“We will put you back into your law,—we will give you your lands in full husting.”
“Never mind a husting on my behalf. Let us have a husting, if we have one, for a better end than that. Now, men of Bourne, I have put the coal in the bush. Dare you blow the fire till the forest is aflame from south to north? I have fought a dozen of Frenchmen. Dare you fight Taillebois and Gilbert of Ghent, with William, Duke of Normandy, at their back? Or will you take me, here as I stand, and give me up to them as an outlaw and a robber, to feed the crows outside the gates of Lincoln? Do it, if you will. It will be the wiser plan, my friends. Give me up to be judged and hanged, and so purge yourselves of the villanous murder of Gilbert’s cook,—your late lord and master.”
“Lord and master! We are free men!” shouted the holders, or yeomen gentlemen. “We hold our lands from God and the sun.”
“You are our lord!” shouted the socmen, or tenants. “Who but you? We will follow, If you will lead!”
“Hereward is come home!” cried a feeble voice behind. “Let me come to him. Let me feel him.”
And through the crowd, supported by two ladies, tottered the mighty form of Surturbrand, the blind Viking.
“Hereward is come!” cried he, as he folded his master’s son in his arms. “Hoi! he is wet with blood! Hoi! he smells of blood! Hoi! the ravens will grow fat now, for Hereward is come home!”
Some would have led the old man away; but he thrust them off fiercely.
“Hoi! come wolf! Hoi! come kite! Hoi! come erne from off the fen! You followed us, and we fed you well, when Swend Forkbeard brought us over the sea. Follow us now, and we will feed you better still, with the mongrel Frenchers who scoff at the tongue of their forefathers, and would rob their nearest kinsman of land and lass. Hoi! Swend’s men! Hoi! Canute’s men! Vikings’ sons, sea-cocks’ sons, Berserkers’ sons all! Split up the war-arrow, and send it round, and the curse of Odin on every man that will not pass it on! A war-king to-morrow, and Hildur’s game next day, that the old Surturbrand may fall like a freeholder, axe in hand, and not die like a cow, in the straw which the Frenchman has spared him.”
All men were silent, as the old Viking’s voice, cracked and feeble when he began, gathered strength from rage, till it rang through the still night-air like a trumpet-blast.