But Hereward answered him modestly and mildly,—
“Speak not so to me and of me, Uncle Brand. I am a very foolish, vain, sinful man, who have come through great adventures, I know not how, to great and strange happiness, and now again to great and strange sorrows; and to an adventure greater and stranger than all that has befallen me from my youth up until now. Therefore make me not proud, Uncle Brand, but keep me modest and lowly, as befits all true knights and penitent sinners; for they tell me that God resists the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. And I have that to do which do I cannot, unless God and his saints give me grace from this day forth.”
Brand looked at him, astonished; and then turned to Herluin.
“Did I not tell thee, prior? This is the lad whom you called graceless and a savage; and see, since he has been in foreign lands, and seen the ways of knights, he talks as clerkly as a Frenchman, and as piously as any monk.”
“The Lord Hereward,” said Herluin, “has doubtless learned much from the manners of our nation which he would not have learned in England. I rejoice to see him returned so Christian and so courtly a knight.”
“The Lord Hereward, Prior Herluin, has learnt one thing in his travels,—to know somewhat of men and the hearts of men, and to deal with them as they deserve of him. They tell me that one Thorold of Malmesbury,—Thorold of Fécamp, the minstrel, he that made the song of Rowland,—that he desires this abbey.”
“I have so heard, my lord.”
“Then I command,—I, Hereward, Lord of Bourne!—that this abbey be held against him and all Frenchmen, in the name of Swend Ulfsson, king of England, and of me. And he that admits a Frenchman therein, I will shave his crown for him so well, that he shall never need razor more. This I tell thee; and this I shall tell your monks before I go. And unless you obey the same, my dream will be fulfilled; and you will see Goldenbregh in a light low, and burning yourselves in the midst thereof.”
“Swend Ulfsson? Swend of Denmark? What words are these?” cried Brand.
“You will know within six months, uncle.”