"The cowards fear to pursue us farther; they have a wholesome dread of Hereward and his merry men, and we may embark in peace: we are near an old manor house belonging to our great captain, and there we may leave the horses in safety, satisfied no Norman will get them--such is the terror of his name; then we will all take boat for Ely."
The morning, the second of their journey, was already breaking across a vast expanse of water and fenland, and the dawn was empurpling the skies and making the waters glow like burnished metal; so beautiful was the scene that it seemed a happy omen to our tired wanderers.
The face of the country was level as the sea itself; no hillock varied the monotony of the surface; but here and there some sail glistened in the glowing light; and afar off Leofric pointed out the towers of Ely Abbey, white and distinct in the rays of the rising sun, which, just then, rose grandly out of the waters.
They left their horses at the manor house, which was garrisoned by Hereward's retainers, and broke their fast, gladdened by an enthusiastic reception; hope was not yet dead here.
Afterwards, they all embarked in large flat-bottomed boats, which were sluggishly impelled, by oar and sail, towards the distant towers of Ely.
The sweet fresh breeze, the cheerful warmth of the sun, soothed our travellers, wearied with their long night ride; the monotonous splash of the oars assisted to lull them into sleep, oblivious of past fatigue. Wilfred awoke to find himself approaching the wharf of Ely.
And here our narrative must perforce leave him for the space of two years, sharing the fortunes of the famous Hereward, until the fall of the last refuge of English liberty: the events of those two years are matters of history {[xxii]}.
[CHAPTER XXI]. TWO DOCUMENTS.
Two years had passed away since his last visit, and Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, was again a visitor in England, this time the guest of the new primate of the conquered country, Archbishop Lanfranc, a native of Pavia, and formerly abbot of the famed monastery of Bec in Normandy, to whom the king had been greatly indebted for his services as negotiator with the Court of Rome, while the conquest was in deliberation.
He was a man of deep learning and great personal piety, yet not without some of the faults of the race, under whose auspices he had come to England. Still, in spite of his deep prejudices, he was often, as we shall see in these pages, the protector of the oppressed English.