“Why not against him? He is but bringing more misery on England. Tell that to William. Tell him that if he sets me free, I will be the first to attack Waltheof, or whom he will. There are no English left to fight against,” said he, bitterly, “for Waltheof is none now.”
“He shall know your words when he returns to England.”
“What, is he abroad, and all this evil going on?”
“In Normandy. But the English have risen for the King in Herefordshire, and beaten Earl Roger; and Odo of Bayeux and Bishop Mowbray are on their way to Cambridge, where they hope to give a good account of Earl Ralph; and that the English may help them there.”
“And they shall! They hate Ralph Guader as much as I do. Can you send a message for me?”
“Whither?”
“To Bourne in the Bruneswald; and say to Hereward’s men, wherever they are, Let them rise and arm, if they love Hereward, and down to Cambridge, to be the foremost at Bishop Odo’s side against Ralph Guader, or Waltheof himself. Send! send! O that I were free!”
“Would to Heaven thou wert free, my gallant sir!” said the good man.
From that day Hereward woke up somewhat. He was still a broken man, querulous, peevish; but the hope of freedom and the hope of battle woke him up. If he could but get to his men! But his melancholy returned. His men—some of them at least—went down to Odo at Cambridge, and did good service. Guader was utterly routed, and escaped to Norwich, and thence to Brittany,—his home. The bishops punished their prisoners, the rebel Normans, with horrible mutilations.
“The wolves are beginning to eat each other,” said Hereward to himself. But it was a sickening thought to him, that his men had been fighting and he not at their head.