The Ladie Alftrude, and sundry other persons, thought and said that Lord Hereward had done enough for this one night; but the Lord of Brunn thought he had never done enough when there was more to do, and before Ivo Taille-Bois could get clear out of the wood, Hereward was upon his track, with fifty of his merry men. Some of the Normans, missing the ford across the stream, were captured on the bank; but the rest got safely over, and ran for their lives across the plain, whereon they never could have run at all if the summer had been less hot and dry. They were closely followed by the Saxons, who took a good many more of them, and killed others: but Ivo was too far ahead to be caught; and it was all in vain that Hereward shouted and called upon him to stop and measure swords with him on dry ground, and on a fair field. So the Lord of Brunn gave up the pursuit, and returned to his manor-house, taking with him a good score more prisoners. And if the louts who had been sent to keep guard at Edenham had not gone to Corby wake, and had not drunk themselves drunk there, Ivo Taille-Bois would have been captured or killed, with every man that followed him, before he could have got out upon the road which leads from the fen country to Stamford. The rest of that night was given to festivity and joy. On the morrow morning Hereward brought his Norman captives forth from the turret into the great hall, and made inquest into their names and qualities. There were several knights of name among them; several that had high rank and good lands in Normandie before ever they came to plunder England. Now these proud foreign knights condescended to address the Lord of Brunn as one of the military confraternity, and they spoke with him about ransom as knight speaks to knight. Hereward, knowing well how the Abbat of Ely had been constrained to lay hands on that which had been offered on the shrine of the saints, and to deal with unbelieving and usurious Jews, and how sorely money was needed throughout the Camp of Refuge, did not gainsay these overtures about ransoms; but he fixed the total ransom at so high a price, that Torauld and the Norman knights all vowed that they could never pay or get their friends to pay it. The Lord of Brunn, who believed them not, told them that they must pay the three thousand marks he had named, or live and die in the fastnesses of the fen country. Torauld who loved money more than he loved his own soul, and who never doubted but that Hereward had all the treasures he had taken from Peterborough, and meant to keep them for his own use and profit, offered, as lawful superior of that house, and abbat appointed by King William, to give the Lord of Brunn a title to all those things as the price of the ransom for himself and the Norman nobles. But hereat the Lord of Brunn was greatly incensed, and said, “Robber that thou art, dost thou take me for a sacrilegious robber? The treasure of Peterborough is not here, but at Ely,[[183]] in the safe keeping of the good Lord Abbat Thurstan, to be kept or even used for the good of England, and to be restored to Peterborough with bot, and with other treasure, at the proper season. But thou, oh Torauld of Fescamp, thou hast no right to it, or control over it; and if thou hadst it, it is not my father’s son that would barter with thee for the goods of the church and the spoils of the altar! Torauld of Fescamp, and thou Piron of Montpinchon, and thou Olivier Nonant, and thou Pierre of Pommereuil, and the rest of ye, I tell ye one and all, and I swear it by the blessed rood, that I will never liberate ye, or any of ye, until the three thousand marks, as ransom, be paid into my hands, or into the hands of the Lord Abbat of Ely! So, look well to it. Three thousand marks, or a lifelong home and a grave in the safest and dreariest part of the fens.”
One and all, they again protested, and even vowed that so large a sum could never be raised for their liberation; and that they would not so much as name the sum to their friends and families.
“Well,” said the Lord of Brunn, “then to-morrow we will clap ye all on ship-board and send ye across the salt sea Wash for Ely and the Camp of Refuge.”
And on the morrow, by times, all the Norman captives, gentle or simple, knights or men-at-arms, were marched off to the Welland and put on board ship and under hatches: nor ever did they get free from their Saxon prison in the fens until twelve good months after their capture, when they got the money, and paid down the three thousand marks, together with some small pecunia for their meat and drink, and the trouble they had given during their captivity. And long did Torauld bemoan the day when he accepted the office of abbat of Peterborough, and went to take vengeance on that house on account of Lord Hereward’s knighthood. He came forth from the fens an altered and subdued man; and although he tyrannically ruled a religious house for many years after these his misadventures, he was never more known to tweak his monks by the nose with his steel gloves on, or to beat them with the flat of his sword, or to call out “Come hither, my men-at-arms.” In truth, although he plucked up spirit enough to rob and revile monks, he never put on armour or carried a sword again.
Thus had the good Lord of Brunn triumphed on the land which he inherited from his father and recovered with his own sword; thus within the good manor of Brunn had he foiled the stratagems of his enemies, and beaten them and humbled them, and made them the captives of his sword: but he could not long remain to enjoy his triumph there; his sword and his counsel were wanted in other parts; and deeming that the unwonted dryness of the season might perchance enable Ivo Taille-Bois or some other Norman lord to make another attempt upon Brunn, he took his ladie with him whither he went. A small but trusty garrison was left in the old manor-house, together with sundry matrons and maids, but Mildred went with her ladie, as did Elfric with his lord.
