Now, Hereward had been faithful to Torfrida, a virtue most rare in those days, and he loved her with an overwhelming adoration—­as all true men love.  And for that very reason he was the more aware that his feeling for Alftruda was strangely like his feeling for Torfrida; and yet strangely different.  Wherefore, when it befell that once on a day there came riding to Hereward in the Bruneswald a horseman who handed to him a letter, the sight of Alftruda’s signature at the end sent a strange thrill through him.  There was naught in it that he should not have read—­it was but to tell him that the French were upon him, the posse comitatus of seven counties were rising, and so forth.  Continuing, the letter told him that Dolfin had been slain on the Border, and William and Gilbert of Ghent were going to marry her to Ascelin, and that, having saved her twice, she feared that Hereward could not save her a third time; concluding with an entreaty to submit to William, hinting that an opportunity presented itself now which might never recur.

The messenger took back the answer.  “Tell your lady that I kiss her hands and feet; that I cannot write, for outlaws carry no pen or ink.  But that what she has commanded, that will I perform.”  Having showed the letter to Torfrida, they agreed that it were well to take precautions, and withdrew into the heart of the forest.

Alftruda’s warning was both timely and true, for anon came Ivo Taillebois, who had taken to wife Hereward’s niece Lucia, and Abbot Thorold, of Peterborough, who had an old score to wipe off in connection with Hereward’s last visit to his abbey, and Sir Ascelin, his nephew, and many another.  And they rode gaily through the greenwood, where presently they found Hereward, to their sorrow, for of their number some returned home only after payment of ransom, and others never returned at all.  And of the former were Abbot Thorold and Ascelin; and the ransom that Hereward exacted for those two was thirty thousand silver marks.  Whereby Hereward was enabled to put a spoke in Ascelin’s wheel.

“Eh?  How, most courteous victor?” said Sir Ascelin.

“Sir Ascelin is not a very wealthy gentleman?”

Ascelin laughed assent.

“Nudus intravi, nudus exeo—­England; and I fear now this mortal life likewise.”

“But he looked to his rich uncle the abbot to further a certain marriage project of his.  And, of course, neither my friend, Gilbert of Ghent, nor my enemy, William of Normandy, are likely to give away so rich an heiress without some gratification in return.”

IV.—­The Last of the English

Thereafter they lived for two years in the forest, and neither Torfrida nor Hereward was the better for them.  Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, and a sick heart is but too apt to be a peevish one.  So there were fits of despondency, jars, mutual recriminations.  Furthermore, that first daughter was Torfrida’s only child, and she knew almost as well as he how hard that weighed on Hereward.  In him the race of Leofric, of Godiva, of Earl Oslac, would become extinct, and the girl would marry—­whom?  Who but some French conqueror, or at best some English outlaw?  What wonder if he longed for a son to pass his name down to future generations?