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"Or thou wilt go, whither Edwin is gone, to betrayal and ruin." "Why so? He has been kind enough to Waltheof and Gospatrick, why not to Edwin?" "Because," laughed Hereward, "he wanted Waltheof, and he does not want you and Edwin. He can keep Mercia quiet without your help. Northumbria and the Fens he cannot without Waltheof's.
"None knows better than he that all is over. Earl Edwin and Earl Morcar, who should have helped us along Watling Street, are here fugitives. Earl Gospatrick and Earl Waltheof are William's men now, soon to raise the landsfolk against us. We had better go home, before we have eaten up the monks of Ely."
So all we know is, that William fell upon Morcar's men at Stafford, and smote them with a great destruction; rolling the fugitives west and east, toward Edwin, perhaps, at Chester, certainly toward Hereward in the fens. At Stafford met him the fugitives from York, Malet, his wife, and children, with the dreadful news that the Danes had joined Gospatrick, and that York was lost.
"It is contrary to the canons of Holy Church." "So are many things that are done in England just now. Need has no master. Now, Sir Earl and Sir Atheling, what are you going to do?" Neither of them, it seemed, very well knew. They would go to York if they could get there, and join Gospatrick and Marlesweyn. And certainly it was the most reasonable thing to be done.
There was Gospatrick, claiming through his grandfather, Uchtred, and strong in the protection of his cousin Malcolm, King of Scotland; there was young Waltheof, "the forest thief," who had been born to Siward Biorn in his old age, just after the battle of Dunsinane; a fine and gallant young man, destined to a swift and sad end.
Alftruda was beautiful, too, exceedingly, and precocious, and, it may be, vain enough to repay his attentions in good earnest. Moreover she was English as he was, and royal likewise; a relation of Elfgiva, daughter of Ethelred, once King of England, who, as all know, married Uchtred, prince of Northumberland and grandfather of Gospatrick, Earl of Northumberland, and ancestor of all the Dunbars.
Boy Waltheof will set up his claim next, I presume, as Siward's son; and then Gospatrick, as Ethelred Evil-Counsel's great-grandson; and so forth, and so forth, till they all eat each other up, and the tanner's grandson eats the last. What care I? Tell me about the battle, my lady, if you know aught. That is more to my way than their statecraft."
And thus, like the Romans, from whom he derived both his strategy and his civilization, he "made a solitude and called it peace." He did not give away Waltheof's lands; and only part of Gospatrick's. He wanted Gospatrick; he loved Waltheof, and wanted him likewise.
But that he could outgeneral William, that he could even manage Gospatrick and his intrigues Hereward expected as little as that his own nephews Edwin and Morcar could do it. "I have to thank you, noble sir," said Waltheof, languidly, "for sending your knights to our rescue when we were really hard bestead, I fear much by our own fault.
He it was, most certainly, who brought the worse news still, that Gospatrick and Waltheof were gone over to the king. He was at Durham, seemingly, when he saw that; and fled for his life ere evil overtook him: for to yield to William that brave bishop had no mind.
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