“Dull times make dull company,” said one, “and no offence to you, Sir Knight.”
“Are you such a stranger,” asked Perry, “that you do not know what has happened in this town during the last three days?”
“No good, I will warrant, if you have Frenchmen in it.”
“Why was not Hereward here?” wailed the old man in the corner. “It never would have happened if he had been in the town.”
“What?” asked Hereward, trying to command himself.
“What has happened,” said Perry, “makes a free Englishman’s blood boil to tell of. Here, Sir Knight, three days ago, comes in this Frenchman with some twenty ruffians of his own, and more of one Taillebois’s, too, to see him safe; says that this new king, this base-born Frenchman, has given away all Earl Morcar’s lands, and that Bourne is his; kills a man or two; upsets the women; gets drunk, ruffles, and roisters; breaks into my lady’s bower, calling her to give up her keys, and when she gives them, will have all her jewels too. She faces them like a brave Princess, and two of the hounds lay hold of her, and say that she shall ride through Bourne as she rode through Coventry. The boy Godwin—he that was the great Earl’s godson, our last hope, the last of our house—draws sword on them; and he, a boy of sixteen summers, kills them both out of hand. The rest set on him, cut his head off, and there it sticks on the gable spike of the hall to this hour. And do you ask, after that, why free Englishmen are dull company?”
“And our turn will come next,” growled somebody. “The turn will go all round; no man’s life or land, wife or daughters, will be safe soon for these accursed Frenchmen, unless, as the old man says, Hereward comes back.”
Once again the old man wailed out of the chimney-corner: “Why did they ever send Hereward away? I warned the good Earl, I warned my good lady, many a time, to let him sow his wild oats and be done with them; or they might need him some day when they could not find him! He was a lad! He was a lad!” and again he whined, and sank into silence.
Hereward heard all this dry-eyed, hardening his heart into a great resolve. “This is a dark story,” said he calmly, “and it would behoove me as a gentleman to succor this distressed lady, did I but know how. Tell me what I can do now, and I will do it.”
“Your health!” cried one. “You speak like a true knight.”