretches in a world like this. The Lady Godivatold you you must go to Crowland. And now you are going. I too, I ranaway from a monastery when I was young; and now I am going back. Comealong!"
"You are right! Crowland, Crowland; and a nun's cell till death. Whichis the way, Martin?"
"O, a wise lady! A reasonable lady! But you will be cold before you getthither. There will be a frost ere morn. So, when I saw you run out, Icaught up something to put over you."
Torfrida shuddered, as Martin wrapped her in the white bearskin.
"No! Not that! Anything but that!" and she struggled to shake it off.
"Then you will be dead ere dawn. Folks that run wild in the forest thus,for but one night, die!"
"Would God I could die!"
"That shall be as He wills; you do not die while Martin can keep youalive. Why, you are staggering already."
Martin caught her up in his arms, threw her over his shoulder as if shehad been a child, and hurried on, in the strength of madness.
At last he stopped at a cottage door, set her down upon the turf, andknocked loudly.
"Grimkel Tolison! Grimkel, I say!"
And Martin burst the door open with his foot.
"Give me a horse, on your life," said he to the man inside. "I amMartin, Hereward's man, upon my master's business."
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p; "What is mine is Hereward's, God bless him," said the man, strugglinginto a garment, and hurrying out to the shed.
"There is a ghost against the gate!" cried he, recoiling.
"That is my matter, not yours. Get me a horse to put the ghost upon."
Torfrida lay against the gate-post, exhausted now; but quite unable tothink. Martin lifted her on to the beast, and led her onward, holdingher up again and again.
"You are tired. You had run four miles before I could make you hear me."
"Would I had run four thousand." And she relapsed into stupor.
They passed out of the forest, across open wolds, and at last down tothe river. Martin knew of a boat there. He lifted her from the horse,turned him loose, put Torfrida into the boat, and took the oars.
She looked up, and saw the roofs of Bourne shining white in themoonlight.
And then she lifted up her voice, and shrieked three times:
"Lost! Lost! Lost!"
with such a dreadful cry, that the starlings whirred up from the reeds,and the wild-fowl rose clanging off the meres, and the watch-dogs inBourne and Mainthorpe barked and howled, and folk told fearfully nextmorning how a white ghost had gone down from the forest to the fen, andwakened them with its unearthly cry.
The sun was high when they came to Crowland minster. Torfrida hadneither spoken nor stirred; and Martin, who in the midst of his madnesskept a strange courtesy and delicacy, had never disturbed her, save towrap the bear-skin more closely over her.
When they came to the bank, she rose, stepped out without his help,and drawing the bear-skin closely round her, and over her head, walkedstraight up to the gate of the house of nuns.
All men wondered at the white ghost; but Martin walked behind her, hisleft finger on his lips, his right hand grasping his little axe, withsuch a stern and serious face, and so fierce an eye, that all drew backin silence, and let her pass.
The portress looked through the wicket.
"I am Torfrida," said a voice of terrible calm. "I am come to see theLady Godiva. Let me in."
The portress opened, utterly astounded.
"Madam?" said Martin eagerly, as Torfrida entered.
"What? What?" She seemed to waken from a dream. "God bless thee, thougood and faithful servant"; and she turned again.
"Madam? Say!"
"What?"
"Shall I go back and kill him?" And he held out the little axe.
Torfrida snatched it from his grasp with a shriek, and cast it insidethe convent door.
"Mother Mary and all saints!" cried the portress, "your garments are inrags, madam!"
"Never mind. Bring me garments of yours. I shall need none other till Idie!" and she walked in and on.
"She is come to be a nun!" whispered the portress to the next sister,and she again to the next; and they all gabbled, and lifted up theirhands and eyes, and thanked all the saints of the calendar, over theblessed and miraculous conversion of the Lady Torfrida, and the wealthwhich she would probably bring to the convent.
Torfrida went straight on, speaking to no one, not even to the prioress;and into Lady Godiva's chamber.
There she dropped at the countess's feet, and laid her head upon herknees.
"I am come, as you always told me I should do. But it has been a longway hither, and I am very tired."
"My child! What is this? What brings you here?"
"I am doing penance for my sins."
"And your feet all cut and bleeding."
"Are they?" said Torfrida, vacantly. "I will tell you all about it whenI wake."
And she fell fast asleep, with her head in Godiva's lap.
The countess did not speak or stir. She beckoned the good prioress, whohad followed Torfrida in, to go away. She saw that something dreadfulhad happened; and prayed as she awaited the news.
