CHAPTER XI.

THE LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE.

The restored Lord of Brunn, having done so much in a few days, made full report thereof unto the good Lord Abbat and the great prelates and Saxon thanes that had made the isle of Ely and the Camp of Refuge their homes. Right joyous was the news; and prudent and unanimous were the counsels which followed it. The Abbat of Crowland and the Prior of Spalding, and such of their monks as had gone with them or followed them to Ely to escape from the oppression of Ivo Taille-Bois, now, without loss of time, returned to the banks of the Welland.

The abbat and the prior were soon comfortably re-established in their several houses; the rest of the expelled monks came flocking back to their cells, and the good Saxon fen-men began to renew their pilgrimages to the shrines. Many pilgrims too came from the countries bordering on the fens; and while some of these men remained to fight under the Lord of Brunn, others going back to their homes carried with them the glad intelligence that the Camp of Refuge was more unassailable than it had ever been, and that a most powerful Saxon league was forming for the total expulsion of the Normans from England.

Besides his own dependence and the chiefs of his own kindred, many Saxon hinds, and not a few chiefs of name, began now to repair to Hereward’s standard. There came his old brother in arms Winter of Wisbech, who had never touched the mailed hand of the conqueror in sign of peace and submission; there came his distant relative Gherik, who bore on his brow the broad scar of an almost deadly wound he had gotten at Hastings; there came Alfric[141] and Rudgang, and Sexwold and Siward Beorn, that true Saxon soldier who had formerly been a companion to Edgar Etheling in his flight, and who had come back from Scotland because he could not bear to live in ease and plenty while his country was oppressed. Not one of these Saxon warriors but would stand against three Normans on foot! Hereward afterward gave proof, and more times than once, that he could keep his ground against seven! As for the hungry outlandish men the Conqueror was bringing from all the countries in southern Europe, to help him to do that which he boasted he had done in the one battle of Hastings, they were not men to face any of our lusty Saxons of the old race; but they fell before them in battle like reeds of the fen when trampled upon. But the skill and craft of these alien men were great: many of them were drawn from Italie, though not from the same part of that country which gave birth to Girolamo; and therefore were the services of the Salernitan the more valuable; and therefore was it that the young Lord of Brunn had need of all his own strategy, and of all the inborn and acquired qualities which made him the foremost captain of that age.

