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Updated: June 21, 2025
And none saw him, save one unlucky groom-boy, who stood yelling and cursing in front of the mare's head, and went to seize the bridle. Whereon, between the imminent danger and the bad language, Hereward's blood rose, and he smote that unlucky groom-boy; but whether he slew him or not, the chronicler had rather not say.
And now he is all wounded, and Winter, who fought at his back, is fallen on his face, and Hereward stands alone within a ring of eleven corpses. A knight rushes in, to make a twelfth, cloven through the helm; but with the blow Hereward's blade snaps short, and he hurls it away as his foes rush in.
as did your noble uncle before you." And so they marched inland, after the boy had dismounted one of his men, and put Hereward on the horse. "You gentlemen of the sea can ride as well as sail," said the chatelain, as he remarked with some surprise Hereward's perfect seat and hand.
They are God's men; and we have blood enough on our souls." "We can keep the gates, lest any go out to the King." "Impossible. They know the isle better than we, and have a thousand arts." So all they could do was to wait in fear and trembling for Hereward's return, and send Martin Lightfoot off to warn him, wherever he might be. The monks remained perfectly quiet.
A flood of sorrow passed through Hereward's heart. He kept it down, and rising once more, harp in hand, "Hereward, king, hight I, Holy Leofric my father, In Westminster wiser None walked with King Edward. High minsters he builded, Pale monks he maintained. Dead is he, a bed-death, A leech-death, a priest-death, A straw-death, a cow's death. Such doom I desire not.
None of Hereward's deeds is told so carefully and lovingly; and none, doubt it not, was so often sung in after years by farm-house hearths, or in the outlaws' lodge, as this. Robin Hood himself may have trolled out many a time, in doggrel strain, how Hereward played the potter.
Upon reaching Italy, the first care of the noble Count and Countess was to celebrate in princely style the marriage of Hereward and his faithful Bertha, who had added to their other claims upon their master and mistress, those acquired by Hereward's faithful services in Palestine, and no less by Bertha's affectionate ministry to her lady in Constantinople.
Achilles, conscious perhaps that it was his best policy not to drive his subaltern to extremity, lowered his tone somewhat in reply to the uncourtly note of the soldier, as if allowing something for the rude manners of one whom he considered as not easily matched among the Varangians themselves, for strength and valour; qualities which, in despite of Hereward's discourtesy, Achilles suspected in his heart were fully more valuable than all those nameless graces which a more courtly and accomplished soldier might possess.
And Hereward's comrades were all scattered abroad, some maimed, some blinded, some with tongues cut out, to beg by the wayside, or crawl into convents, and then die; while their sisters and daughters, ladies born and bred, were the slaves of grooms and scullions from beyond the sea. And so, as sang Thorkel Skallason,
"I will show you the way to the Golden Borough, the richest minster in England; and all the treasures of the Golden Borough shall be yours, if you will treat Englishmen as friends, and spare the people of the fens." It was a great crime in the eyes of men of that time. A great crime, taken simply, in Hereward's own eyes. But necessity knows no law.
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