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"But she is dead since, and young Ulf, her son, murdered by Tosti last winter." "I know." "Whereon Gospatrick sends to me for the girl and her dowry. What was I to do? Give her up? Little it is, lad, that I ever gave up, after I had it once in my grip, or I should be a poorer man than I am now. Have and hold, is my rule. What should I do? What I did.
There was among them neither unity nor plan nor governing mind and will. Hereward's words had come true. The only man, save Gospatrick, who had a head in England, was Harold Godwinsson: and he lay in Waltham Abbey, while the monks sang masses for his soul. Edwin, Morcar, and Waltheof trembled before a genius superior to their own, a genius, indeed, which had not its equal then in Christendom.
Therefore, through the desert which he himself had made, he forced his way up to the Tees a second time, over snow-covered moors; and this time St. Cuthbert had sent no fog, being satisfied, presumably, with William's orthodox attachment to St. Peter and Rome; so the Conqueror treated quietly with Waltheof and Gospatrick, who lay at Durham.
I am no coward, nor a clumsy man of my hands." "He is either fool or liar who says so." "But see. I find it hard work to hold my own in Scotland now. Folks don't like me, or trust me; I can't say why." "How unreasonable!" quoth Hereward. "And if I kill this youth, and so have a blood-feud with Gospatrick, I have a hornet's nest about my ears. And beside, that Dolfin is a big man.
Great was the delight of Hereward and the ladies when they heard of the taking of Durham and York; but bitter their surprise and rage when they heard that Gospatrick and the Confederates had proclaimed Edgar Atheling king. "Fools! they will ruin all!" cried Gyda.
This I know, as I know all, not only from him of Ghent, but from him of Peterborough, Ascelin's uncle." Hereward laughed a laugh of cynical triumph, pardonable enough in a broken man. "Gospatrick! the wittol! the woodcock! looking at the springe, and then coolly putting his head therein. Throwing the hatchet after the helve! selling his soul and never getting the price of it!
A few of the more suspicious, or more desperate, said that they could never trust the Norman; that Hereward himself had warned them again and again of his treachery. That he was now going to do himself what he had laughed at Gospatrick and the rest for doing; what had brought ruin on Edwin and Morcar; what he had again and again prophesied would bring ruin on Waltheof himself ere all was over.
That he was levying war on all Frenchmen, in the name of Sweyn, King of Denmark and of England? He is an outlaw, a desperado, a boastful swash-buckler, thought William, it may be, to himself. He found out, in after years, that he had mistaken his man. And north, at York, in the rear of those three insurrections lay Gospatrick, Waltheof, and Marlesweyn, with the Northumbrian host.
But this I know, that she comes from Uchtred, the earl whom Canute slew, and that she is heir to great estates in Northumberland. "Gospatrick, that fought at Dunsinane?" "Yes, not the old Thane, his uncle, whom Tosti has murdered; but Gospatrick, King Malcolm's cousin, Dolfin's father. Well, she was his ward.
Doubtless the angry and disappointed English raised such accusations against the earl, believing them to be true. But is not the simpler cause of Osbiorn's conduct to be found in this plain fact? He had sailed from Denmark to put Sweyn, his brother, on the throne. He found, on his arrival, that Gospatrick and Waltheof had seized it in the name of Edgar Atheling.
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