CHAPTER VII.

HEREWARD’S RETURN.

There may be between Thamesis and the Tyne worse seas and more perilous rocks; but when the north-east wind blows right into that gulf, and the waves of the German Ocean are driven on by the storms of winter, the practised mariner will tell ye that the navigation of the Wash, the Boston Deeps, and the Lynn Deeps, is a fearful thing to those who know the shoals and coasts, and a leap into the jaws of death to those that know them not. Besides the shallows near shore, there be sandbanks and treacherous shoals in the middle of the bay, and these were ofttimes shifting their places or changing their shapes. Moreover, so many rivers and broad streams and inundations, that looked like regular rivers in the wet seasons of the year, poured their waters into the Wash, that it required all the skill of the mariner and pilot to find a way into the proper bed of any one particular river, as the Ouse, the Nene, or the Welland.[109] Here are many quick-sands, fatal to barks, when concealed under the water; and even in summer-tide, when the waters are dried, the shepherds and their flocks,[110] are often taught by a woeful experience that these quick-sands have a wonderful force in sucking in and holding fast whatsoever cometh upon them. In this sort the perils of shipmen are not over even when they reach the shore, and are advancing to tread upon what seemeth like _terra firma_. The Wash and its sand-banks and the quick-sands had made more East-Anglian widows and orphans than were made by any other calamity besides, save always the fierce Norman conquest.

It was under one of the fiercest and loudest tempests that ever blew from the sky of winter, and upon one of the roughest seas that ever rolled into the Wash, that five barks, which seemed all to be deeply laden and crowded with men, drove past the shoal called the Dreadful,[111] and made for that other shoal called the Inner Dousing. The sun, which had not been visible the whole day, now showed itself like a ball of fire as it sank in the west behind the flats and fens of Lincolnshire; and when the sun was down the fury of the tempest seemed to increase. When they had neared the Inner Dousing, four of the barks took in all their sail and lay-to as best they could in the trough of the sea; but the fifth bark stood gallantly in for the Wash, with nearly all her sails up. Swift as it bounded over the waves, it was dark night before the foremost bark reached the little cape where stands the chapel of our Ladie.[112] Here the bark showed three lights at her mast-head, and then three lights over her prow, and then three over her stern. Quickly as might be, these lights from on board the fifth and foremost bark were answered by three times three of lights on the belfry of Our Ladie’s chapel; and had it not been for the roaring of the winds and the loud dashing of the sea on the resounding shore, those on land by Our Ladie’s chapel might have heard a three times three of hearty cheers from those on shipboard, and those on the ship might have heard every cheer given back with interest and increase by the crowd of true Saxons that stood by the chapel. The bark next showed at her masthead a broad blue light, such as had never been seen before in these parts; and presently from the lee side of the Inner Dousing four other bright blue lights gleamed across the black sky; and having in this wise answered signal, the four barks followed in the track of the fifth and came up with it off Our Ladie’s chapel. Still keeping a little in advance, like the pilot and admiral of the little fleet, the bark that had first reached the coast glided into Lynn Deeps; and as it advanced towards the mouth of the Ouse, signal-lights or piloting lights rose at every homestead and hamlet, from Kitcham[113] to Stone’s-end, from Stone’s-end to Castle Rising, and from Castle Rising to the good town of Lynn. And besides these stationary lights, there were other torches running along the shore close above the line of sea foam. And much was all this friendly care needed, the deeps being narrow and winding and the shoals and sand-banks showing themselves on every side, and the wind still blowing a hurricane, and the masts of the barks bending and cracking even under the little sail that they now carried. On this eastern side of the Wash few could have slept, or have tarried in their homes this night; for when—near upon midnight, and as the monks of Lynn were preparing to say matins in the chapel of Saint Nicholas—the five barks swirled safely into the deep and easy bed of the Ouse, and came up to the prior’s wharf, and let go their anchors, and threw their stoutest cordage ashore, to the end that the mariners there might make them fast, and so give a double security against wind and tide, the wharf and all the river bank was covered with men, women, and children, and the houses in the town behind the river bank were nearly all lighted up, as if it had been Midsummer’s eve, instead of being the penultimate night[114] of the Novena of Christmas. It was not difficult to make out that the foremost of the barks and one other belonged to Lynn, inasmuch as the Lynn folk leaped on board of them as soon as they were made fast at the wharf, calling upon their town fellows, their brothers or sons, and hugging them _more Saxonico_[115] when they found them out on the crowded decks. The other barks were of foreign structure, and the mariners seemed to be all foreigners; but the many passengers in each of them were all Englishmen, and _landsmen_ besides; for they had all been very sea-sick, and were now very impatient to get their feet upon dry land.

