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But it befell that Oger the Breton, he who had Morcar's lands round Bourne, came up to see after his lands, and to visit his friend and fellow-robber, Ivo Taillebois. Ivo thought the hot-headed Breton, who had already insulted Hereward with impunity at Winchester, the fittest man for his purpose; and asked him, over his cups, whether he had settled with that English ruffian about the Docton land?
"I don't know that," said Ascelin, "my Lord Uncle; I shall never sing 'Dominus Illuminatio' till I see your coffers illuminated once more by those thirty thousand marks." "Or I," said Oger le Breton, "till I see myself safe in that bit of land which Hereward holds wrongfully of me in Locton."
"That must be Gilbert of Ghent, and Oger the Breton. No! Gilbert is not coming, Sir Ascelin is coming for him. Holland? That is my friend Ivo Taillebois. Well, we shall have the chance of paying off old scores. Northampton? The earl thereof just now is the pious and loyal Waltheof, as he is of Huntingdon and Cambridge.
"Deliver us from evil, Amen! What a manifest lie! The traitor was not permitted, it is plain, to ask for that which could never be granted to him; but his soul, unworthy to be delivered from evil, entered instead into evil, and howls forever in the pit." "But all the rest may be true," said Oger; "and yet that be no reason why these monks should say it."
"Have you had enough, Sir Tristram the younger?" quoth Hereward, wiping his sword, and walking moodily away. Oger went out of Bourne with his arm in a sling, and took counsel with Ivo Taillebois. Whereon they two mounted, and rode to Lincoln, and took counsel with Gilbert of Ghent. The fruit of which was this.
He saw Ivo Taillebois; he saw Oger; he saw his fellow-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 with them he saw, or seemed to see, the Ogre of Cornwall, and O'Brodar of Ivark, and Dirk Hammerhand of Walcheren, and many another old foe long underground; and in his ear rang the text, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
But by far the largest category consisted of Romances, such as that of Oger le Danois from the national Epic, and another of Tancred, a hero of the first Crusade, the Romance of Troy, Percival le Gallois, Tristan, Renart, and the Violet, the story which forms the chief episode in the play of Cymbeline.
"It was Hereward's fashion, in fight and war," says the chronicler, "always to ply the man most at the last." And so found the Breton; for Hereward suddenly lost patience, and rushing on him with one of his old shouts, hewed at him again and again, as if his arm would never tire. Oger gave back, would he or not. In a few moments his sword-arm dropt to his side, cut half through.
Ednoth the standard-bearer had fallen at Bristol, fighting for William against the Haroldssons, yet all his lands were given away to Normans. Edwin and Morcar's lands were parted likewise; and to specify cases which bear especially on the history of Hereward Oger the Briton got many of Morcar's manors round Bourne, and Gilbert of Ghent many belonging to Marlesweyn about Lincoln city.
Now, King William had judged that Hereward and Oger should hold that land between them, as he and Toli had done. But when "two dogs," as Ivo said, "have hold of the same bone, it is hard if they cannot get a snap at each other's noses." Oger agreed to that opinion; and riding into Bourne, made inquisition into the doings at Docton.
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