“A hard lap will he find it, Hereward,” said Torfrida. “I know her,—wanton, false, and vain. Heaven grant he do not rue the day he ever saw her!”
“Heaven grant he may rue it! Would that her bosom were knives and fish-hooks, like that of the statue in the fairy-tale. See what he has done for us! He is Earl not only of his own lands, but he has taken poor Morcar’s too, and half his earldom. He is Earl of Huntingdon, of Cambridge, they say,—of this ground on which we stand. What right have I here now? How can I call on a single man to arm, as I could in Morcar’s name? I am an outlaw here and a robber; and so is every man with me. And do you think that William did not know that? He saw well enough what he was doing when he set up that great brainless idol as Earl again. He wanted to split up the Danish folk, and he has done it. The Northumbrians will stick to Waltheof. They think him a mighty hero, because he held York-gate alone with his own axe against all the French.”
“Well, that was a gallant deed.”
“Pish! we are all gallant men, we English. It is not courage that we want, it is brains. So the Yorkshire and Lindsay men, and the Nottingham men too, will go with Waltheof. And round here, and all through the fens, every coward, every prudent man even,—every man who likes to be within the law, and feel his head safe on his shoulders,—no blame to him—will draw each from me for fear of this new Earl, and leave us to end as a handful of outlaws. I see it all. As William sees it all. He is wise enough, the Mamzer, and so is his father Belial, to whom he will go home some day. Yes, Torfrida,” he went on after a pause, more gently, but in a tone of exquisite sadness, “you were right, as you always are. I am no match for that man. I see it now.”
“I never said that. Only—”
“Only you told me again and again that he was the wisest man on earth.”
“And yet, for that very reason, I bade you win glory without end, by defying the wisest man on earth.”
“And do you bid me do it still?”
“God knows what I bid,” said Torfrida, bursting into tears. “Let me go pray, for I never needed it more.”
Hereward watched her kneeling, as he sat moody, all but desperate. Then he glided to her side, and said gently,—