CHAPTER XLII.
HOW HEREWARD GOT THE BEST OF HIS SOUL'S PRICE.
In those days a messenger came riding post to Bourne. The CountessJudith wished to visit the tomb of her late husband, Earl Waltheof; andasked hospitality on her road of Hereward and Alftruda.
Of course she would come with a great train, and the trouble and expensewould be great. But the hospitality of those days, when money wasscarce, and wine scarcer still, was unbounded, and a matter of course;and Alftruda was overjoyed. No doubt, Judith was the most unpopularperson in England at that moment; called by all a traitress and a fiend.But she was an old acquaintance of Alftruda's; she was the king's niece;she was immensely rich, not only in manors of her own, but in manors,as Domesday-book testifies, about Lincolnshire and the counties round,which had belonged to her murdered husband,--which she had too probablyreceived as the price of her treason. So Alftruda looked to her visit asto an honor which would enable her to hold her head high among the proudNorman dames, who despised her as the wife of an Englishman.
Hereward looked on the visit in a different light. He called Judith uglynames, not undeserved; and vowed that if she entered his house by thefront door he would go out at the back. "Torfrida prophesied," he said,"that she would betray her husband, and she had done it."
"Torfrida prophesied? Did she prophesy that I should betray youlikewise?" asked Alftruda, in a tone of bitter scorn.
"No, you handsome fiend: will you do it?"
"Yes; I am a handsome fiend, am I not?" and she bridled up hermagnificent beauty, and stood over him as a snake stands over a mouse.
"Yes; you are handsome,--beautiful: I adore you."
"And yet you will not do what I wish?"
"What you wish? What would I not do for you? what have I not done foryou?"
"Then receive Judith. And now, go hunting, and bring me in game. Iwant deer, roe, fowls; anything and everything from the greatest to thesmallest. Go and hunt."
And Hereward trembled, and went.
There are flowers whose scent is so luscious that silly children willplunge their heads among them, drinking in their odor, to the exclusionof all fresh air. On a sudden sometimes comes a revulsion of the nerves.The sweet odor changes in a moment to a horrible one; and the childcannot bear for years after the scent which has once disgusted it byover-sweetness.
And so had it happened to Hereward. He did not love Alftruda now: heloathed, hated, dreaded her. And yet he could not take his eyes for amoment off her beauty. He watched every movement of her hand, to pressit, obey it. He would have preferred instead of hunting, simply to sitand watch her go about the house at her work. He was spell-bound to athing which he regarded with horror.
But he was told to go and hunt; and he went, with all his men, and senthome large supplies for the larder. And as he hunted, the free, freshair of the forest comforted him, the free forest life came back to him,and he longed to be an outlaw once more, and hunt on forever. He wouldnot go back yet, at least to face that Judith. So he sent back thegreater part of his men with a story. He was ill; he was laid up at afarm-house far away in the forest, and begged the countess to excuse hisabsence. He had sent fresh supplies of game, and a goodly company of hismen, knights and housecarles, who would escort her royally to Crowland.
Judith cared little for his absence; he was but an English barbarian.Alftruda was half glad to have him out of the way, lest his now sullenand uncertain temper should break out; and bowed herself to the earthbefore Judith, who patronized her to her heart's content, and offeredher slyly insolent condolences on being married to a barbarian. Sheherself could sympathize,--who more?
Alftruda might have answered with scorn that she was an Adeliza, and ofbetter English blood than Judith's Norman blood; but she had her ends togain, and gained them.
For Judith was pleased to be so delighted with her that she kissed herlovingly, and said with much emotion that she required a friend whowould support her through her coming trial; and who better than one whoherself had suffered so much? Would she accompany her to Crowland?
Alftruda was overjoyed, and away they went.
And to Crowland they came; and to the tomb in the minster, whereof mensaid already that the sacred corpse within worked miracles of healing.
And Judith, habited in widow's weeds, approached the tomb, and laid onit, as a peace-offering to the manes of the dead, a splendid pall ofsilk and gold.