Ivo Taille-Bois, whom some did call the devil of the fens, was not in the manor-house of the Ladie Lucia, near unto Spalding, when Hereward first came to claim his own, and to turn out his false monks. Being weary with living among bogs and marshes, and having occasion to consult with the Norman vicomte who held command at Stamford, Ivo had gone to that town, some few days before the feast of the Nativity, and had carried with him his Saxon wife and her infant child, leaving none in the moated and battlemented house save a few servants, and some ten or twelve armed Normans. The house was strong and difficult of access; but if it had not been for the respect due to the Lady Lucia, the kinswoman of his own Ladie Alftrude, Hereward, on his gaining possession of Spalding, would have made a rough attempt upon it: and such was the temper of the Saxons within the house, that doubtlessly they would have played into his hands. For several days the Normans remained wholly ignorant of the great things which had been done in the succursal cell, at Brunn and at Crowland, for they could not venture outside the walls of the manor-house, and even if there had been no danger in their so doing, the inundated state of the country, and the cold wintry weather, offered few temptations to rambling. At length the passing of many skerries across the fens, and the frequent passage of larger boats, crowded with people, on the broad and not distant Welland, and the triumphant shouts that were occasionally heard from the banks of the river, caused the men-at-arms to suspect that some insurrection was a-foot. They thanked their stars that the moat was so broad, the house so strong, and the store-house so well stored, and they went on sleeping like dormice, or like squirrels, in the topmost hollow of an oak, whose root is deep under the wintry waters. They could not trust any Saxon messenger to Stamford; and therefore it was not from his garrison in the manor-house, but directly from Alain of Beauvais and others of that unholy crew, that the fierce Ivo learned all that had happened upon or round about his wife’s domains. Some of the herd were seized with fever and delirium—the effects of fear and fatigue and wet clothes—and they did not recover their senses for many a week; but Alain and such of them as could talk and reason, related all the horrible circumstances of their expulsion and flight, of the onset of the devils of Crowland, and of the close and self-evident league existing between Beelzebub and the Saxons. All this was horrible to hear; but Alain of Beauvais pronounced a name which was more horrible or odious to Ivo Taille-Bois than that of Lucifer himself:—this was the name of Hereward the Saxon—of Hereward the Lord of Brunn, which the men of Crowland town had shouted in their ears as the Norman monks were flying along the causeway. Partly through the tattle of some serving-women, and more through the confidence of his wife, who did not hate her Norman lord quite so much as she ought to have done, Ivo had learned something of the love passages between Hereward and the Ladie Alftrude, and something also of the high fame which Hereward had obtained as a warrior: and he gnashed his teeth as he said to himself in Stamford town, “If this foul game last, my brother may go back to Normandie a beggar, and I may follow him as another beggar, for this Saxon churl will carry off Lanfranc’s rich ward, and besiege and take my house by Spalding, and the devil and the Saxon people being all with him, he will disseise me of all my lands! But I will to the Vicomte of Stamford, and ask for fifty lances to join to my own followers, and albeit I may not charge home to Spalding, I can ride to Ey and carry off the Saxon girl before this Hereward takes her. Great Lanfranc must needs excuse the deed, for if I take her not, and give her to my brother, the Saxon rebel and traitor will take her. I was a dolt and wife-governed fool ever to have let her depart from mine house after that christening feast. But haply now my brother is here! The instant we get her he shall wed her. We will carry a ring with us to Ey for that purpose!”

While Ivo Taille-Bois was thus making up his wicked mind in Stamford town, the good Lord Hereward was advancing with one hundred brave Saxons from his fair house at Brunn to the fairer and statelier house of the Ladie Alftrude at Ey, having dispatched Elfric the ex-novice before him to make his way straight, and to appoint a place of meeting with his ladie-love, and a place of meeting between his friends and retainers, and her retainers and the friends of her house. Now from Brunn[142] to Ey is a much longer distance than from Stamford to Ey; but while the Normans were obliged to keep to the roundabout roads and to make many preparations beforehand (for fear of the fenners), the Englishmen, aided by skerries, and whatever the country people could lend them, struck directly across the fens. And in this wise it befel that Lord Hereward got a good footing within the Ladie Alftrude’s domain many hours before Ivo Taille-Bois and his brother could get within sight of the manor-house of Ey. On the bank of a river which flowed towards the Welland, and which formed the natural boundary of her far-extending lands, the hundred chosen warriors of the Lord of Brunn were met and welcomed by fifty armed men of the Ladie of Ey, and by fifty or sixty more brave men from the neighbouring fens, furnished with long fen-poles, bill-hooks, and bows. While these united warriors marched together towards the manor-house in goodly array, and shouting “Hereward for England!” the young Lord of Brunn, attended by none but Elfric, who had met him by the river, quitted the array and strode across some fields towards the little church of the township which stood on a bright green hillock, with a linden grove close behind it. It was within that ivied church that the heir of Brunn and the heiress of Ey had first met as children; and it was in that linden-grove that the bold young man Hereward had first told Alftrude how much he loved her. And was it not within that grove, then all gay and leafy, and now leafless and bare, that Hereward had taken his farewell when going to follow King Harold to the wars, and that the Ladie Alftrude had reconfirmed to him her troth-plight? And was it not for these good reasons that the Saxon maiden, who loved not public greetings in the hall, amidst shouts and acclamations, had appointed the linden-grove, behind the old church, to be the place where she should welcome back Hereward to his home and country. The church and the linden-grove were scarce an arrow-flight from the manor-house. The noble maiden was attended by none but her handmaiden Mildred. When the young Lord of Brunn came up and took the Ladie Alftrude by the hand, that noble pair walked into the grove by a path which led towards the little church. For some time their hearts were too full to allow of speech: and when they could speak no ear could hear them, and no mortal eye see them. With Elfric and the maid Mildred it was not so. They stopped at the edge of the grove, and both talked and laughed enow—though they too were silent for a short space, and stood gazing at each other. It is said that it was the maiden who spoke first, and that she marvelled much at Elfric’s changed attire.

