Hereward, the Last of the English by Charles Kingsley (best self help books to read .txt) 📗

The portress looked through the wicket.

“I am Torfrida,” said a voice of terrible calm. “I am come to see the Lady Godiva. Let me in.”

The portress opened, utterly astounded.

“Madam?” said Martin eagerly, as Torfrida entered.

“What? What?” She seemed to waken from a dream. “God bless thee, thou good and faithful servant”; and she turned again.

“Madam? Say!”

“What?”

“Shall I go back and kill him?” And he held out the little axe.

Torfrida snatched it from his grasp with a shriek, and cast it inside the convent door.

“Mother Mary and all saints!” cried the portress, “your garments are in rags, madam!”

“Never mind. Bring me garments of yours. I shall need none other till I die!” and she walked in and on.

“She is come to be a nun!” whispered the portress to the next sister, and she again to the next; and they all gabbled, and lifted up their hands and eyes, and thanked all the saints of the calendar, over the blessed and miraculous conversion of the Lady Torfrida, and the wealth which she would probably bring to the convent.

Torfrida went straight on, speaking to no one, not even to the prioress; and into Lady Godiva’s chamber.

There she dropped at the countess’s feet, and laid her head upon her knees.

“I am come, as you always told me I should do. But it has been a long way hither, and I am very tired.”

“My child! What is this? What brings you here?”

“I am doing penance for my sins.”

“And your feet all cut and bleeding.”

“Are they?” said Torfrida, vacantly. “I will tell you all about it when I wake.”

And she fell fast asleep, with her head in Godiva’s lap.

The countess did not speak or stir. She beckoned the good prioress, who had followed Torfrida in, to go away. She saw that something dreadful had happened; and prayed as she awaited the news.

Torfrida slept for a full hour. Then she woke with a start.

“Where am I? Hereward!”

Then followed a dreadful shriek, which made every nun in that quiet house shudder, and thank God that she knew nothing of those agonies of soul, which were the lot of the foolish virgins who married and were given in marriage themselves, instead of waiting with oil in their lamps for the true Bridegroom.

“I recollect all now,” said Torfrida. “Listen!” And she told the countess all, with speech so calm and clear, that Godiva was awed by the power and spirit of that marvellous woman.

But she groaned in bitterness of soul. “Anything but this. Rather death from him than treachery. This last, worst woe had God kept in his quiver for me most miserable of women. And now his bolt has fallen! Hereward! Hereward! That thy mother should wish her last child laid in his grave!”

“Not so,” said Torfrida, “it is well as it is. How better? It is his only chance for comfort, for honor, for life itself. He would have grown a—I was growing bad and foul myself in that ugly wilderness. Now he will be a knight once more among knights, and win himself fresh honor in fresh fields. Let him marry her. Why not? He can get a dispensation from the Pope, and then there will be no sin in it, you know. If the Holy Father cannot make wrong right, who can? Yes. It is very well as it is. And I am very well where I am. Women! bring me scissors, and one of your nun’s dresses. I am come to be a nun like you.”

Godiva would have stopped her. But Torfrida rose upon her knees, and calmly made a solemn vow, which, though canonically void without her husband’s consent, would, she well knew, never be disputed by any there; and as for him,—“He has lost me; and forever. Torfrida never gives herself away twice.”

“There’s carnal pride in those words, my poor child,” said Godiva.

“Cruel!” said she, proudly. “When I am sacrificing myself utterly for him.”

“And thy poor girl?”

“He will let her come hither,” said Torfrida with forced calm. “He will see that it is not fit that she should grow up with—yes, he will send her to me—to us. And I shall live for her—and for you. If you will let me be your bower woman, dress you, serve you, read to you. You know that I am a pretty scholar. You will let me, mother? I may call you mother, may I not?” And Torfrida fondled the old woman’s thin hands, “For I do want so much something to love.”

“Love thy heavenly bridegroom, the only love worthy of woman!” said Godiva, as her tears fell fast on Torfrida’s head.

She gave a half-impatient toss.

“That may come, in good time. As yet it is enough to do, if I can keep down this devil here in my throat. Women, bring me the scissors.”

And Torfrida cut off her raven locks, now streaked with gray, and put on the nun’s dress, and became a nun thenceforth.

On the second day there came to Crowland Leofric the priest, and with him the poor child.

She had woke in the morning and found no mother. Leofric and the other men searched the woods round, far and wide. The girl mounted her horse, and would go with them. Then they took a bloodhound, and he led them to Grimkel’s hut. There they heard of Martin. The ghost must have been Torfrida. Then the hound brought them to the river. And they divined at once that she was gone to Crowland, to Godiva; but why, they could not guess.

Then the girl insisted, prayed, at last commanded them to take her to Crowland. And to Crowland they came.

Leofric left the girl at the nun’s house door, and went into the monastery, where he had friends enow, runaway and renegade as he was. As he came into the great court, whom should he meet but Martin Lightfoot, in a lay brother’s frock.

“Aha? And are you come home likewise? Have you renounced the Devil and this last work of his?”

“What work? What devil?” asked Leofric, who saw method in Martin’s madness. “And what do you here, in a long frock?”

“Devil? Hereward the devil. I would have killed him with my axe; but she got it from me, and threw it in among the holy sisters, and I had work to get it again. Shame on her, to spoil my chance of heaven! For I should have surely won heaven, you know, if I had killed the