A fierce blast came howling off the fen, screeched through the minstertowers, swept along the dark aisles; and then, so say the chroniclers,caught up the pall from off the tomb, and hurled it far away into acorner.
"A miracle!" cried all the monks at once; and honestly enough, like trueEnglishmen as they were.
"The Holy heart refuses the gift, Countess," said old Ulfketyl in avoice of awe.
Judith covered her face with her hands, and turned away trembling, andwalked out, while all looked upon her as a thing accursed.
Of her subsequent life, her folly, her wantonness, her disgrace, herpoverty, her wanderings, her wretched death, let others tell.
But these Normans believed that the curse of Heaven was upon her fromthat day. And the best of them believed likewise that Waltheof's murderwas the reason that William, her uncle, prospered no more in life.
"Ah, saucy sir," said Alftruda to Ulfketyl, as she went out, "there isone waiting at Peterborough now who will teach thee manners,--Ingulf ofFontenelle, Abbot, in thy room."
"Does Hereward know that?" asked Ulfketyl, looking keenly at her.
"What is that to thee?" said she, fiercely, and flung out of theminster. But Hereward did not know. There were many things abroad ofwhich she told him nothing.
They went back and were landed at Deeping town, and making their wayalong the King Street, or old Roman road, to Bourne. Thereon a man metthem, running. They had best stay where they were. The Frenchmen wereout, and there was fighting up in Bourne.
Alftruda's knights wanted to push on, to see after the Bourne folk;Judith's knights wanted to push on to help the French; and the twoparties were ready to fight each other. There was a great tumult. Theladies had much ado to still it.
Alftruda said that it might be but a countryman's rumor; that, at least,it was shame to quarrel with their guests. At last it was agreed thattwo knights should gallop on into Bourne, and bring back news.
But those knights never came back. So the whole body moved on Bourne,and there they found out the news for themselves.
Hereward had gone home as soon as they had departed, and sat down to eatand drink. His manner was sad and strange. He drank much at the middaymeal, and then lay down to sleep, setting guards as usual.
After a while he leapt up with a shriek and a shudder.
They ran to him, asking whether he was ill.
"Ill? No. Yes. Ill at heart. I have had a dream,--an ugly dream. Ithought that all the men I ever slew on earth came to me with theirwounds all gaping, and cried at me, 'Our luck then, thy luck now.'Chaplain! is there not a verse somewhere,--Uncle Brand said it to me onhis deathbed,--'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood beshed'?"
"Surely the master is fey," whispered Gwenoch in fear to the chaplain."Answer him out of Scripture."
"Text? None such that I know of," quoth Priest Ailward, a gracelessfellow who had taken Leofric's place. "If that were the law, it would bebut few honest men that would die in their beds. Let us drink, and drivegirls' fancies out of our heads."
So they drank again; and Hereward fell asleep once more.
"It is thy turn to watch, Priest," said Gwenoch to Ailward. "So keep thedoor well, for I am worn out with hunting," and so fell asleep.
Ailward shuffled into his harness, and went to the door. The wine washeady; the sun was hot. In a few minutes he was asleep likewise.
Hereward slept, who can tell how long? But at last there was a bustle, aheavy fall; and waking with a start, he sprang up. He saw Ailward lyingdead across the gate, and above him a crowd of fierce faces, some ofwh
ich he knew too well. He saw Ivo Taillebois; he saw Oger; he saw hisfellow-Breton, Sir Raoul de Dol; he saw Sir Ascelin; he saw Sir Aswa,Thorold's man; he saw Sir Hugh of Evermue, his own son-in-law; and withthem he saw, or seemed to see, the Ogre of Cornwall, and O'Brodar ofIvark, and Dirk Hammerhand of Walcheren, and many another old foe longunderground; and in his ear rang the text,--"Whoso sheddeth man's blood,by man shall his blood be shed." And Hereward knew that his end wascome.
There was no time to put on mail or helmet. He saw the old sword andshield hang on a perch, and tore them down. As he girded the sword onWinter sprang to his side.
"I have three lances,--two for me and one for you, and we can hold thedoor against twenty."
"Till they fire the house over our heads. Shall Hereward die like a wolfin a cave? Forward, all Hereward's men!"
