CHAPTER XVII.

HEREWARD GOES TO BRUNN, AND IS DISTURBED THERE.

From Peterborough the Lord of Brunn made one good march across the fen country to Crowland, where he saluted the good Abbat and brotherhood, who had put their house into excellent order. And having tarried for a short season with the trusty monks of Crowland, he went down the river Welland unto Spalding, where he embarked the treasure which he had taken, and sent Girolamo of Salerno to have charge of it and see it safely delivered to the Lord Abbat of Ely.[179] Having done all this, and having seen that the river Welland and the country about Crowland and Spalding were well guarded, Hereward went across the country to Brunn to visit his fair wife, whom he had not seen since the quinquaine of Pasche. Elfric went with him, and in this manner there were two happy meetings. The old manor-house at Brunn had been beautified as well as strengthened under the eye of the Ladie Alftrude; and the old township, being ridded of the Normans, was beginning to look peaceful and prosperous as it used to do in the happy times of the good Lord Leofric of blessed memory. The unthinking people were already forgetting their past troubles, and beginning to imagine that there would be no troubles for the future, or that, come what might the Normans would never get footing again in the fen country. Elfric was not an unthinking young man, but his love for Maid Mildred caused him to take up the notion of the townfolk. He thought he might soon turn his sword into a reaping-hook, and that it was already time for keeping the promise which his master had made to him. Mildred said nay, nay, but in a manner which sounded very like yea, yea. Lord Hereward said, “Wait awhile; ye are both young, and this war is not over. Beyond the fens the Normans are still triumphant, and the Saxons confounded and submissive. Elfric, there is work to do, and short is the time that I can abide here.”

The ex-novice quietly submitted himself to the will of his lord; and for a short season he lead a very easy, happy life, hawking or fishing in the morning, with Hereward and the ladie, and rambling in the eve with Mildred in the wood which lay near the house. One fine summer eve, about fifteen days after their coming to Brunn, Elfric and Mildred went rather farther into the wood than it had been usual for them to go; and reaching the bank of a clear little stream, they sat down among the tall rushes, and after talking and laughing for awhile they became reflective and silent, and gazed at the stream as it glided by, all gilded and enamelled by the setting sun. They had not sate thus long when Elfric was startled by some distant sound, which did not reach the ear of Mildred, for when he said, “What noise is that?” she said she heard none. But Elfric was quite certain he had heard a noise afar off, and a sound of a rustling among the willows and fen-trees. “Well,” said Mildred, “it will be the evening breeze, or the fen-sparrows, or mayhap the marsh-tits tapping the old willow-trees to hollow out their nests.”

“There breathes not a breath of air, and this is not the season in which the marsh-tit makes its nest in the old willows,” said Elfric. “But hark! I hear the sound again, and ... ah! what is that?... By St. Ovin’s cross! I see afar off a something shining in the red sunbeams that looks like the head of a Norman lance! See! look there, behind those trees at the foot of yon hillock!”

The maiden looked, and although at first she saw nothing, she soon turned pale, and said, “In truth, Elfric, I see a spear, and another, and now another. But now they move not! they disappear.”

“Mildred,” said the young man, “run back to the manor-house with thy best speed, and tell Lord Hereward what thou hast seen!”

“But wilt thou not go with me? I almost fear to go alone through the wood.”

“The path is straight and dry,” said Elfric; “there is no danger: but I must go forward and discover what be these new comers, who are coming so stealthily towards the wood and the manor-house, and who bring lances with them and sound no horn.”

“But there will be peril for thee, oh Elfric, unarmed and all alone as thou art.”

“Fear not for that, my Mildred; I will crawl through the rushes and keep this winding stream between me and these strangers. But fly to the house, and if thou chancest to meet any of Lord Hereward’s people, bid them hasten home and look to their arms.”

“Alas!” quoth Mildred, “when will this fighting be over?” and having so said, she flew like a lapwing towards the house, while Elfric disappeared among the sedges and bulrushes.

“Lances so near the wood!” said Hereward, “and no notice given! Our guard at Edenham[180] must have fallen asleep!”

“Or mayhap they be gone to Corby,” said Mildred, “for to-day is Corby wake.”

“Or it may be,” said Hereward, “that thou and Elfric are both mistaken—albeit his good eyes are not apt to deceive him.”

