“I soon shall be one,” quoth Hereward; “but that is nought to thee. So come out of mine house, and save me the trouble of hanging thee. Come out, I say, ye Norman thieves, and give me up mine own!”
And Raoul, seeing nothing better for it, pulled down a flag which some too confident wight had raised over the battlements; and the drawbridge being let down, and the front gate opened, he and all his Normans came forth and laid down their armour and their arms at the feet of Hereward the Saxon.
Even thus did the young Lord of Brunn get his own again.
CHAPTER IX.
ELFRIC THE EX-NOVICE, AND GIROLAMO OF SALERNO, PREPARE TO PLAY AT DEVILS.
A feast was prepared in the great hall of the manor-house, and the young Lord of Brunn was about sitting down to table with his kinsmen and the good friends that had rallied round him in the hour of need, when Elfric arrived at Brunn from the house of the Ladie Alftrude at Ey. To look at Lord Hereward’s glad countenance as he talked in a corner of the hall with the new comer, one would have thought that he had won a fairer house and a wider domain than those of his ancestors of which he had repossessed himself in the morning. And for that matter he had won or was winning his way to a better house and greater estate; for had not the fair young heiress of Ey sent again to tell him that she abided by her troth-plight, and looked for him to come and rescue her from that burthensome and dishonouring protection of the Normans under which she had been living! The retainers of her father’s house, and all the hinds and serfs, were devoted to her, and ready to receive the young Lord of Brunn as their own liege lord and deliverer. Her friends and neighbours had all been consulted, and would assemble in arms and meet Lord Hereward at any hour and place that it might suit him to name. Save some few men-at-arms that were at Crowland to protect the intrusive Norman monks, there was no Norman force nearer to Ey than Stamford. The season of the year and all things were favourable for recovering the whole of the fen-country, and for driving the invaders from every country in the neighbourhood of the fens.
After putting a few questions to Elfric, such as lovers usually put to their pages when they come from seeing their ladie-loves, Hereward asked what force there might be in Crowland Abbey. Elfric said that there might be one knight and from ten to fifteen men-at-arms; but then all the monks that had been so recently brought over from France were fighting men, at a pinch; and these intruders were from thirty to forty in number, and well provided with weapons and warlike harness. The young man also bade Lord Hereward reflect that the great house at Crowland was not like the cell at Spalding, but a lofty and very strong place, and built mostly of stone and brick. Elfric too had learned that Crowland was well stored with provisions, so that it might stand a long siege.
“And yet,” said the Lord of Brunn, “it is upon the great house of Crowland that I would fain make my next attempt; and great in every way are the advantages that would follow the capture of that strong and holy place, and the immediate restoration of the true Saxon Lord Abbat and his dispossessed brethren.”
“My silly head hath been venturing to think of this,” said Elfric, “and I very believe that with the aid of Girolamo and with a little of that blue fire and stinking smoke which he hath the trick of making, I could drive knight, men-at-arms, and monks all out of the abbey without any loss or let to our good Saxons.”
“Why, what wouldst do?” said Hereward.