And he rushed out upon his fate. No man followed him, save Winter. Therest, disperst, unarmed, were running hither and thither helplessly.
"Brothers in arms, and brothers in Valhalla!" shouted Winter as herushed after him.
A knight was running to and fro in the Court, shouting Hereward's name."Where is the villain? Wake! We have caught thee asleep at last."
"I am out," quoth Hereward, as the man almost stumbled against him; "andthis is in."
And through shield, hauberk, and body, as says Gaima, went Hereward'sjavelin, while all drew back, confounded for the moment at that mightystroke.
"Felons!" shouted Hereward, "your king has given me his truce; and doyou dare break my house, and kill my folk? Is that your Norman law? Andis this your Norman honor?--To take a man unawares over his meat? Comeon, traitors all, and get what you can of a naked man; [Footnote: i. e.without armor.] you will buy it dear--Guard my back, Winter!"
And he ran right at the press of knights; and the fight began.
"He gored them like a wood-wild boar, As long as that lance might endure,"
says Gaimar.
"And when that lance did break in hand, Full fell enough he smote with brand."
And as he hewed on silently, with grinding teeth and hard, glitteringeyes, of whom did he think? Of Alftruda?
Not so. But of that pale ghost, with great black hollow eyes, who satin Crowland, with thin bare feet, and sackcloth on her tender limbs,watching, praying, longing, loving, uncomplaining. That ghost had beenfor many a month the background of all his thoughts and dreams. Itwas so clear before his mind's eye now, that, unawares to himself, heshouted "Torfrida!" as he struck, and struck the harder at the sound ofhis old battle-cry.
And now he is all wounded and be-bled; and Winter, who has fought backto back with him, has fallen on his face; and Hereward stands alone,turning from side to side, as he sweeps his sword right and left tillthe forest rings with the blows, but staggering as he turns. Within aring of eleven corpses he stands. Who will go in and make the twelfth?
A knight rushes in, to fall headlong down, cloven through the helm: butHereward's blade snaps short, and he hurls it away as his foes rush inwith a shout of joy. He tears his shield from his left arm, and with it,says Gaimar, brains two more.
But the end is come. Taillebois and Evermue are behind him now; fourlances are through his back, and bear him down to his knees.
"Cut off his head, Breton!" shouted Ivo. Raoul de Dol rushed forward,sword in hand. At that cry Hereward lifted up his dying head. One strokemore ere it was all done forever.
And with a shout of "Torfrida!" which made the Bruneswald ring, hehurled the shield full in the Breton's face, and fell forward dead.
The knights drew their lances from that terrible corpse slowly and withcaution, as men who have felled a bear, yet dare not step within reachof the seemingly lifeless paw.
"The dog died hard," said Ivo. "Lucky for us that Sir Ascelin had newsof his knights being gone to Crowland. If he had had them to back him,we had not done this deed to-day."
"I will make sure," said Ascelin, as he struck off the once fair andgolden head.
"Ho, Breton," cried Ivo, "the villain is dead. Get up, man, and see foryourself. What ails him?"
But when they lifted up Raoul de Dol his brains were running down hisface; and all men stood astonished at that last mighty stroke.
"That blow," said Ascelin, "will be sung hereafter by minstrel andmaiden as the last blow of the last Englishman. Knights, we have slaina better knight than ourselves. If there had been three more such men inthis realm, they would have driven us and King William back again intothe sea."
So said Ascelin; those words of his, too, were sung by many a jongleur,Norman as well as English, in the times that were to come.
"Likely enough," said Ivo; "but that is the more reason why we shouldset that head of his up over the hall-door, as a warning to theseEnglish churls that their last man is dead, and their last stake thrownand lost."
So perished "the last of the English."
It was the third day. The Normans were drinking in the hall of Bourne,casting lots among themselves who should espouse the fair Alftruda, whosat weeping within over the headless corpse; when in the afternoon aservant came in, and told them how a barge full of monks had come to theshore, and that they seemed to be monks from Crowland. Ivo Tailleboisbade drive them back again into the barge with whips. But Hugh ofEvermue spoke up.
