“Let him pick out the prisoners’ eyes, and chop off their hands, and shoot them into the town from mangonels,—he must go far and thrive well ere I give him a chance of doing that by me.”
“Hereward, Hereward, my own! Boast not, but fear God. Who knows, in such a world as this, to what end we may come? Night after night I am haunted with spectres, eyeless, handless—”
“This is cold comfort for a man just out of hard fighting in the ague-fens!”
She threw her arms round him, and held him as if she would never let him go.
“When you die, I die. And you will not die: you will be great and glorious, and your name will be sung by scald and minstrel through many a land, far and wide. Only be not rash. Be not high-minded. Promise me to answer this man wisely. The more crafty he is, the more crafty must you be likewise.”
“Let us tell this mighty hero, then,” said Hereward,—trying to laugh away her fears, and perhaps his own,—“that while he has the Holy Father on his side, he can need no help from a poor sinful worm like me.”
“Hereward, Hereward!”
“Why, is there aught about hides in that?”
“I want,—I want an answer which may not cut off all hope in case of the worst.”
“Then let us say boldly, ‘On the day that William is King of all England, Hereward will come and put his hands between his, and be his man.’”