Torfrida slept for a full hour. Then she woke with a start.
"Where am I? Hereward!"
Then followed a dreadful shriek, which made every nun in that quiethouse shudder, and thank God that she knew nothing of those agonies ofsoul, which were the lot of the foolish virgins who married and weregiven in marriage themselves, instead of waiting with oil in their lampsfor the true Bridegroom.
"I recollect all now," said Torfrida. "Listen!" And she told thecountess all, with speech so calm and clear, that Godiva was awed by thepower and spirit of that marvellous woman.
But she groaned in bitterness of soul. "Anything but this. Rather deathfrom him than treachery. This last, worst woe had God kept in his quiverfor me most miserable of women. And now his bolt has fallen! Hereward!Hereward! That thy mother should wish her last child laid in his grave!"
"Not so," said Torfrida, "it is well as it is. How better? It is hisonly chance for comfort, for honor, for life itself. He would have growna--I was growing bad and foul myself in that ugly wilderness. Now hewill be a knight once more among knights, and win himself fresh honor infresh fields. Let him marry her. Why not? He can get a dispensation fromthe Pope, and then there will be no sin in it, you know. If the HolyFather cannot make wrong right, who can? Yes. It is very well as it is.And I am very well where I am. Women! bring me scissors, and one of yournun's dresses. I am come to be a nun like you."
Godiva would have stopped her. But Torfrida rose upon her knees, andcalmly made a solemn vow, which, though canonically void without herhusband's consent, would, she well knew, never be disputed by any there;and as for him,--"He has lost me; and forever. Torfrida never givesherself away twice."
"There's carnal pride in those words, my poor child," said Godiva.
"Cruel!" said she, proudly. "When I am sacrificing myself utterly forhim."
"And thy poor girl?"
"He will let her come hither," said Torfrida with forced calm. "He willsee that it is not fit that she should grow up with--yes, he will sendher to me--to us. And I shall live for her--and for you. If you will letme be your bower woman, dress you, serve you, read to you. You know thatI am a pretty scholar. You will let me, mother? I may call you mother,may I not?" And Torfrida fondled the old woman's thin hands, "For I dowant so much something to love."
"Love thy heavenly bridegroom, the only love worthy of woman!" saidGodiva, as her tears fell fast on Torfrida's head.
She gave a half-impatient toss.
"That may come, in good time. As yet it is enough to do, if I can keepdown this devil here in my throat. Women, bring me the scissors."
And Torfrida cut off her raven locks, now streaked with gray, and put onthe nun's dress, and became a nun thenceforth.
On the second day there came to Crowland Leofric the priest, and withhim the poor child.
She had woke in the morning and found no mother. Leofric and the othermen searched the woods round, far and wide. The girl mounted her horse,and would go with them. Then they took a bloodhound, and he led themto Grimkel's hut. There they heard of Martin. The ghost must have beenTorfrida. Then the hound brought them to the river. And they divined atonce that she was gone to Crowland, to Godiva; but why, they could notguess.
Then the girl insisted, prayed, at last commanded them to take her toCrowland. And to Crowland they came.
Leofric left the girl at the nun's house door, and went into themonastery, where he had friends enow, runaway and renegade as he was. Ashe came into the great court, whom should he meet but Martin Lightfoot,in a lay brother's frock.
"Aha? And are you come home likewise? Have you renounced the Devil andthis last work of his?"
"What work? What devil?" asked Leofric, who saw method in Martin'smadness. "And what do you here, in a long frock?"
"Devil? Hereward the devil. I would have killed him with my axe; but shegot it from me, and threw it in among the holy sisters, and I had workto get it again. Shame on her, to spoil my chance of heaven! For Ishould have surely won heaven, you know, if I had killed the devil."
After much beating, about, Leofric got from Martin the whole tragedy.
And when he heard it, he burst out weeping.
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"O Hereward, Hereward! O knightly honor! O faith and troth andgratitude, and love in return for such love as might have tamed lions,and made tyrants mild! Are they all carnal vanities, works of the weakflesh, bruised reeds which break when they are leaned upon? If so, youare right, Martin, and there is naught left, but to flee from a world inwhich all men are liars."
And Leofric, in the midst of Crowland Yard, tore off his belt and trustysword, his hauberk and helm also, and letting down his monk's frock,which he wore trussed to the mid-knee, he went to the Abbot's lodgings,and asked to see old Ulfketyl.
"Bring him up," said the good abbot, "for he is a valiant man and true,in spite of all his vanities; and may be he brings news of Hereward,whom God forgive."