"I am lord and master in Bourne this day, and if Ivo have a quarrelagainst St. Guthlac, I have none. This Ingulf of Fontenelle, the newabbot who has come thither since old Ulfketyl was sent to prison, isa loyal man, and a friend of King William's, and my friend he shall betill he behaves himself as my foe. Let them come up in peace."
Taillebois growled and cursed: but the monks came up, and into the hall;and at their head Ingulf himself, to receive whom all men rose, saveTaillebois.
"I come," said Ingulf, in most courtly French, "noble knights, to aska boon and in the name of the Most Merciful, on behalf of a noble andunhappy lady. Let it be enough to have avenged yourself on the living.Gentlemen and Christians war not against the dead."
"No, no, Master Abbot!" shouted Taillebois; "Waltheof is enough to keepCrowland in miracles for the present. You shall not make a martyr ofanother Saxon churl. He wants the barbarian's body, knights, and youwill be fools if you let him have it."
"Churl? barbarian?" said a haughty voice; and a nun stepped forward whohad stood just behind Ingulf. She was clothed entirely in black. Herbare feet were bleeding from the stones; her hand, as she lifted it, wasas thin as a skeleton's.
She threw back her veil, and showed to the knights what had been oncethe famous beauty of Torfrida.
But the beauty was long past away. Her hair was white as snow; hercheeks were fallen in. Her hawk-like features were all sharp and hard.Only in their hollow sockets burned still the great black eyes, sofiercely that all men turned uneasily from her gaze.
"Churl? barbarian?" she said, slowly and quietly, but with an intensitywhich was more terrible than rage. "Who gives such names to one who wasas much better born and better bred than those who now sit here, as hewas braver and more terrible than they? The base wood-cutter's son? Theupstart who would have been honored had he taken service as yon deadman's groom?"
"Talk to me so, and my stirrup leathers shall make acquaintance withyour sides," said Taillebois.
"Keep them for your wife. Churl? Barbarian? There is not a man withinthis hall who is not a barbarian compared with him. Which of you touchedthe harp like him? Which of you, like him, could move all hearts withsong? Which of you knows all tongues from Lapland to Provence? Whichof you has been the joy of ladies' bowers, the counsellor of earls andheroes, the rival of a mighty king? Which of you will compare yourselfwith him,--whom you dared not even strike, you and your robber crew,fairly in front, but, skulked round him till he fell pecked to deathby you, as Lapland Skratlings peck to death the bear. Ten years agohe swept this hall of such as you, and hung their heads upon yon gableoutside; and were he alive but one five minutes again, this hall wouldbe right cleanly swept again! Give me his body,--or bear f
orever thename of cowards, and Torfrida's curse."
And she fixed her terrible eyes first on one, and then on another,calling them by name.
"Ivo Taillebois,--basest of all--"
"Take the witch's accursed eyes off me!" and he covered his face withhis hands. "I shall be overlooked,--planet struck. Hew the witch down!Take her away!"
"Hugh of Evermue,--the dead man's daughter is yours, and the dead man'slands. Are not these remembrances enough of him? Are you so fond of hismemory that you need his corpse likewise?"
"Give it her! Give it her!" said he, hanging down his head like a ratedcur.
"Ascelin of Lincoln, once Ascelin of Ghent,--there was a time whenyou would have done--what would you not?--for one glance of Torfrida'seyes.--Stay. Do not deceive yourself, fair sir, Torfrida means to ask nofavor of you, or of living man. But she commands you. Do the thing shebids, or with one glance of her eye she sends you childless to yourgrave."
"Madam! Lady Torfrida! What is there I would not do for you? What have Idone now, save avenge your great wrong?"
Torfrida made no answer, but fixed steadily on him eyes which widenedevery moment.
"But, madam,"--and he turned shrinking from the fancied spell,--"whatwould you have? The--the corpse? It is in the keeping of--of anotherlady."
"So?" said Torfrida, quietly. "Leave her to me"; and she swept past themall, and flung open the bower door at their backs, discovering Alftrudasitting by the dead.