Before the Lord of Brunn had time to assemble his people, Elfric was back to speak for himself, and to give more certain and full notice of what was toward. He had gone near enough not only to see, but also to hear. The force was a great Norman force led on by Ivo Taille-Bois and Torauld of Fescamp, who hoped to take Hereward by surprise, and to recover from him the treasure which he had seized at Peterborough; for, being robbers themselves, they made sure that he meant to keep the treasure for himself.

“What be their numbers?” said the Lord of Brunn.

“Two hundred men-at-arms,” responded Elfric.

“Bring they any of their great siege-tools?” asked Hereward.

“None, my Lord. They carry nothing but their arms, and even with that burthen they seem sorely fatigued. They are covered with our fen mud, and are all swearing that they should have been forced to travel without their horses.”

“Then,” said Hereward, “although Girolamo be away, we can hold good this house and laugh at their attempt to take it. Call in all the good folk of the township, and then up drawbridge, and make fast gates!”

“Under subjection, my Lord,” quoth Elfric, “I will say that I think that we can do better than shut ourselves up in the house to wait for their coming. I heard their plan of approach, and it is this: They are all to remain concealed where they are until it be dark. Then Ivo Taille-Bois is to march through the wood, and surround the house with one hundred men, while that bull-headed Torauld, who seemeth not to relish the fighting with soldiers so much as he doth the fighting with unarmed monks, is to lodge himself with the other hundred men on the skirts of the wood, so as to prevent the people of the township from coming to the manor-house.”

“Art thou sure,” said Hereward, “that thou knowest Norman French enough to make out all this sense from their words?”

“Quite certain, my Lord. I was close to them, and they talked loud, as is their wont. Nay, they talked even louder than common, being angered, and Ivo-Taille saying that as it was church business the churchman ought to go foremost; and Torauld saying that Ivo did not enough respect the lives and limbs of Norman prelates. Set me down this Torauld for a rank coward! They told me at Peterborough that he was as big as a bull, and for that much so he is; but from my hiding-place in the rushes I could see that he quaked and turned pale at the thought of leading the attack.”

“Thou wast ever a good scout,” said the Lord of Brunn, “but a wary commander never trusts to one report. We have lads here that know the paths and the bye-paths. We will have these Normans watched as it grows dark.”

In the mean time all the good people of the township were forewarned, and called to the manor-house. The aged, with the women and children, were to stay within those strong walls; but all the rest were armed, and kept in readiness to sally forth. Of the sixty merry men that had stolen the march upon Torauld and got to Peterborough before him, some had been left at Crowland and some at Spalding, and some had taken up their long stilts and had walked across the bogs to see their kindred and friends in Hoilandia. Only one score and ten of these tried soldiers remained; the good men of the township of Brunn that put on harness and were ready to fight, made more than another score; and besides these there was about half a score of hardy hinds who had followed the Ladie Alftrude from her home.

As it grew dark the scouts reported that the Normans were in motion, and that they were moving in two separate bodies, even as Elfric reported they would do. Then the Lord of Brunn went himself to watch their movements. He made out, more by his ears than by his eyes, that one body was coming straight on for the wood and the house, and that the other body was turning round the wood by a path which would bring them to a little bridge near the edge of the wood, this bridge being between the township and the manor-house. By his own prudent order lights had been left burning in one or two of the better sort of houses, and the whole town thus looked as it usually did at that hour; while bright lights beamed from every window of the manor-house, to make Ivo Taille-Bois believe that the Lord of Brunn was feasting and carousing and wholly off his guard.

“Thus far, well!” thought Hereward, as he ran back to the house. “It will take these heavy Normans a good length of time to cross the stream and get into the wood; and while Ivo is coming into the wood on the one side, I will go out of it on the other side, and catch this bully monk and his people as in a trap. And Taille-Bois shall rue the day that he turned his face towards Brunn.”

Leaving half a score of his best men in the house, and commanding all that were in the house to be silent and without fear, the Lord of Brunn sallied forth with all the rest of his merry men: and as soon as he and they were beyond the moat, the little garrison drew up the draw-bridge and made fast the gate. When he counted his troop, he found it to be not more than fifty strong; but every man of them was vigorous and well equipped; and there was truth in the Saxon song which said that every true Saxon in arms was equal to three Frenchmen, and that the Lord of Brunn never turned his back even upon six Frenchmen. Warned by Elfric, that best of all scouts, when Ivo was crossing the stream, and calculating his only time to a nicety, Hereward marched through a corner of the wood and took post on some broken ground near the end of the little bridge. His people were all as silent as the grave, and so they continued; nor could they be seen any more than they could be heard, for they lay in the hollows of the ground with their faces prone to the earth, and their bows and weapons under them: and the night was now rather dark, and the trees which grew close behind the broken ground cast a deep shadow over it. The Saxons had not been long in this their ambuscade when they heard a loud shouting of “A Taille-Bois! A Taille-Bois!” which came from the side of the manor-house; and the next instant they heard another loud shouting in their front of “Torauld! Torauld!”

