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So he rode down to the river, and there took two great barges, and rowed away to Crowland, with forty men-at-arms. And all the while he thought of Alftruda, as he hai seen her at Peterborough. And of no one else? Not so. For all the while he felt that he loved Torfrida's little finger better than Alftruda's whole body, and soul into the bargain. What a long way it was to Crowland.
Ten years ago he swept this hall of such as you, and hung their heads upon yon gable outside; and were he alive but one five minutes again, this hall would be right cleanly swept again! Give me his body, or bear forever the name of cowards, and Torfrida's curse." And she fixed her terrible eyes first on one, and then on another, calling them by name. "Ivo Taillebois, basest of all "
For himself yield he would not: when all was over, he would flee to the sea, with Torfrida and his own housecarles, and turn Viking; or go to Sweyn Ulfsson in Denmark, and die a free man. The English did not foresee these things. Their hearts were lifted up with their victory, and they laughed at William and his French, and drank Torfrida's health much too often for their own good.
And the great Countess reeled with weariness and woe, and fell upon Torfrida's neck. A tall veiled lady next her helped to support her; and between them they almost carried her through the hall, and into Torfrida's best guest-chamber. And there they gave her wine, and comforted her, and let her weep awhile in peace.
And after old Baldwin died, and Baldwin of Mons and Richilda came to Bruges, Torfrida was always with her while Hereward was at the wars. "The woman is a manifest and notorious witch," said the secretary. "It seems so indeed," said William, with something like a sigh. And so were Torfrida's early follies visited on her; as all early follies are. "But Hereward, you say, is a good knight and true?"
And Hereward did; and went back again like a man stunned. After a while there came by boat to Crowland all Torfrida's wealth: clothes, jewels: not a shred had Hereward kept. The magic armor came with them. Torfrida gave all to the abbey, there and then.
Cunning old leech-wives treated the French lady with tonics, mugwort, and bogbean, and good wine enow, But, like David of old, she got no heat; and before Yule-tide came, she had prayed herself safely out of this world, and into the world to come. And Torfrida's heart was the more light when she saw her go. She was absorbed utterly in Hereward and his plots.
So there were fits of despondency, jars, mutual recriminations. Furthermore, that first daughter was Torfrida's only child, and she knew almost as well as he how hard that weighed on Hereward. In him the race of Leofric, of Godiva, of Earl Oslac, would become extinct, and the girl would marry whom? Who but some French conqueror, or at best some English outlaw?
"It is only the English Berserker, the Lady Torfrida's champion," said some one, in his most courteous tone, "who is not yet as well acquainted with the customs of knighthood as that fair lady hopes to make him hereafter." "Torfrida's champion?" asked Adela, in a tone of surprise, if not scorn. "If any knight quarrels with my Hereward, he quarrels with Robert himself!" thundered Count Robert.
Meanwhile, he was man enough not to require that anything should be added to Torfrida's penance; and that was enough to prove him a man in those days, at least for a churchman, as it proved Archbishop or St. Ailred to be, a few years after, in the case of the nun of Watton, to be read in Gale's "Scriptores Anglicaniae." Then he showed the letter to Alftruda.
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