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"Robyn loved our dere Ladye, For doubt of dedely synne, Wolde he never do company harme That any woman was ynne." And even so it was with Hereward in the Bruneswald, if the old chroniclers, Leofric especially, are to be believed. And now Torfrida was astonished. She had given way utterly at Ely, from woman's fear, and woman's disappointment. All was over. All was lost. What was left, save to die?
She called him her best and dearest friend, twice the savior of her life. What could she do in return, but, at any risk to herself, try and save his life? The French were upon him. The posse comitatus of seven counties was raising. "Northampton, Cambridge, Lincoln, Holland, Leicester, Huntingdon, Warwick," were coming to the Bruneswald to root him out. "Lincoln?" thought Hereward.
For afterwards, as he himself confessed, things went not so well with him as they did in her time." And the first thing that went ill was this. He was riding through the Bruneswald, and behind him Geri, Wenoch, and Matelgar, these three. And there met him in an open glade a knight, the biggest man he had ever seen, on the biggest horse, and five knights behind him.
"I am Hereward, without whose leave no man has ridden the Bruneswald for many a day." "And I am Letwold the Englishman, who rides whither he will in merry England, without care for any Frenchman upon earth." "Frenchman? Why callest thou me Frenchman, man? I am Hereward." "Then thou art, if tales be true, as French as Ivo Taillebois.
They had met him riding along, intent upon his psalter, in a lonely path of the Bruneswald, "Whereon your son, most gracious lady, bade me stand, saying that his men were thirsty and he had no money to buy ale withal, and none so likely to help him thereto as a fat priest, for so he scandalously termed me, who, as your ladyship knows, am leaner than the minster bell-ropes, with fasting Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, beside the vigils of the saints, and the former and latter Lents.
"Hoc Ivo Taillebosc ibi habet in dominio," all, that is, that the wars had left of them. Wherefore it befell, that once upon a day there came riding to Hereward in the Bruneswald a horseman all alone.
He was an Englishman, and not a Frenchman, by his dress; and Hereward spoke courteously enough to him. But who he was, and what his business was in the Bruneswald, Hereward thought that he had a right to ask. "Tell me who thou art, who askest, before I tell thee who I am who am asked, riding here on common land," quoth the knight, surlily enough.
And then? "The Bruneswald, and the merry greenwood," said Hereward. "Hey for the merry greenwood!" shouted Leofric the Deacon. And the men, in the sudden delight of finding any place, any purpose, answered with a lusty cheer. "Brave hearts," said Hereward. "We will live and die together like Englishmen." "We will, we will, Viking."
"To Bourne in the Bruneswald; and say to Hereward's men, wherever they are, Let them rise and arm, if they love Hereward, and down to Cambridge, to be the foremost at Bishop Odo's side against Ralph Guader, or Waltheof himself. Send! send! O that I were free!" "Would to Heaven thou wert free, my gallant sir!" said the good man. From that day Hereward woke up somewhat.
Wherefore, when it befell that once on a day there came riding to Hereward in the Bruneswald a horseman who handed to him a letter, the sight of Alftruda's signature at the end sent a strange thrill through him. There was naught in it that he should not have read it was but to tell him that the French were upon him, the posse comitatus of seven counties were rising, and so forth.
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