The ruffians were so utterly appalled, not only by the false powers ofmagic, but by veritable powers of majesty and eloquence, that they lether do what she would.
"Out!" cried she, using a short and terrible epithet. "Out, siren, withfairy's face and tail of fiend, and leave the husband with his wife!"
Alftruda looked up, shrieked; and then, with the sudden passion of aweak nature, drew a little knife, and sprang up.
Ivo made a coarse jest. The Abbot sprang in: "For the sake of all holythings, let there be no more murder here!"
Torfrida smiled, and fixed her snake's eye upon her wretched rival.
"Out! woman, and choose thee a new husband among these French gallants,ere I blast thee from head to foot with the leprosy of Naaman theSyrian."
Alftruda shuddered, and fled shrieking into an inner room.
"Now, knights, give me--that which hangs outside."
Ascelin hurried out, glad to escape. In a minute he returned.
The head was already taken down. A tall lay brother, the moment hehad seen it, had climbed the gable, snatched it away, and now sat in acorner of the yard, holding it on his knees, talking to it, chiding it,as if it had been alive. When men had offered to take it, he had drawn abattle-axe from under his frock, and threatened to brain all comers. Andthe monks had warned off Ascelin, saying that the man was mad, and hadBerserk fits of superhuman strength and rage.
"He will give it me!" said Torfrida, and went out.
"Look at that gable, foolish head," said the madman. "Ten years agone,you and I took down from thence another head. O foolish head, to getyourself at last up into that same place! Why would you not be ruled byher, you foolish golden head?"
"Martin!" said Torfrida.
"Take it and comb it, mistress, as you used to do. Comb out the goldenlocks again, fit to shine across the battle-field. She has let them getall tangled into elf-knots, that lazy slut within."
Torfrida took it from his hands, dry-eyed, and went in.
Then the monks silently took up the bier, and all went forth, and downthe hill toward the fen. They laid the corpse within the barge, andslowly rowed away.
And on by Porsad and by Asendyke, By winding reaches on, and shining meres Between gray reed-ronds and green alder-beds, A dirge of monks and wail of women rose In vain to Heaven for the last Englishman; Then died far off within the boundless mist, And left the Norman master of the land.
So Torfrida took the corpse home to Crowland, and buried it in thechoir, near the blessed martyr St. Waltheof; after which she did notdie, but lived on many years, [Footnote: If Ingulf can be trusted,Torfrida died about A.D. 1085.] spending all day in nursing and feedingthe Countess Godiva, and lying all night on Hereward's tomb, and prayingthat he might find grace and mercy in that day.
And at last Godiva died; and they took her away and buried her withgreat pomp in her own minster church of Coventry.
And after that Torfrida died likewise; because she had nothing left forwhich to live. And they laid her in Hereward's grave, and their dust ismingled to this day.
And Leofric the priest lived on to a good old age, and above all thingshe remembered the deeds and the sins of his master, and wrote them in abook, and this is what remains thereof.
But when Martin Lightfoot died, no man has said; for no man in thosedays took account of such poor churls and running serving-men.
And Hereward's comrades were all scattered abroad, some maimed, someblinded, some with tongues cut out, to beg by the wayside, or crawl intoconvents, and then die; while their sisters and daughters, ladies bornand bred, were the slaves of grooms and scullions from beyond the sea.
And so, as sang Thorkel Skallason,--
"Cold heart and bloody hand Now rule English land." [Footnote: Laing's Heimskringla.]
