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William decided on constructing a causeway, and employed workmen to cut trenches to drain off the water, and raise the bank of stones and turf, under the superintendence of Ivo Taillebois.
Put out his other eye," said Taillebois, as a vent to his own feelings. And they turned their horses' heads, and rode back, leaving the man blind in the forest. The day was waning now. The fog hung heavy on the treetops, and dripped upon their heads. The horses were getting tired, and slipped and stumbled in the deep clay paths.
Here am I, trying to conciliate these English by justice and mercy whenever they will let me, and here are you outraging them, and driving them mad and desperate, just that you may get a handle against them, and thus rob the poor wretches and drive them into the forest. From the lowest to the highest, from Ivo Taillebois there down to you cook-boys, you are all at the same game.
Ivo Taillebois, hearing of the fire, and trusting that all the parchments had been lost together, sent a summons to the brethren to produce the deeds by which they held their lands. They despatched a lay brother called Trig to Spalding, with Turketyl's grant under his charge. The Normans glanced over it, and derided it.
It might seem strange that William, Taillebois, Guader, Warrenne, short-spoken, hard-headed, hard-swearing warriors, could allow, complacently, a smooth churchman to dawdle on like this, counting his periods on his fingers, and seemingly never coming to the point. But they knew well, that the churchman was a far cunninger, as well as a more learned, man than themselves.
"Talk to me so, and my stirrup leathers shall make acquaintance with your sides," said Taillebois. "Keep them for your wife. Churl? Barbarian? There is not a man within this hall who is not a barbarian compared with him. Which of you touched the harp like him? Which of you, like him, could move all hearts with song? Which of you knows all tongues from Lapland to Provence?
He found those of Hereward and Torfrida, at least, as polished as his own. "I am glad you are content, Lord Abbot," said Torfrida; "I trust you prefer dining with me to burning me, as you meant to do." "I burn such peerless beauty! I injure a form made only for the courts of kings! Heaven and all saints, knighthood and all chivalry, forbid. What Taillebois may have said, I know not!
That this man, who had once a gallant army at his back, should be at this moment going like a sheep to the slaughter, to Buckingham Castle, at the mercy of his worst enemy, Ivo Taillebois, of all men in the world.
Ivo Taillebois was not likely to forgive him for existing within a hundred miles of Spalding, any more than the wolf would forgive the lamb for fouling the water below him. Only "Gilbert of Ghent," the pious and illustrious earl, sent messages of congratulation and friendship to Hereward, it being his custom to sail with the wind, and worship the rising sun till it should decline again.
"Pardieu! whatever men may say of thy lineage or thy virtues, they cannot deny this, that thou art a most wise and valiant captain." "That am I," quoth Taillebois, too much pleased with the praise to care about being tutoye by younger men. "As for my lineage, my lord the king has a fellow-feeling for upstarts; and the woodman's grandson may very well serve the tanner's.
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