CHAPTER XXXVII. — HOW HEREWARD LOST SWORD BRAIN-BITER.
“On account of which,” says the chronicler, “many troubles came to Hereward: because Torfrida was most wise, and of great counsel in need. For afterwards, as he himself confessed, things went not so well with him as they did in her time.”
And the first thing that went ill was this. He was riding through the Bruneswald, and behind him Geri, Wenoch, and Matelgar, these three. And there met him in an open glade a knight, the biggest man he had ever seen, on the biggest horse, and five knights behind him. He was an Englishman, and not a Frenchman, by his dress; and Hereward spoke courteously enough to him. But who he was, and what his business was in the Bruneswald, Hereward thought that he had a right to ask.
“Tell me who thou art, who askest, before I tell thee who I am who am asked, riding here on common land,” quoth the knight, surlily enough.
“I am Hereward, without whose leave no man has ridden the Bruneswald for many a day.”
“And I am Letwold the Englishman, who rides whither he will in merry England, without care for any Frenchman upon earth.”
“Frenchman? Why callest thou me Frenchman, man? I am Hereward.”
“Then thou art, if tales be true, as French as Ivo Taillebois. I hear that thou hast left thy true lady, like a fool and a churl, and goest to London, or Winchester, or the nether pit,—I care not which,—to make thy peace with the Mamzer.”
The man was a surly brute: but what he said was so true, that Hereward’s wrath arose. He had promised Torfrida many a time, never to quarrel with an Englishman, but to endure all things. Now, out of very spite to Torfrida’s counsel, because it was Torfrida’s, and he had promised to obey it, he took up the quarrel.