“Treason!” shouted Ivo’s men, and one would have struck Hereward through with his lance; but Winter was too quick for him, and bore him from his saddle; and then dragged Hereward out of the fight.
The Normans, surprised while their helmets were hanging at their saddles, and their arms not ready for battle, were scattered at once. But they returned to the attack, confident in their own numbers.
They were over confident. Hereward’s fetters were knocked off; and he was horsed and armed, and, mad with freedom and battle, fighting like himself once more.
Only as he rode to and fro, thrusting and hewing, he shouted to his men to spare Sir Robert, and all his meinie, crying that he was the savior of his life; and when the fight was over, and all Ivo’s and Ralph’s men who were not slain had ridden for their lives into Stratford, he shook hands with that venerable knight, giving him innumerable thanks and courtesies for his honorable keeping; and begged him to speak well of him to the king.
And so these two parted in peace, and Hereward was a free man.
CHAPTER XLI. — HOW EARL WALTHEOF WAS MADE A SAINT.
A few months after, there sat in Abbot Thorold’s lodgings in Peterborough a select company of Normans, talking over affairs of state after their supper.
“Well, earls and gentlemen,” said the Abbot, as he sipped his wine, “the cause of our good king, which is happily the cause of Holy Church, goes well, I think. We have much to be thankful for when we review the events of the past year. We have finished the rebels; Roger de Breteuil is safe in prison, Ralph Guader unsafe in Brittany, and Waltheof more than unsafe in—the place to which traitors descend. We have not a manor left which is not in loyal Norman hands; we have not an English monk left who has not been scourged and starved into holy obedience; not an English saint for whom any man cares a jot, since Guerin de Lire preached down St. Adhelm, the admirable primate disposed of St. Alphege’s martyrdom, and some other wise man—I am ashamed to say that I forget who—proved that St. Edmund of Suffolk was merely a barbarian knight, who was killed fighting with Danes only a little more heathen than himself. We have had great labors and great sufferings since we landed in this barbarous isle upon our holy errand ten years since; but, under the shadow of the gonfalon of St. Peter, we have conquered, and may sing ‘Dominus illuminatio mea’ with humble and thankful hearts.”