And when Leofric came in, he fell upon his knees, bewailing andconfessing his sinful life; and begged the abbot to take him back againinto Crowland minster, and lay upon him what penance he thought fit, andput him in the lowest office, because he was a man of blood; if only hemight stay there, and have a sight at times of his dear Lady Torfrida,without whom he should surely die.
So Leofric was received back, in full chapter, by abbot and priorand all the monks. But when he asked them to lay a penance upon him,Ulfketyl arose from his high chair and spoke.
"Shall we, who have sat here at ease, lay a penance on this man, who hasshed his blood in fifty valiant fights for us, and for St. Guthlac, andfor this English land? Look at yon scars upon his head and arms. He hashad sharper discipline from cold steel than we could give him here withrod; and has fasted in the wilderness more sorely, many a time, than wehave fasted here."
And all the monks agreed, that no penance should be laid on Leofric.Only that he should abstain from singing vain and carnal ballads, whichturned the heads of the young brothers, and made them dream of naughtbut battles, and giants, and enchanters, and ladies' love.
Hereward came back on the third day, and found his wife and daughtergone. His guilty conscience told him in the first instant why. For hewent into the chamber, and there, upon the floor, lay the letter whichhe had looked for in vain.
No one had touched it where it lay. Perhaps no one had dared to enterthe chamber. If they had, they would not have dared to meddle withwriting, which they could not read, and which might contain some magicspell. Letters were very safe in those old days.
There are moods of man which no one will dare to describe, unless, likeShakespeare, he is Shakespeare, and like Shakespeare knows it not.
Therefore what Hereward thought and felt will not be told. What hedid was this. He raged and blustered. He must hide his shame. He mustjustify himself to his knights; and much more to himself; or if notjustify himself, must shift some of the blame over to the opposite side.So he raged and blustered. He had been robbed of his wife and daughter.They had been cajoled away by the monks of Crowland. What villains werethose, to rob an honest man of his family while he was fighting for hiscountry?
So he rode down to the river, and there took two great barges, and rowedaway to Crowland, with forty men-at-arms.
And all the while he thought of Alftruda, as he had seen her atPeterborough.
And of no one else?
Not so. For all the while he felt that he loved Torfrida's little fingerbetter than Alftruda's whole body, and soul into the bargain.
What a long way it was to Crowland. How wearying were the hours throughmere and sea. How wearying the monotonous pulse of the oars. If tobaccohad been known then, Hereward would have smoked all the way, and beennone the wiser, though the happier, for it; for the herb that drivesaway the evil spirits of anxiety, drives away also the good, thoughstern, spirits of remorse.
But in those days a man could only escape facts by drinking; andHereward was too much afraid of what he should meet in Crowland, to gothither drunk.
Sometimes he hoped that Torfrida might hold her purpose, and set himfree to follow his wicked will. All the lower nature in him, so longcrushed under, leapt up chuckling and grinning and tumbling head overheels, and cried,--Now I shall have a holiday!
Sometimes he hoped that Torfrida might come out to the shore, and settlethe matter in one moment, by a glance of her great hawk's eyes. If shewould but quell him by one look; leap on board, seize the helm, andassume without a word the command of his men and him; steer them back toBourne, and sit down beside him with a kiss, as if nothing had happened.If she would but do that, and ignore the past, would he not ignore it?Would he not forget Alftruda, and King William, and all the world, andgo up with her into Sherwood, and then north to Scotland and Gospatrick,and be a man once more?
No. He would go with her to the Baltic or the Mediterranean.Constantinople and the Varangers would be the place and the men. Ay,there to escape out of that charmed ring into a new life!
No. He did not deserve such luck; and he would not get it.
She would talk it all out. She must, for she was a woman.
She would blame, argue, say dreadful words,--dreadful, because true anddeserved. Then she would grow angry, as women do when they are most inthe right, and say too much,--dreadful words, which would be untrue andundeserved. Then he should resist, recriminate. He would not stand it.He could not stand it. No. He could never face her again.
And yet if he had seen a man insult her,--if he had seen her at thatmoment in peril of the slightest danger, the slightest bruise, hewould have rushed forward like a madman, and died, saving her from thatbruise. And he knew that: and with the strange self-contradiction ofhuman nature, he soothed his own conscience by the thought that he lovedher still; and that, therefore--somehow or other, he cared not to makeout how--he had done her no wrong. Then he blustered again, for thebenefit of his men. He would teach these monks of Crowland a lesson. Hewould burn the minster over their heads.