“So so!” said Hereward, “the twain have timed their marches well! The monk will be here anon; but let every Saxon among us remain on his face until he cross the narrow bridge, and then up and fall on!”

And as the Lord of Brunn said, so was it done. Eager to get possession of the bridge, the monk from Fescamp avoided the little township, and came straight to the stream[181] which flowed between it and the manor-house, and crossed over the bridge with all his people: and no sooner were they all over than the Saxons started up like armed men springing from the bowels of the earth, and shouting “Hereward for England!” they fell upon their amazed and confounded enemy, who could neither discover their strength nor form themselves into any order of battle. Instanter some of the Normans screamed that these were the devils of Crowland risen again; and so, screaming, they made a rush back to the bridge. Now the bridge was very narrow, and walled on either side with a parapet wall of brickwork; and when the whole of Torauld’s force began to follow the first fuyards,[182] with a mad rushing and confusion, they got jammed together upon that narrow bridge, or falling one over the other they obstructed the passage. Torauld, that big monk, could not get upon the bridge at all, or near to it. And as he stood crowded and squeezed by his disordered men, and heard the Saxon battle-axe ringing upon their mailed armour and plated shields, he set up his big voice and cried “Quarter! Quarter! Mercy, O Lord of Brunn!”

“Dost thou surrender, Torauld of Fescamp?” shouted Hereward.

“Aye, and at thy discretion,” said the terrible abbat, no longer terrible.

“Normans, do ye all surrender upon quarter?” shouted Hereward, who had already slain three of them with his own hand.

The Normans, not even excepting those on the bridge, or even those five or six that had gotten beyond the bridge, all declared that they surrendered at discretion.

“Then,” quoth the Lord of Brunn, “hand me your swords, and come hither and lay down all your arms!”

And, in that grim darkness, Torauld, and the several leaders of the band, stretched out their hands and delivered up their swords to Hereward; and Hereward, as he got them, handed them to his sword-bearer, and Elfric made a bundle of them all under his left arm, singing, as he had wont to do in the choir at Spalding, but with a louder note, “_Infixæ sunt gentes!_—The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken!” And all the Norman men-at-arms, seeing but dimly what they were doing, and taking the trees on the skirts of the wood for Saxon warriors, piled their arms in a trice, and allowed themselves to be bound with their own girdles and baldrics. When Hereward’s people proceeded to bind Torauld, that tamed monster made a miserable lamentation, for he thought that the Saxons would bind him first, and then slay him; and none knew better than himself the intolerable wrongs he had done since his first coming to the kingdom, and the outrages he had been guilty of in the monasteries and churches of England. But Elfric bade him bellow not so miserably, and told him how that it was the custom of the Lord of Brunn not to slay his prisoners, but only to send them to a place of safe keeping, such as the Camp of Refuge, or the strong vault under Ely Abbey. And when the Normans were all bound, Hereward made his sword-bearer count them all; and Elfric, groping among them as the shepherd does among his sheep when the night is dark, found and reported that there were four score and ten of them. The rest had been slain, or had rushed into the stream to get drowned.

All this work by the bridge had not been done without much noise. In making their sudden onslaught, and in raising their shout for Hereward, the Saxons had made the welkin ring; and the cries and screams of the discomfited Normans were distinctly heard across the wood and at the manor-house. The Saxons within that house heard both cries, and well understood what they meant: Ivo Taille-Bois and his men also heard them and understood them; and so, cursing Torauld the monk for a fool, Ivo halted his men under cover of the trees; and then, after listening for a brief space of time, and after hearing plainer than before the Norman cry of _misericorde_ instead of attempting to surround the house, Ivo began to retrace his steps through the wood. And although the night was brightening up elsewhere, it continued so dark in that wood, and his people ran in so great hurry, that at almost every step some of them missed the narrow path, or fell over the roots of the trees. And as Ivo thus retreated, his ear was assailed by the taunting shouts of the Saxons in the manor-house, and by the triumphant shouts of those who had sallied forth with Hereward to smite Torauld in the dark.