The first that landed from the foremost bark was a tall, robust, and handsome man, dressed as Saxon noblemen and warriors were wont to dress before the incoming of the ill fashions of Normandie.

He carried in his right hand a long straight and broad sword, the blade of which was curiously sheathed, and the hilt of which formed a cross. When he had crossed the plankings of the wharf, and reached the solid ground, he knelt on one knee and kissed the cross of his sword; and then throwing himself prone upon the earth, and casting wide his arms as though he would embrace it and hug it, he kissed the insensate soil, and thanked his God and every saint in the Saxon calendar for that he had been restored to the land which gave him birth, and which held the dust and bones of his fathers. Some who had seen him in former days on the Spalding side of the Wash, and some who had been apprised of his coming, began instantly to shout, “It is he!—it is Lord Hereward of Brunn! It is Hereward the Saxon! It is the Lord of Brunn, come to get back his own and to help us to drive out the Normans.” The shouts were taken up on every side, mariners and landsmen, foreigners and home-born fensmen, and women and children, crying, “It is Hereward the Saxon! Long live the young Lord of Brunn, who will never shut his hall-door in the face of a poor Englishman, nor turn his back on a Frenchman!” Some hemmed him in, and kissed his hands, and the sheath of his long straight sword, and the skirts of his mantle, and the very sandals on his feet; while others held their glaring torches close over his head, that they might see him and show him to their mates. It was one Nan of Lynn, and a well-famed and well-spoken woman, that said, as she looked upon the Lord Hereward, “We Englishwomen of the fens will beat the men-at-arms from Normandie, an we be but led by such a captain as this; with that steel cap on his head, and that scarlet cloak over his shoulders, he looks every inch as stalwart and as handsome a warrior as the archangel Michael, whose portraiture we see in our church!”

The person nearest in attendance on Lord Hereward was that lucky wight Elfric, who had been to seek him in foreign parts; but it was Elfric no longer attired either as a tattered menestrel or as a shaveling novice, but as something betwixt a blithesome page and an armed retainer. He too had more than one tear of joy in his eye as he trod upon the shore; but this tender emotion soon gave way to a hearty if not boisterous mirth, and so he kept shouting, “Make way for Hereward the Lord of Brunn!” and kept squeezing the hands of all the men and women and children he knew in Lynn, as they walked towards the convent where Hereward was to rest until daylight. Next to Elfric, the man that seemed most entirely devoted to the service and to the person of Hereward was a slight, slim man of middle stature and very dark complexion; his hair was long, and would have been blacker than the plumage of the raven save that time had touched it here and there with grey; his nose was arched like the beak of a goshawk; and his eye, that looked out from under a very black and bushy but very lofty eyebrow, was blacker and keener than the eye of any hawk or other fowl of prey. Some who had seen now and then a wandering Israelite, thought that this stranger looked marvellously like a Jew; but this was a marvellous mistake. None could think him either young or handsome; yet was there something about his person and in his face that none could help looking at, and then remembering for aye. Among the stout Saxons were some that could have taken the dark, slim stranger between their finger and thumb, and have squeezed the life out of him with as much ease as boys crack nuts; but there was a quickness and sharpness in the stranger’s eye that seemed to say he could outwit them all if he chose. On the way to the convent Hereward several times addressed him in some foreign tongue, and seemed by his looks to be taking advice of him.

As the convent was but a dependency of my Lord Abbat Thurstan, and a succursal cell to Ely, ye may judge whether the Lord of Brunn and those who came with him met with hospitality! Saxons and strangers (and all landed from the barks as soon as might be, and hastened to the convent) found suppers and beds, or suppers and clean sweet rushes to lie upon, either with the sub-prior or in the guest-house. In the morning, as soon as it was light, Hereward, Elfric, and the dark stranger, and a score of armed men, re-embarked in the good ship that had brought them to Lynn, and proceeded up the river Ouse, leaving the other four barks at their moorings under the prior’s wharf. These four craft were to keep a good look-out, and in case of any armed ships coming into the Wash they were to run, through the most intricate passage, for Spalding; but if no enemy should appear (and of this there was scarcely a chance, as the weather continued stormy, and the Normans were bad seamen, and very badly provided with shipping), they were all to wait at Lynn until Lord Hereward should come back from Ely to lead them to Spalding, and, farther still, to his own house at Brunn.

