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Updated: May 29, 2025
"I have always heard," said he, bowing, "that if the Lady Gyda had been born a man, England would have had another all-seeing and all-daring statesman, and Earl Godwin a rival, instead of a helpmate. Now I believe what I have heard." But Torfrida looked sadly at the Countess.
The second lady had unveiled herself, displaying a beauty which was still brilliant, in spite of sorrow, hunger, the stains of travel, and more than forty years of life. "She must be Gunhilda," guessed Torfrida to herself, and not amiss. She offered Gyda a bath, which she accepted eagerly, like a true Dane. "I have not washed for weeks.
He knew the value of a valiant soul, and was thereafter a warm friend of Hereward, who, on his part, remained as loyal and true to the king as he had been strong and earnest against him. And so years passed on, Hereward in favor at court, and he and Torfrida, his Flemish wife, living happily in the castle which William's bounty had provided them.
He lifted her from the horse, turned him loose, put Torfrida into the boat, and took the oars. She looked up, and saw the roofs of Bourne shining white in the moonlight. And then she lifted up her voice, and shrieked three times: "Lost! Lost! Lost!"
"Only bruised; but he shall be killed, if you will." "God forbid!" "Then," said Siward, mistaking her meaning, "all I have to tell Hereward is, it seems, that he has wasted his blow. He will return, therefore, to the Knight of St. Valeri his horse, and, if the Lady Torfrida chooses, the favor which he has taken by mistake from its rightful owner."
This vigorous and valiant man was born to be the hero and champion of the English, in their final struggle for freedom against their Norman foes. A new passion entered Hereward's soul in Flanders, that of love. He met and wooed there a fair lady, Torfrida by name, who became his wife.
She led the way onward towards a door beyond. Hereward followed, glancing with awe at the books, parchments, and strange instruments which lay on the table and the floor. The old Lapp nurse sat in the window, sewing busily. She looked up, and smiled meaningly. But as she saw Torfrida unlock the further door with one of the keys which hung at her girdle, she croaked out, "Too fast! Too fast!
There is another spell in the wind, stirred up by devil or witch-wife, and it comes from Tosti Godwinsson." "Tosti, the cold-meat butcher? What has he to say to me?" "This, 'If Hereward will come with me to William of Normandy, and help us against Harold, the perjured, then will William do for him all that Harold would have done, and more beside." "And what answered Torfrida?"
I knew I had not trusted him in vain!" "I kept faith and honor with the Princess of Cornwall, when I had her at my will, and shall I not keep faith and honor with you?" "The Princess of Cornwall?" asked Torfrida. "Do not be jealous, fair queen. I brought her safe to her betrothed; and wedded she is, long ago. I will tell you that story some day. And now I must go." "Not yet! not yet!
That night Alftruda heard him by her side in the still hours, weeping silently to himself. She caressed him: but he gave no heed to her. "I believe," said she bitterly at last, "that you love Torfrida still better than you do me." And Hereward answered, like Mahomet in like case, "That do I, by heaven. She believed in me when no one else in the world did."
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