But louder and louder still were the shouts in the good house of Brunn when its young Lord returned unhurt (and not a man of his was hurt) with the captives he had made, and notably with the once terrible Torauld.

“Thou seest,” said Hereward, “that thy friend Ivo hath not stayed to keep his appointed meeting with thee at my humble house! but stay thou here awhile, oh monk of Fescamp! and I will even go try whether I can overtake Ivo, and bring him back to meet thee! He hath the start, but is not so good a fenner as I am. So, come, my merry men all, one horn of wine apiece, and then for a chase through the wood and across the stream! An we catch not the great wood-cutter, we may perchance cut off part of his tail. But first lock me up these prisoners in the turret. Our women and old men will suffice to take care of them while we follow the chase.”

The Ladie Alftrude, and sundry other persons, thought and said that Lord Hereward had done enough for this one night; but the Lord of Brunn thought he had never done enough when there was more to do, and before Ivo Taille-Bois could get clear out of the wood, Hereward was upon his track, with fifty of his merry men. Some of the Normans, missing the ford across the stream, were captured on the bank; but the rest got safely over, and ran for their lives across the plain, whereon they never could have run at all if the summer had been less hot and dry. They were closely followed by the Saxons, who took a good many more of them, and killed others: but Ivo was too far ahead to be caught; and it was all in vain that Hereward shouted and called upon him to stop and measure swords with him on dry ground, and on a fair field. So the Lord of Brunn gave up the pursuit, and returned to his manor-house, taking with him a good score more prisoners. And if the louts who had been sent to keep guard at Edenham had not gone to Corby wake, and had not drunk themselves drunk there, Ivo Taille-Bois would have been captured or killed, with every man that followed him, before he could have got out upon the road which leads from the fen country to Stamford. The rest of that night was given to festivity and joy. On the morrow morning Hereward brought his Norman captives forth from the turret into the great hall, and made inquest into their names and qualities. There were several knights of name among them; several that had high rank and good lands in Normandie before ever they came to plunder England. Now these proud foreign knights condescended to address the Lord of Brunn as one of the military confraternity, and they spoke with him about ransom as knight speaks to knight. Hereward, knowing well how the Abbat of Ely had been constrained to lay hands on that which had been offered on the shrine of the saints, and to deal with unbelieving and usurious Jews, and how sorely money was needed throughout the Camp of Refuge, did not gainsay these overtures about ransoms; but he fixed the total ransom at so high a price, that Torauld and the Norman knights all vowed that they could never pay or get their friends to pay it. The Lord of Brunn, who believed them not, told them that they must pay the three thousand marks he had named, or live and die in the fastnesses of the fen country. Torauld who loved money more than he loved his own soul, and who never doubted but that Hereward had all the treasures he had taken from Peterborough, and meant to keep them for his own use and profit, offered, as lawful superior of that house, and abbat appointed by King William, to give the Lord of Brunn a title to all those things as the price of the ransom for himself and the Norman nobles. But hereat the Lord of Brunn was greatly incensed, and said, “Robber that thou art, dost thou take me for a sacrilegious robber? The treasure of Peterborough is not here, but at Ely,[183] in the safe keeping of the good Lord Abbat Thurstan, to be kept or even used for the good of England, and to be restored to Peterborough with bot, and with other treasure, at the proper season. But thou, oh Torauld of Fescamp, thou hast no right to it, or control over it; and if thou hadst it, it is not my father’s son that would barter with thee for the goods of the church and the spoils of the altar! Torauld of Fescamp, and thou Piron of Montpinchon, and thou Olivier Nonant, and thou Pierre of Pommereuil, and the rest of ye, I tell ye one and all, and I swear it by the blessed rood, that I will never liberate ye, or any of ye, until the three thousand marks, as ransom, be paid into my hands, or into the hands of the Lord Abbat of Ely! So, look well to it. Three thousand marks, or a lifelong home and a grave in the safest and dreariest part of the fens.”

One and all, they again protested, and even vowed that so large a sum could never be raised for their liberation; and that they would not so much as name the sum to their friends and families.

“Well,” said the Lord of Brunn, “then to-morrow we will clap ye all on ship-board and send ye across the salt sea Wash for Ely and the Camp of Refuge.”