And after that things waxed even worse and worse, for sixty yearsand more; all through the reigns of the two Williams, and of HenryBeauclerc, and of Stephen; till men saw visions and portents, andthought that the foul fiend was broken loose on earth. And theywhispered oftener and oftener that the soul of Hereward haunted theBruneswald, where he loved to hunt the dun deer and the roe. And in theBruneswald, when Henry of Poitou was made abbot, [Footnote: Anglo-SaxonChronicle, A.D. 1127.] men saw--let no man think lightly of themarvel which we are about to relate, for it was well known all over thecountry--upon the Sunday, when men sing, "Exsurge quare, O Domine," manyhunters hunting, black, and tall, and loathly, and their hounds wereblack and ugly with wide eyes, and they rode on black horses andblack bucks. And they saw them in the very deer-park of the town ofPeterborough, and in all the woods to Stamford; and the monks heardthe blasts of the horns which they blew in the night. Men of truthkept watch upon them, and said that there might be well about twenty orthirty horn-blowers. This was seen and heard all that Lent until Easter,and the Norman monks of Peterborough said how it was Hereward, doomed towander forever with Apollyon and all his crew, because he had stolen theriches of the Golden Borough: but the poor folk knew better, and saidthat the mighty outlaw was rejoicing in the chase, blowing his horn forEnglishmen to rise against the French; and therefore it was that he wasseen first on "Arise, O Lord" Sunday.
But they were so sore trodden down that they could never rise; for theFrench [Footnote: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1137.] had filled theland full of castles. They greatly oppressed the wretched people bymaking them work at these castles; and when the castles were finished,they filled them with devils and evil men. They took those whom theysuspected of having any goods, both men and women, and they put themin prison for their gold and silver, and tortured them with painsunspeakable, for never were any martyrs tormented as these were. Theyhung some by their feet, and smoked them with foul smoke; some by thethumbs, or by the head, and put burning things on their feet. They puta knotted string round their heads, and twisted it till it went into thebrain. They put them in dungeons wherein were adders, and snakes, andtoads, and thus wore them out. Some they put into a crucet-house,--thatis, into a chest that was short and narrow, and they put sharp stonestherein, and crushed the man so that they broke all his bones. Therewere hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in many of the castles,which two or three men had enough to do to carry. This Sachentege wasmade thus: It was fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go round aman's throat and neck, so that he might no ways sit, nor lie, norsleep, but he must bear all the iron. Many thousands they wore out withhunger.... They were continually levying a tax from the towns, whichthey called truserie, and when the wretched townsfolk had no mor
e togive, then burnt they all the towns, so that well mightest thou walk awhole day's journey or ever thou shouldest see a man settled in a town,or its lands tilled....
"Then was corn dear, and flesh, and cheese, and butter, for there wasnone in the land. Wretched men starved with hunger. Some lived on almswho had been once rich. Some fled the country. Never was there moremisery, and never heathens acted worse than these."
For now the sons of the Church's darlings, of the Crusaders whomthe Pope had sent, beneath a gonfalon blessed by him, to destroy theliberties of England, turned, by a just retribution, upon that veryNorman clergy who had abetted all their iniquities in the name ofRome. "They spared neither church nor churchyard, but took all that wasvaluable therein, and then burned the church and all together. Neitherdid they spare the lands of bishops, nor of abbots, nor of priests; butthey robbed the monks and clergy, and every man plundered his neighboras much as he could. If two or three men came riding to a town, allthe townsfolk fled before them, and thought that they were robbers.The bishops and clergy were forever cursing them; but this to them wasnothing, for they were all accursed and forsworn and reprobate. Theearth bare no corn: you might as well have tilled the sea, for all theland was ruined by such deeds, and it was said openly that Christ andhis saints slept."
And so was avenged the blood of Harold and his brothers, of Edwin andMorcar, of Waltheof and Hereward.
And those who had the spirit of Hereward in them fled to the merrygreenwood, and became bold outlaws, with Robin Hood, Scarlet, andJohn, Adam Bell, and Clym of the Cleugh, and William of Cloudeslee; andwatched with sullen joy the Norman robbers tearing in pieces each other,and the Church who had blest their crime.
And they talked and sung of Hereward, and all his doughty deeds, overthe hearth in lone farm-houses, or in the outlaw's lodge beneath thehollins green; and all the burden of their song was, "Ah thatHereward were alive again!" for they knew not that Hereward was aliveforevermore; that only his husk and shell lay mouldering there inCrowland choir; that above them, and around them, and in them, destinedto raise them out of that bitter bondage, and mould them into a greatnation, and the parents of still greater nations in lands as yetunknown, brooded the immortal spirit of Hereward, now purged from allearthly dross, even the spirit of Freedom, which can never die.