As they came to the Welland, on their way to Ely, there came unto Lord Hereward some brave men from the world beyond the fens, to tell him that a great body of Saxon serfs had gathered together at the edge of Sherwood forest and on the banks of the Trent, and that all these men were ready to join him and become his servants and soldiers. Hereward gave the messengers the encouragement they seemed to merit, and sent his sword-bearer back with them to see what manner of men the band was made of, and to bring them across the fens if he should find them worth their bread and meat.
Now the men that had collected were hardy and fit for war, and many of them, being natives to the forests and trained to hunting, were keen bowmen. The Lord of Brunn, who knew the worth of the English bow, much wanted good bowmen; and thus Elfric would gladly have brought away all these foresters with him. But when the marching time came, sundry of these churls said that they were well where they were in Sherwood:—and for that matter so they were, for the Normans could not easily get at them, and they were lords of the forest and of all the game in it, and they robbed all that came near to the forest. But all the churls were not so churlish, nor so fond of living without law and order, nor so careless as to what became of their countrymen; and many were the good bowmen that said they would go to the Saxon camp. Some of these upland churls, however, who had not led so free a life as the fenners, and had not had such good Lords as the Abbat of Ely and the Lord of Brunn, began to say to the men of the hills that were following Elfric, that they thought they were engaging in an idle chase and a very useless struggle, inasmuch as they would still be all serfs and bondmen whether the Normans or the Saxons ruled the land. But Elfric, hearing this, bade them all remember that it was one thing to obey a Lord that spoke their own tongue, and another to obey a stranger Lord who spoke it not and despised it; that the good Saxon Lords were ever merciful and kind, not putting more labour on the serf than the serf could bear, and feeding and entertaining him well when sickness or when old age allowed him not to work at all; and that the good old Saxon laws and customs did not leave the eyes, limbs, life, and conscience of the serfs in the hands of their lords and masters, nor allow Christian bondmen to be treated as though they were beasts of the field; in which fashion the Normans were now treating them. Quoth a grey-beard in the crowd, “There is some truth in what the young man saith. That was not a bad law which said, ‘Let the churl keep the fasts of the church as well as the Lord, and let the master that feeds his serfs on fast-days with meat, denying them bread, be put in the pillory.’”
“Aye,” said another elder, smothing his beard, “but that was a still better law which said, ‘Let not the serf be made to work on the feast-days of the church, nor to do any manner of work on the Sabbath: Let all have rest on the seventh day, which is the day of the Lord God!’”
Here one who had been a mass-priest in the upland country, but who had fled from the intolerable persecutions of the Normans and was now armed against that people, spoke as one that had tasted books, and said, “Many were our good old Saxon laws for keeping holy the Sabbath-day, and making the seventh day a day of rest for all that live in the land, whether rich or poor, master or slave. The fourth commandment, which the Normans set at nought in as far as the poor English serf is concerned in it, was a most binding law with all good Saxons, and was enforced by many royal laws and civil enactments, and with the imposing of penalties upon all such as broke the commandment. The laws and ordinances of King Edward the Elder said—‘If any one engage in Sunday marketing, let him forfeit the goods and pay a fine of thirty shillings. If a freeman work, let him forfeit his freedom, or redeem it by paying wite[[184]]; if a Lord oblige his churl to work, let him pay wite.’ And, after this, King Athelstane said in his dooms ‘that there should be no marketing and no labour on Sundays, and that if any one did market on Sundays he should forfeit the goods and pay thirty shillings.’ And, after this, King Ethelred said in his dooms, ‘Let Sunday’s festival be rightly kept by all, as is becoming, and let marketings and folkmotes be carefully abstained from on that holy day; let huntings and worldly works be strictly abstained from on that day.’ And by the laws of King Edgar no man was to work from noontide of the Saturday till the dawn of Monday; and soulscot[[185]] was to be paid for every Christian man to the priest, in order that the priest might pray for him and instruct him. And the canons[[186]] of Ælfric, inhibiting the breach of the sanctity of the Lord’s day, say, ‘The mass-priests shall on Sundays explain to the people the sense of the Gospels in English, and explain to them in English the pater-noster and the creed, to the end that all the people may know the faith and cultivate their Christianity.’ And in this very canon the pious Ælfric saith, ‘Let the priest and teacher beware of that which the prophet said; Canes muti non possunt latrare, Dumb dogs cannot bark!’ But what are these Norman teachers and priests from beyond the sea but dumb dogs to the Saxon people, seeing they know no English and will not learn it?”
“Yes,” said the ancient who had first spoken, “until these Normans came among us the bondman had one day in seven to himself, and on every other festival of the church he was allowed to forget his bonds, and to take rest and enjoyment, and to think of his soul; but now we be treated as if we had no souls.”