And on the morrow, by times, all the Norman captives, gentle or simple, knights or men-at-arms, were marched off to the Welland and put on board ship and under hatches: nor ever did they get free from their Saxon prison in the fens until twelve good months after their capture, when they got the money, and paid down the three thousand marks, together with some small pecunia for their meat and drink, and the trouble they had given during their captivity. And long did Torauld bemoan the day when he accepted the office of abbat of Peterborough, and went to take vengeance on that house on account of Lord Hereward’s knighthood. He came forth from the fens an altered and subdued man; and although he tyrannically ruled a religious house for many years after these his misadventures, he was never more known to tweak his monks by the nose with his steel gloves on, or to beat them with the flat of his sword, or to call out “Come hither, my men-at-arms.” In truth, although he plucked up spirit enough to rob and revile monks, he never put on armour or carried a sword again.

Thus had the good Lord of Brunn triumphed on the land which he inherited from his father and recovered with his own sword; thus within the good manor of Brunn had he foiled the stratagems of his enemies, and beaten them and humbled them, and made them the captives of his sword: but he could not long remain to enjoy his triumph there; his sword and his counsel were wanted in other parts; and deeming that the unwonted dryness of the season might perchance enable Ivo Taille-Bois or some other Norman lord to make another attempt upon Brunn, he took his ladie with him whither he went. A small but trusty garrison was left in the old manor-house, together with sundry matrons and maids, but Mildred went with her ladie, as did Elfric with his lord.

As they came to the Welland, on their way to Ely, there came unto Lord Hereward some brave men from the world beyond the fens, to tell him that a great body of Saxon serfs had gathered together at the edge of Sherwood forest and on the banks of the Trent, and that all these men were ready to join him and become his servants and soldiers. Hereward gave the messengers the encouragement they seemed to merit, and sent his sword-bearer back with them to see what manner of men the band was made of, and to bring them across the fens if he should find them worth their bread and meat.

Now the men that had collected were hardy and fit for war, and many of them, being natives to the forests and trained to hunting, were keen bowmen. The Lord of Brunn, who knew the worth of the English bow, much wanted good bowmen; and thus Elfric would gladly have brought away all these foresters with him. But when the marching time came, sundry of these churls said that they were well where they were in Sherwood:—and for that matter so they were, for the Normans could not easily get at them, and they were lords of the forest and of all the game in it, and they robbed all that came near to the forest. But all the churls were not so churlish, nor so fond of living without law and order, nor so careless as to what became of their countrymen; and many were the good bowmen that said they would go to the Saxon camp. Some of these upland churls, however, who had not led so free a life as the fenners, and had not had such good Lords as the Abbat of Ely and the Lord of Brunn, began to say to the men of the hills that were following Elfric, that they thought they were engaging in an idle chase and a very useless struggle, inasmuch as they would still be all serfs and bondmen whether the Normans or the Saxons ruled the land. But Elfric, hearing this, bade them all remember that it was one thing to obey a Lord that spoke their own tongue, and another to obey a stranger Lord who spoke it not and despised it; that the good Saxon Lords were ever merciful and kind, not putting more labour on the serf than the serf could bear, and feeding and entertaining him well when sickness or when old age allowed him not to work at all; and that the good old Saxon laws and customs did not leave the eyes, limbs, life, and conscience of the serfs in the hands of their lords and masters, nor allow Christian bondmen to be treated as though they were beasts of the field; in which fashion the Normans were now treating them. Quoth a grey-beard in the crowd, “There is some truth in what the young man saith. That was not a bad law which said, ‘Let the churl keep the fasts of the church as well as the Lord, and let the master that feeds his serfs on fast-days with meat, denying them bread, be put in the pillory.’”

“Aye,” said another elder, smothing his beard, “but that was a still better law which said, ‘Let not the serf be made to work on the feast-days of the church, nor to do any manner of work on the Sabbath: Let all have rest on the seventh day, which is the day of the Lord God!’”