CHAPTER XLIII.
HOW DEEPING FEN WAS DRAINED.
But war and disorder, ruin and death, cannot last forever. They are bytheir own nature exceptional and suicidal, and spend themselves withwhat they feed on. And then the true laws of God's universe, peace andorder, usefulness and life, will reassert themselves, as they have beenwaiting all along to do, hid in God's presence from the strife of men.
And even so it was with Bourne.
Nearly eighty years after, in the year of Grace 1155, there might havebeen seen sitting, side by side and hand in hand, upon a sunny bench onthe Bruneswald slope, in the low December sun, an old knight and an oldlady, the master and mistress of Bourne.
Much had changed since Hereward's days. The house below had been raiseda whole story. There were fresh herbs and flowers in the garden, unknownat the time of the Conquest. But the great change was in the fen,especially away toward Deeping on the southern horizon.
Where had been lonely meres, foul watercourses, stagnant slime, therewere now great dikes, rich and fair corn and grass lands, rows ofpure white cottages. The newly-drained land swarmed with stocks ofnew breeds: horses and sheep from Flanders, cattle from Normandy; forRichard de Rulos was the first--as far as history tells--of that nobleclass of agricultural squires, who are England's blessing and England'spride.
"For this Richard de Rulos," says Ingulf, or whoever wrote in his name,"who had married the daughter and heiress of Hugh of Evermue, Lord ofBourne and Deeping, being a man of agricultural pursuits, got permissionfrom the monks of Crowland, for twenty marks of silver, to enclose asmuch as he would of the common marshes. So he shut out the Welland by astrong embankment, and building thereon numerous tenements and cottages,in a short time he formed a large 'vill,' marked out gardens, andcultivated fields; while, by shutting out the river, he found in themeadow land, which had been lately deep lakes and impassable marshes(wherefore the place was called Deeping, the deep meadow), most fertilefields and desirable lands, and out of sloughs and bogs accursed madequiet a garden of pleasaunce."
So there the good man, the beginner of the good work of centuries, satlooking out over the fen, and listening to the music which came onthe southern breeze--above the low of the kine, and the clang of thewild-fowl settling down to rest--from the bells of Crowland minster faraway.
They were not the same bells which tolled for Hereward and Torfrida.Those had run down in molten streams upon that fatal night when AbbotIngulf leaped out of bed to see the vast wooden sanctuary wrapt in onesheet of roaring flame, from the carelessness of a plumber who hadraked the ashes over his fire in the bell-tower, and left it to smoulderthrough the night.
Then perished all the riches of Crowland; its library too, of morethan seven hundred volumes, with that famous Nadir, or Orrery, thelike whereof was not in all England, wherein the seven planets wererepresented, each in their proper metals. And even worse, all thecharters of the monastery perished, a loss which involved the monksthereof in centuries of lawsuits, and compelled them to become asindustrious and skilful forgers of documents as were to be found in theminsters of the middle age.
But Crowland minster had been rebuilt in greater glory than ever, bythe help of the Norman gentry round. Abbot Ingulf, finding that St.Guthlac's plain inability to take care of himself had discredited himmuch in the fen-men's eyes, fell back, Norman as he was, on thevirtues of the holy martyr, St. Waltheof, whose tomb he opened with duereverence, and found the body as whole and uncorrupted as on the dayon which it was buried: and the head united to the body, while afine crimson line around the neck was the only sign remaining of hisdecollation.
On seeing which Ingulf "could not contain himself for joy: andinterrupting the response which the brethren were singing, with a loudvoice began the hymn 'Te Deum Laudamus,' on which the chanter, takingit up, enjoined the rest of the brethren to sing it." After whichIngulf--who had never seen Waltheof in life, discovered that it was noneother than he whom he had seen in a vision at Fontenelle, as an earlmost gorgeously arrayed, with a torc of gold about his neck, and withhim an abbot, two bishops, and two saints, the two former being Usfranand Ausbert, the abbots, St. Wandresigil of Fontenelle, and the twosaints, of course St. Guthlac and St. Neot.