“Master novice,” she said, “where are thy gown and thy cowl? When last I saw thee thou wast habited as a wandering glee-man; and now I see thee armed and attired even like a man-at-arms. What meaneth this? Is thy war-dress to serve only for an occasion, like thy menestrel cloak? Tell me, art thou monk, menestrel, or soldier? I thought thy noviciate was all but out, and that thou wast about to take thy vows.”

“No vows for me,” said Elfric, “but vows to serve my country, and vows to love thee, oh Mildred! I was not meant to be a cloister-monk—albeit, if the Normans had not come into the fen country, and I had never been sent on the business of the Spalding cell to the house of thy mistress, and had never seen thee, fair Mildred, I might in all possibility have submitted quietly to the manner of life which had been chosen for me. But these accidents which have happened have made me feel that I love fighting better than praying, and loving much better than fasting. My superiors have all come to the same conclusion, and have liberated me, and have given me to the brave and bountiful Lord Hereward to be his page and sword-bearer, and whatsoever he may please to make me.” Maid Mildred tried to check her tongue, and to look composed or indifferent; but not being well practised in the art of concealing her feelings, she set up a cry of joy, and then falling on her knees she inwardly and silently thanked heaven that Elfric was not to be a monk, or one that could not be loved by her without sin. Perhaps the ex-novice understood what was passing in her mind; and perhaps he did not: for when he raised her up by her hand, and kept her hand closed within his own, and looked in her bright blue eyes, he said, “Mildred, art thou glad, indeed, at this my change of condition? Art thou, indeed, happy that I should be a soldier, fighting for the good English cause, and a sword-bearer constantly in attendance on the brave and bountiful Lord of Brunn, to go wherever he goeth, and to dwell with him in mansion and hall, when the battle is over and the camp struck; or wouldst thou have me back in the house at Spalding, and a monk for all my days?”

“It seemeth to me that when devout and learned men have opined that thou art fitter for a soldier than for a monk, it is not for a weak unlettered maid like me to gainsay it. In sooth thou lookest marvellously well in that soldier jerkin and baldric; and that plumed cap becomes thy merry face better than the hood. Thou carriest that sword too by thy side with a better grace than ever thou didst carry missal or breviary. But—but—alack and woe the while!—soldiers get killed and monks do not! Elfric, thou wert safer in thy cell.”

“No, Mildred, these are times when war rages in the convent as in the tented field. No house is safe from intrusion; and where I was, Norman should never intrude without finding at the least one bold heart to defy him and oppose him. A young man of my temper would encounter more danger in the cloisters than on the field of battle, and would perish unnoticed by the world, and without any service to his country. But as a soldier and follower of Hereward our great captain, I may aid the liberties of the Saxon people, and if I fall I shall fall, the sword in my hand, fighting like a man, with the broad green earth under me, and the open blue sky above me! I shall not die pent in cloister like a rat in his hole! and men will remember me when I am gone as the slayer of many Normans.... But turn not so pale, be not discomfited, my merry Mildred, at this thought of death! Of the thousands that go forth into battle the greater part always return, and return unscathed, whether they have been victorious or vanquished; but if victorious, the less is their loss. Death turns aside from those who fear him not, or are too busy and too earnest in a just cause to think about him. The brave live when the cowards perish: the dread carnage falls upon those who run away, or who are deaf to the voice of their leader. Our cause is just, and will be protected and blessed by heaven. We fight only for our own—for our own country, our own king, our own ancient laws and usages, our own church. The Lord Hereward is as politic as he is brave; he is famed even beyond seas as one of the greatest of commanders; and with such a cause and such a leader, upheld and followed as they must be by all honest and stout-hearted Englishmen, we cannot fail of victory. And when these Norman robbers shall be driven forth of the land, and good King Harold restored, there will be no more war, and no more danger.”

