“And,” said another of the serfs, “in former days the laws protected the money and goods of a bondman, if so be he could obtain any, for the Saxon law said that the master must not take from his slave that which the slave had gained by his industry. But now the serf cannot so much as call his life his property.”

“Nor can any other true Saxon call anything his own, unless he stand up and fight for it, and prove strong enough to keep it,” said Elfric, who was well pleased to see and hear that his discourse on the difference between the old bondage and the present was not thrown away upon the upland serfs.

Quoth the priest who had before spoken, “Our old Saxon laws were chary of blood, and held in tender respect the life of all men, whether they belonged to the nobility or were in a state of villainage. Few crimes were punished with death or even with mutilation. The commandment that man shall do no murder was not only read in churches, but was recommended and enforced in the laws and dooms of many Saxon kings. ‘If any one be slain,’ said the old law, ‘let him be paid for according to his birth.’ If a thane slew a churl, he had to pay for it....”

“Aye,” said one of the serfs, “but the value of the life of a churl was not more than the price of a few bullocks; whereas hides of land or the worth of hundreds of bullocks was to be paid by him that slew a thane.”

“Tush!” quoth Elfric, “thou canst not expect that the life of a churl can ever be priced so high as that of a noble, or that the same doom shall await the man that kills a Lord and the man that kills a peasant!”

The priest and all the bystanders said that such an expectation would be too unreasonable, and that such a thing could never come to pass in this world: and so the discontented churl merely muttered that he thought, since it was allowed the churl had an immortal soul, even as the thane, that the life of a churl was worth more than a few bullocks; and then said no more about it, bethinking himself that even that price was better than no price at all, and that no Normans that he knew of had ever yet been made to make bot for maiming or killing a Saxon serf.

Some few of these men returned into Sherwood forest, to live at large there, but the major part of them tied on their buskins, fastened their sheep-skin jackets, put their bows and quivers to their backs, and marched off merrily with the sword-bearer to join Lord Hereward at Ely or in the Camp. And after this, and at various times, many upland churls, discontented with their lot, came from the northern side of the Trent and from other parts of the country to join the Saxon army in the fens. It must not be thought that the Lord of Brunn was unmindful of the old laws, which ordained that no Lord or free man should harbour or entertain the churl that had fled from his rightful owner; but Hereward felt that no Norman could have the right of property over Saxon serfs; and therefore he harboured and entertained such as came freely to him. If the case had been otherwise, he would, like the just Lord that he was, have put collars and chains upon the serfs and have sent them back to their masters.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON.

Svend Estrithson sat upon the throne of Danemarck, and was a powerful king and a great warrior, having fought many battles by sea against his neighbour the King of Norway. When his brother Osbiorn Jarl abandoned the Saxons and returned from England into Danemarck, Svend Estrithson was exceedingly wroth at him, and his anger was the greater because the Jarl had not only lost the treasure which William the Norman had given him as the price of his treasons to the English people, but had lost likewise nearly the whole of the Danish fleet; for a great storm arose at sea and swallowed up most of the two hundred and forty returning ships.[[187]] Osbiorn Jarl escaped drowning; but when he presented himself before the face of his brother the king, Svend loaded him with reproaches, deprived him of his lands and honours, and drove him into a disgraceful banishment.[[188]] Even thus was bad faith punished, and vengeance taken upon the Danes for that they had both plundered and betrayed the Saxon people, who were fighting for their liberties against the Normans.