"That would be pity, seeing they are the only Englishmen left inEngland," said Siward the White, his nephew, very simply.
"What is that to thee? Thou hast helped to burn Peterborough at mybidding; and thou shalt help to burn Crowland."
"I am a free gentleman of England; and what I choose, I do. I and mybrother are going to Constantinople to join the Varanger guard, andshall not burn Crowland, or let any man burn it."
"Shall not let?"
"No," said the young man, so quietly, that Hereward was cowed.
"I--I only meant--if they did not do right by me."
"Do right thyself," said Siward.
Hereward swore awfully, and laid his hand on his sword-hilt. But he didnot draw it; for he thought he saw overhead a cloud which was very likethe figure of St. Guthlac in Crowland window, and an awe fell upon himfrom above.
So they came to Crowland; and Hereward landed and beat upon the gates,and spoke high words. But the monks did not open the gates for a while.At last the gates creaked, and opened; and in the gateway stood AbbotUlfketyl in his robes of state, and behind him Prior, and all theofficers, and all the monks of the house.
"Comes Hereward in peace or in war?"
"In war!" said Hereward.
Then that true and trusty old man, who sealed his patriotism, ifnot with his blood,--for the very Normans had not the heart to takethat,--still with long and bitter sorrows, lifted up his head, and said,like a valiant Dane, as his name bespoke him: "Against the traitor andthe adulterer--"
"I am neither," roared Hereward.
"Thou wouldst be, if thou couldst. Whoso looketh upon a woman to--"
"Preach me no sermons, man! Let me in to seek my wife."
"Over my body," said Ulfketyl, and laid himself down across thethreshold.
Hereward recoiled. If he had dared to step over that sacred body, therewas not a blood-stained ruffian in his crew who dared to follow him.
"Rise, rise! for God's sake, Lord Abbot," said he. "Whatever I am, Ineed not that you should disgrace me thus. Only let me see her,--reasonwith her."
"She has vowed herself to God, and is none of thine hence forth."
"It is against the canons. A wrong and a robbery."
Ulfketyl rose, grand as ever.
"Hereward Leofricsson, our joy and our glory once. Hearken to the oldman who will soon go whither thine Uncle Brand is gone, and be free ofFrenchmen, and of all this wicked world. When the walls of Crowlanddare not shelter the wronged woman, fleeing from man's treason to God'sfaithfulness, then let the roofs of Crowland burn till the flame reachesheaven, for a sign that the children of God are as false as the childrenof this world, and break their faith like any belted knight."
Hereward was silenced. His men shrunk back from him. He felt as if God,and the Mother of God, and St. Guthlac, and all the host of heaven,were shrinking back from him likewise. He turned to supplications,compromises,--what else was left?
"At least you will let me have speech of her, or of my mother?"
"They must answer that, not I."
Hereward sent in, entreating to see one, or both.
"Tell him," said Lady Godiva, "who calls himself my son, that my sonswere men of honor, and that he must have been changed at nurse."
"Tell him," said Torfrida, "that I have lived my life, and am dead.Dead. If he would see me, he will only see my corpse."
"You would not slay yourself?"
"What is there that I dare not do? You do not know Torfrida. He does."
And Hereward did; and went back again like a man stunned.
After a while there came by boat to Crowland all Torfrida's wealth:clothes, jewels: not a shred had Hereward kept. The magic armor camewith them.
Torfrida gave all to the abbey, there and then. Only the armor shewrapped up in the white bear's skin, and sent it back to Hereward, withher blessing, and entreaty not to refuse that, her last bequest.
Hereward did not refuse, for very shame. But for very shame he neverwore that armor more. For very shame he never slept again upon the whitebear's skin, on which he and his true love had lain so many a year.
And Torfrida turned herself utterly to serve the Lady Godiva, and toteach and train her child as she had never done before, while she had tolove Hereward, and to work day and night, with her own fingers, for allhis men. All pride, all fierceness, all care of self, had passed awayfrom her. In penitence, humility, obedience, and gentleness, she wenton; never smiling; but never weeping. Her heart was broken; and she feltit good for herself to let it break.
And Leofric the priest, and mad Martin Lightfoot, watched like twodogs for her going out and coming in; and when she went among the poorcorrodiers, and nursed the sick, and taught the children, and went toand fro upon her holy errands, blessing and blessed, the two wild menhad a word from her mouth, or a kiss of her hand, and were happy all theday after. For they loved her with a love mightier than ever Herewardhad heaped upon her; for she had given him all: but she had given thosetwo wild men naught but the beatific vision of a noble woman.