Mildred felt comforted, and they spoke no more of war. Elfric related all his wondrous adventures, and described all that he had seen in foreign lands when he was in quest of the Lord of Brunn, the maiden listening to him with wide-open, wondering eyes. Next he told her how ingeniously he had played the devil at Crowland, and driven away the Norman shavelings; and at this Mildred laughed out right merrily, saying that she would like to have seen it, and yet would not like to have seen it, and asking him what sort of vizard he had worn, and what had been his complexion as a devil. Elfric told her that he would appear to her, and frighten her as a devil some night soon, if she did not give him one kiss now; and so Mildred laughed a little, and blushed a little, and said nay a little, and then let the bold youth take what he asked for. It is weened and wotted by some that there had been kisses under the hood before now; but now the cucullus had given way to the cap, and there was no harm in it. All this talk and dalliance by the edge of the linden-grove occupied much time, yet the Ladie Alftrude and the Lord Hereward did not reappear; and much as Elfric loved his master, and Mildred her mistress, they did not think the time long, nor wish for their reappearing. Both, however, spoke much of the bold lord and the fair lady, and in settling their matters for them (as handmaidens and pages will aye be settling the loves and marriages of their masters and mistresses), they in a manner settled their own lots. The Lord of Brunn and the Ladie Alftrude, so long torn asunder, must soon be united for ever by holy church—that was quite certain; Elfric would never quit his lord—that was quite certain; Mildred could never leave her lady—that was equally certain; and from this they derived the consequent certainty that he, Elfric, and she, Mildred, must henceforward have a great deal of each other’s company. Further than this they did not go; for just as Elfric was about to propound another proposition, Lord Hereward and the Ladie Alftrude came forth from the grove, and took the direct path towards the manor-house, smiling each upon the youth and upon the maiden as they passed them. The ladie’s countenance was happy and serene, although her eyes showed that she had been weeping; the Lord Hereward had a clear, open, joyous face at all seasons, but now he seemed radiant with joy all over him: and as thus they went their way to the near house, followed by the young soldier and the young handmaiden, there were four of the happiest faces that ever the sun shone upon.

When they came to the good old Saxon house, where lowered drawbridge and open gate betokened the Saxon hospitality and the absence of all fear about Norman intruders, there was a universal throwing of caps into the air, with another loud and universal shouting of welcome to the Lord of Brunn; and every man, woman, and child there, whether a relative or retainer of the one house or of the other, whether a vassal to the young lord or to the young lady, coupled the names of the twain as if they were to be indissolubly joined, and still cried, “Long life to Lord Hereward and the Ladie Alftrude! Long life to the Ladie Alftrude and to Lord Hereward! God bless the bravest and fairest of the Saxons!” The impatience of these good people had been great, for great was their curiosity and great their appetite: they had all been longing to see, side by side, the long-separated and re-united pair, and the feast had been ready in the hall for the space of one hour or more.

It proved a much merrier feast than that given by Ivo Taille-Bois at the christening of his son; and if Elfric had sung well there, he sang much better here. Sundry kinsmen and kinswomen of the Ladie Alftrude, who had long journeys to make, and who had not been able to arrive before, arrived during the festivity; and, during the same season of joy, sundry scouts and messengers came in, and spoke either with the Lord of Brunn or with his sword-bearer; for Hereward in the act of being very merry could be very wise, and he could think of fighting at the same time that he was thinking of love: he had sent scouts into many parts, and other good Saxons that were living near Cam-Bridge, or Huntingdon, or Stamford, or other Norman stations, were now beginning to send messengers to him with all the information that could be procured, and with all the good suggestions they had skill to offer, for all good men fixed their hopes upon him. After communing for a short time with one of these trustworthy messengers, Hereward gave a merry peal of laughter, and said aloud, “So this Ivo Taille-Bois is coming hither to seek my bride! He shall be welcome! Let him come.”