Why did he not push on at once against the one rebellion left alight,—that of Hereward and his fenmen?
It may be that he understood him and them. It may be that he meant to treat with Sweyn, as he had done, if the story be true, with Osbiorn. It is more likely that he could do no more; that his army, after so swift and long a campaign, required rest. It may be that the time of service of many of his mercenaries was expired. Be that as it may, he mustered them at Old Sarum,—the Roman British burgh which still stands on the down side, and rewarded them, according to their deserts, from the lands of the conquered English.
How soon Hereward knew all this, or how he passed the winter of 1070-71, we cannot tell. But to him it must have been a winter of bitter perplexity.
It was impossible to get information from Edwin; and news from York was almost as impossible to get, for Gilbert of Ghent stood between him and it.
He felt himself now pent in, all but trapped. Since he had set foot last in England ugly things had risen up, on which he had calculated too little,—namely, Norman castles. A whole ring of them in Norfolk and Suffolk cut him off from the south. A castle at Cambridge closed the south end of the fens; another at Bedford, the western end; while Lincoln Castle to the north, cut him off from York.
His men did not see the difficulty; and wanted him to march towards York, and clear all Lindsay and right up to the Humber.
Gladly would he have done so, when he heard that the Danes were wintering in the Humber.
“But how can we take Lincoln Castle without artillery, or even a battering-ram?”
“Let us march past, it then, and leave it behind.”
“Ah, my sons,” said Hereward, laughing sadly, “do you suppose that the Mamzer spends his time—and Englishmen’s life and labor—in heaping up those great stone mountains, that you and I may walk past them? They are put there just to prevent our walking past, unless we choose to have the garrison sallying out to attack our rear, and cut us off from home, and carry off our women into the bargain, when our backs are turned.”