Broad and free was the river Ouse, and up as high as the junction of the Stoke[116] Lord Hereward’s bark was favoured by the tide as well as by the wind. Above the Stoke the tide failed; but the wind blew steadily on, and many boats, with lusty rowers in them, came down from Ely and Chettisham and Littleport, and took the bark in tow, for the signal-lights and fires which had guided the fleet into Lynn had been carried across the fens and to the Abbey of Ely, and had told my Lord Abbat that the Lord Hereward was come. No bark had ever made such voyage before, nor have many made it since; but a good while before the sun went down our Lynn mariners made their craft fast to my Lord Abbat’s pier, and Hereward and his bold and trusty followers landed in the midst of a throng ten times greater and ten times more jubilant than that which had welcomed them at Lynn. Before quitting the ship Elfric put on his monastic habit. This he did not do without a sigh; and he carried with him under his novice’s gown the gay dress he had worn while in foreign parts and on shipboard. Maybe he expected that services might be required from him in which such an attire would be useful; or perhaps he hoped that his superior of Spalding and the Abbat of Crowland would, in considering the services he had rendered already, determine in their wisdom that the dress and calling of a monk were not those which suited him best. Although not bound by any irrevocable vow, Elfric was bound by the ties of gratitude to Father Adhelm, who had taken him into the succursal cell at Spalding when a very young and helpless orphan; and Elfric would never have been the man he proved himself if he had been forgetful of duties and obligations.

At the outer gate of the convent Lord Hereward was met and embraced and welcomed by the high-hearted abbat of the house, by the Archbishop Stigand, the Abbat of Crowland, and by all the prelates and high churchmen; and next by all the cloistered monks of Ely; and next by the lay lords and the Saxon warriors of all parts: and all this right reverend and right noble company shouted, “Welcome to our chief and our deliverer! Honour and welcome to the young Lord of Brunn!”

As Thurstan led the Saxon hero by the hand towards his own Aula Magna, he said, “But for the solemn season, which brooks not much noise,” (the town folk, and the hinds that had come in from the fens, and the novices and lay-brothers, were continuing to shout and make noise enough to wake the dead that were sleeping in the cloisters), “we would have received you, my lord, with a great clattering of bells and show of flags and banners! Nevertheless thou comest at a most suitable moment and on the very verge of the most joyous of all seasons; ’tis the vigil of the Nativity. On this Christmas eve, like all well-regulated religious houses and all good Christians, we fast upon a banquet of eels and fish. At midnight we have the midnight mass, chanted in our best manner; and to-morrow we feast indeed, and give up all our souls to joy. To-morrow, then, our bells shall be struck upon so that the Norman knights and men-at-arms shall hear them in Cam-Bridge Castle, and shall tremble while they hear! And our Saxon flags, and the banners of our saints, yea, the great banner of Saint Etheldreda itself, shall be hung out on our walls! And when the other duties of the day are over, we will sing a _Te Deum laudamus_ for thy coming. My Lord Hereward, I have not known such joy, or half so much hope, since the day on which our good Edward (_Rex venerandus_) put this ring upon my finger and confirmed my election as abbat of this house! My hope then was that I should be enabled to be a good ruler of this ancient brotherhood, and good lord to all the Saxon folk that dwell on the land of Saint Etheldreda. Now my higher hope is that thou wilt be enabled, oh Hereward, to free all England from this cruel bondage!”

The young Saxon noble, being wholly a man of action, and gifted with much modesty, made but a very short reply to this and to other very long speeches; he simply said that he had come back to get back his own, and to help his good countrymen to get back their own; that the Norman yoke was all too grievous to be borne; that it was very strange and very sorrowful that brave King Harold came not back to his faithful people of East-Anglia; and that, until King Harold should come,[117] he, Hereward, would do his best for his friends and for himself.