Here one who had been a mass-priest in the upland country, but who had fled from the intolerable persecutions of the Normans and was now armed against that people, spoke as one that had tasted books, and said, “Many were our good old Saxon laws for keeping holy the Sabbath-day, and making the seventh day a day of rest for all that live in the land, whether rich or poor, master or slave. The fourth commandment, which the Normans set at nought in as far as the poor English serf is concerned in it, was a most binding law with all good Saxons, and was enforced by many royal laws and civil enactments, and with the imposing of penalties upon all such as broke the commandment. The laws and ordinances of King Edward the Elder said—‘If any one engage in Sunday marketing, let him forfeit the goods and pay a fine of thirty shillings. If a freeman work, let him forfeit his freedom, or redeem it by paying wite[184]; if a Lord oblige his churl to work, let him pay wite.’ And, after this, King Athelstane said in his dooms ‘that there should be no marketing and no labour on Sundays, and that if any one did market on Sundays he should forfeit the goods and pay thirty shillings.’ And, after this, King Ethelred said in his dooms, ‘Let Sunday’s festival be rightly kept by _all_, as is becoming, and let marketings and folkmotes be carefully abstained from on that holy day; let huntings and worldly works be strictly abstained from on that day.’ And by the laws of King Edgar no man was to work from noontide of the Saturday till the dawn of Monday; and soulscot[185] was to be paid for every Christian man to the priest, in order that the priest might pray for him and instruct him. And the canons[186] of Ælfric, inhibiting the breach of the sanctity of the Lord’s day, say, ‘The mass-priests shall on Sundays explain to the people the sense of the Gospels in English, and explain to them in English the pater-noster and the creed, to the end that all the people may know the faith and cultivate their Christianity.’ And in this very canon the pious Ælfric saith, ‘Let the priest and teacher beware of that which the prophet said; _Canes muti non possunt latrare_, Dumb dogs cannot bark!’ But what are these Norman teachers and priests from beyond the sea but dumb dogs to the Saxon people, seeing they know no English and will not learn it?”

“Yes,” said the ancient who had first spoken, “until these Normans came among us the bondman had one day in seven to himself, and on every other festival of the church he was allowed to forget his bonds, and to take rest and enjoyment, and to think of his soul; but now we be treated as if we had no souls.”

“And,” said another of the serfs, “in former days the laws protected the money and goods of a bondman, if so be he could obtain any, for the Saxon law said that the master must not take from his slave that which the slave had gained by his industry. But now the serf cannot so much as call his life his property.”

“Nor can any other true Saxon call anything his own, unless he stand up and fight for it, and prove strong enough to keep it,” said Elfric, who was well pleased to see and hear that his discourse on the difference between the old bondage and the present was not thrown away upon the upland serfs.

Quoth the priest who had before spoken, “Our old Saxon laws were chary of blood, and held in tender respect the life of all men, whether they belonged to the nobility or were in a state of villainage. Few crimes were punished with death or even with mutilation. The commandment that man shall do no murder was not only read in churches, but was recommended and enforced in the laws and dooms of many Saxon kings. ‘If any one be slain,’ said the old law, ‘let him be paid for according to his birth.’ If a thane slew a churl, he had to pay for it....”

“Aye,” said one of the serfs, “but the value of the life of a churl was not more than the price of a few bullocks; whereas hides of land or the worth of hundreds of bullocks was to be paid by him that slew a thane.”

“Tush!” quoth Elfric, “thou canst not expect that the life of a churl can ever be priced so high as that of a noble, or that the same doom shall await the man that kills a Lord and the man that kills a peasant!”

The priest and all the bystanders said that such an expectation would be too unreasonable, and that such a thing could never come to pass in this world: and so the discontented churl merely muttered that he thought, since it was allowed the churl had an immortal soul, even as the thane, that the life of a churl was worth more than a few bullocks; and then said no more about it, bethinking himself that even that price was better than no price at all, and that no Normans that he knew of had ever yet been made to make bot for maiming or killing a Saxon serf.

Some few of these men returned into Sherwood forest, to live at large there, but the major part of them tied on their buskins, fastened their sheep-skin jackets, put their bows and quivers to their backs, and marched off merrily with the sword-bearer to join Lord Hereward at Ely or in the Camp. And after this, and at various times, many upland churls, discontented with their lot, came from the northern side of the Trent and from other parts of the country to join the Saxon army in the fens. It must not be thought that the Lord of Brunn was unmindful of the old laws, which ordained that no Lord or free man should harbour or entertain the churl that had fled from his rightful owner; but Hereward felt that no Norman could have the right of property over Saxon serfs; and therefore he harboured and entertained such as came freely to him. If the case had been otherwise, he would, like the just Lord that he was, have put collars and chains upon the serfs and have sent them back to their masters.