Whereon, crawling on his hands and knees, he kissed the face of the holymartyr, and "perceived such a sweet odor proceeding from the holy body,as he never remembered to have smelt, either in the palace of the king,or in Syria with all its aromatic herbs."
_Quid plura?_ What more was needed for a convent of burnt-out monks?St. Waltheof was translated in state to the side of St. Guthlac; and thenews of this translation of the holy martyr being spread throughoutthe country, multitudes of the faithful flocked daily to the tomb, andoffering up their vows there, tended in a great degree "to resuscitateour monastery."
But more. The virtues of St. Waltheof were too great not to turnthemselves, or be turned, to some practical use. So if not in the daysof Ingulf, at least in those of Abbot Joffrid who came after him, St.Waltheof began, says Peter of Blois, to work wonderful deeds. "The blindreceived their sight, the deaf their hearing, the lame their powerof walking, and the dumb their power of speech; while each day troopsinnumerable of other sick persons were arriving by every road, as to thevery fountain of their safety, ... and by the offerings of the pilgrimswho came flocking in from every part, the revenues of the monastery wereincreased in no small degree."
Only one wicked Norman monk of St. Alban's, Audwin by name, dared todispute the sanctity of the martyr, calling him a wicked traitor who hadmet with his deserts. In vain did Abbot Joffrid, himself a Norman fromSt. Evroult, expostulate with the inconvenient blasphemer. He launchedout into invective beyond measure;
till on the spot, in presence of thesaid father, he was seized with such a stomach-ache, that he went hometo St. Alban's, and died in a few days; after which all went well withCrowland, and the Norman monks who worked the English martyr to getmoney out of the English whom they had enslaved.
And yet,--so strangely mingled for good and evil are the works ofmen,--that lying brotherhood of Crowland set up, in those very days,for pure love of learning and of teaching learning, a little school ofletters in a poor town hard by, which became, under their auspices, theUniversity of Cambridge.
So the bells of Crowland were restored, more melodious than ever; andRichard of Rulos doubtless had his share in their restoration. And thatday they were ringing with a will, and for a good reason; for that dayhad come the news, that Henry Plantagenet was crowned king of England.
"'Lord,'" said the good old knight, "'now lettest thou thy servantdepart in peace.' This day, at last, he sees an English king head theEnglish people."
"God grant," said the old lady, "that he may be such a lord to Englandas thou hast been to Bourne."
"If he will be,--and better far will he be, by God's grace, from what Ihear of him, than ever I have been,--he must learn that which I learntfrom thee,--to understand these Englishmen, and know what stout andtrusty prudhommes they are all, down to the meanest serf, when once onecan humor their sturdy independent tempers."
"And he must learn, too, the lesson which thou didst teach me, when Iwould have had thee, in the pride of youth, put on the magic armor of myancestors, and win me fame in every tournament and battle-field. Blessedbe the day when Richard of Rulos said to me, 'If others dare to be menof war, I dare more; for I dare to be a man of peace. Have patience withme, and I will win for thee and for myself a renown more lasting, beforeGod and man, than ever was won with lance!' Do you remember those words,Richard mine?"
The old man leant his head upon his hands. "It may be that not thosewords, but the deeds which God has caused to follow them, may, byChrist's merits, bring us a short purgatory and a long heaven."
"Amen. Only whatever grief we may endure in the next life for our sins,may we endure it as we have the griefs of this life, hand in hand."
"Amen, Torfrida. There is one thing more to do before we die. The tombin Crowland. Ever since the fire blackened it, it has seemed to me toopoor and mean to cover the dust which once held two such noble souls.Let us send over to Normandy for fair white stone of Caen, and let carvea tomb worthy of thy grandparents."
"And what shall we write thereon?"
"What but that which is there already? 'Here lies the last of theEnglish.'"
"Not so. We will write,--'Here lies the last of the old English.'But upon thy tomb, when thy time comes, the monks of Crowland shallwrite,--'Here lies the first of the new English; who, by the inspirationof God, began to drain the Fens.'"
EXPLICIT.
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