Though all were eager to be informed of the strength which the Lord of Brunn brought with him, and of the plans he proposed to pursue, Thurstan thought it churlish to question any man fasting. Hereward, however, declared that he had fared well on board the bark, and could well wait till supper-time. And so, having closed the doors of the abbat’s great hall, the lords and prelates proceeded to deliberate with the dispossessed Lord of Brunn. The sum of Hereward’s replies to many questions and cross-questions (he having no genius for narration) was simply this:—Elfric had found him out in Flanders, and had delivered to him letters, and messages, and tokens which had determined him to quit his adoptive country and return to England. Many English exiles who had been living in the Netherlands had made up their minds to come over with him. Such money as they could command among them all, or borrow at interest from the traders of Flanders, who seriously felt the loss of their trade with England, had been applied to the purchase of warlike harness, and to the hiring and equipping of three foreign barks. The master of a bark from Lynn that chanced to be in those parts had offered his bark and the services of himself and crew for nothing, or for what his liege lord the Abbat of Ely might at any time choose to give him. The gold and silver which my Lord Abbat had sent with Elfric had been properly and profitably employed; and, besides spear-heads, and swords, and bows, and jackets of mail, the Lynn bark now lying at my Lord Abbat’s pier, and the other Lynn bark left behind at that town, had brought such a quantity of Rhenish and Mosel wine as would suffice for the consumption of the whole house until next Christmas. Counting the men that had come in all the barks, there were more than one hundred and ten true-hearted Saxons, well armed and equipped, and well practised in the use of arms, as well in the Saxon fashion as in the fashions used abroad; and every one of these men was proper to become a centurion, or the trainer and leader of a hundred of our fen-men. It was Lord Hereward’s notion that our great house at Ely and the Camp of Refuge would be best relieved or screened from any chance of attack, by the Saxons making at once a quick and sharp attack all along the Norman lines or posts to the north and north-west of the Isle of Ely, or from Spalding to Brunn, and Crowland, and Peterborough. Some thought that his lordship preferred beginning in this direction because his own estates and the lady of his love were there: we will not say that these considerations had no weight with him, but we opine that his plan was a good one, and that no great commander, such as Hereward was, would have begun the war upon the invaders in any other manner, time or place. Twenty of the armed men he had brought with him from their wearisome exile—or more than twenty if my Lord Abbat thought fit—he would leave at Ely; with the rest, who had been left with the ships at Lynn, he would go to the Welland river, and make a beginning.

“But thou canst not go yet awhile,” said Abbat Thurstan, thinking of the Christmas festivals and of the Rhenish wines; “thou canst not quit us, my son, until after the feast of the Epiphany! ’Tis but twelve days from to-morrow, and the Normans are not likely to be a-stirring during those twelve days.”

“True, my Lord Abbat,” said Hereward, “the Normans will be feasting and rejoicing; but it is on that very account that I must go forthwith in order to take them unprepared and attack their bands separately, while they are feasting. An ye, holy brothers, give me your prayers, and the saints grant me the success I expect, I shall have recovered for ye the house at Spalding and the abbey of Crowland, and for myself mine humble house at Brunn, before these twelve days be over.”

“Then,” said the abbat, “thou mayest be back and keep the feast of the Epiphany with us.”

Hereward thought of keeping the feast in another place and with a different company, but the eager hospitality of Thurstan was not to be resisted, and so he promised that he would return, if he could do so without detriment to the business he had on hand. But when he spoke of setting forth on the morrow after high mass, not only the Lord Abbat, but every one that heard him, raised his voice against him, and Hereward yielded to the argument that it would be wicked to begin war on Christmas Day, or to do any manner of thing on that day except praying and feasting. Something did Hereward say in praise of Elfric, and of the ability, and courage, and quickness of invention he had displayed while on his mission in foreign parts, and on shipboard.

“Albeit,” said he, “I would not rob my good friends the Abbat of Crowland and the Prior of Spalding of so promising a novice, I needs must think that he would make a much better soldier than monk; nor can I help saying that I would rather have Elfric for my messenger and aid in the field than any Saxon youth I know, whether of low degree or high.”

“My good brother of Crowland and I have been thinking of these things,” said Abbat Thurstan; “and these are surely days when the saints of England require the services of men with steel caps on their heads as much as they require the services of men with shaven crowns. Not but that some of us that wear cowls have not wielded arms and done good battle in our day for the defence of our shrines and houses.”

At this moment the eels and fish of the Christmas-eve supper were all ready, and the best cask of Rhenish which the bark had brought up to my Lord Abbat’s pier was broached.