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Updated: May 29, 2025
But when, after a few months, Hereward returned from his first campaign in Holland, covered with glory and renown, all smiles, and beauty, and health, and good-humor, and gratitude for the magic armor which had preserved him unhurt, then Torfrida forgot all her fears, and thought herself the happiest maid alive for four-and-twenty hours at least.
I hear that thou hast left thy true lady, like a fool and a churl, and goest to London, or Winchester, or the nether pit, I care not which, to make thy peace with the Mamzer." The man was a surly brute: but what he said was so true, that Hereward's wrath arose. He had promised Torfrida many a time, never to quarrel with an Englishman, but to endure all things.
"Is it a boy?" asked Hereward, who saw in his mind's eye a thing which would grow and broaden at his knee year by year, and learn from him to ride, to shoot, to fight. "Happy for him if he does not learn worse from me," thought Hereward, with a sudden movement of humility and contrition, which was surely marked in heaven; for Torfrida marked it on earth. But she mistook its meaning.
So they made a sledge, tied beef-bones underneath it, put Torfrida thereon, well wrapped in deer and fox and badger skin, and then putting on their skates, swept her over the fen to Crowland, singing like larks along the dikes. And Torfrida said yes, and yes, and yes, and felt in her heart that she knew all that already. Had not she, too, taught, entreated, softened, civilized?
But it was not impossible, hardly improbable, in days when the caprice of the strong created accidents, and when cruelty and wrong went for nothing, even with very kindly honest folk. So Torfrida faced the danger, as she would have faced that of a kicking horse, or a flooded ford; and like the nut-brown bride, "She pulled out a little penknife, That was both keen and sharp."
"And now," said the priest, "deliver me over Torfrida the younger, daughter of Hereward and this woman, that I may take her to the King, who has found a fit husband for her." "You will hardly get her." "Not get her?" "Not without her mother's consent. The lass cares for naught but her." "Pish! that sorceress? Send for the girl."
And when Leofric came in, he fell upon his knees, bewailing and confessing his sinful life; and begged the abbot to take him back again into Crowland minster, and lay upon him what penance he thought fit, and put him in the lowest office, because he was a man of blood; if only he might stay there, and have a sight at times of his dear Lady Torfrida, without whom he should surely die.
Schoolcraft and honesty never went yet together, Torfrida " "Not in me?" "You are not a clerk, you are a woman, and more, you are an elf, a goddess; there is none like you. But hearken to me. This man is false. All the world knows it." "He promises, they say, to govern England justly as King Edward's heir, according to the old laws and liberties of the realm." "Of course.
To which message Sir Ascelin and Ivo Taillebois, not being over desirous of having Hereward as a neighbour, saw fit to add a clause exempting Torfrida from the amnesty, but that she should be burnt on account of her abominable and notorious sorceries. When the proclamation arrived, Hereward was away foraging.
The weary months ran on, from summer into winter, and winter into summer again, for two years and more, and neither Torfrida nor Hereward were the better for them. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: and a sick heart is but too apt to be a peevish one. So there were fits of despondency, jars, mutual recriminations. "If I had not taken your advice, I should not have been here."
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