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

“The man who wants them must fight for them,” quoth that stout churl, raising a heavy staff.

“Then here is he that will,” quoth Hereward; and, jumping off his mare, he twisted the staff out of the potter’s hands, and knocked him down therewith.

“That will teach thee to know an Englishman when thou seest him.”

“I have met my master,” quoth the churl, rubbing his head. “But dog does not eat dog; and it is hard to be robbed by an Englishman, after being robbed a dozen times by the French.”

“I will not rob thee. There is a silver penny for thy pots and thy coat,—for that I must have likewise. And if thou tellest to mortal man aught about this, I will find those who will cut thee to ribbons; and if not, then turn thy horse’s head and ride back to Ely, if thou canst cross the water, and say what has befallen thee; and thou wilt find there an abbot who will give thee another penny for thy news.”

So Hereward took the pots, and the potter’s clay-greased coat, and went on through Mildenhall, “crying,” saith the chronicler, “after the manner of potters, in the English tongue, ‘Pots! pots! good pots and pans!’”

But when he got through Mildenhall, and well into the rabbit-warrens, he gave mare Swallow a kick, and went over the heath so fast northward, that his pots danced such a dance as broke half of them before he got to Brandon.

“Never mind,” quoth he, “they will think that I have sold them.” And when he neared Brandon he pulled up, sorted his pots, kept the whole ones, threw the sherds at the rabbits, and walked on into Brandon solemnly, leading the mare, and crying “Pots!”

So “semper marcida et deformis aspectu”—lean and ill-looking—was that famous mare, says the chronicler, that no one would suspect her splendid powers, or take her for anything but a potter’s nag, when she was caparisoned in proper character. Hereward felt thoroughly at home in his part; as able to play the Englishman which he was by rearing, as the Frenchman which he was by education. He was full of heart, and happy. He enjoyed the keen fresh air of the warrens; he enjoyed the ramble out of the isle, in which he had been cooped up so long; he enjoyed the fun of the thing,—disguise, stratagem, adventure, danger. And so did the English, who adored him. None of Hereward’s deeds is told so carefully and lovingly; and none, doubt it not, was so often sung in after years by farm-house hearths, or in the outlaws’ lodge, as this. Robin Hood himself may have trolled out many a time, in doggrel strain, how Hereward played the potter.

And he came to Brandon, to the “king’s court,”—probably Weeting Hall, or castle, from which William could command the streams of Wissey and Little Ouse, with all their fens,—and cast about for a night’s lodging, for it was dark.

Outside the town was a wretched cabin of mud and turf,—such a one as Irish folk live in to this day; and Hereward said to himself, “This is bad enough to be good enough for me.”

So he knocked at the door, and knocked till it was opened, and a hideous old crone put out her head.

“Who wants to see me at this time of night?”

“Any one would, who had heard how beautiful you are. Do you want any pots?”

“Pots! What have I to do with pots, thou saucy fellow? I thought it was some one wanting a charm.” And she shut the door.

“A charm?” thought Hereward. “Maybe she can tell me news, if she be a witch. They are shrewd souls, these witches, and know more than they tell. But if I can get any news, I care not if Satan brings it in person.”

So he knocked again, till the old woman looked out once more, and bade him angrily be off.

“But I am belated here, good dame, and afraid of the French. And I will give thee the best bit of clay on my mare’s back,—pot,—pan,—pansion,—crock,—jug, or what thou wilt, for a night’s lodging.”

“Have you any little jars,—jars no longer than my hand?” asked she; for she used them in her trade, and had broken one of late: but to pay for one, she had neither money nor mind. So she agreed to let Hereward sleep there, for the value of two jars. “But what of that ugly brute of a horse of thine?”

“She will do well enough in the turf-shed.”

“Then thou must pay with a pannikin.”

“Ugh!” groaned Hereward; “thou drivest a hard bargain, for an Englishwoman, with a poor Englishman.”

“How knowest thou that I am English?”

“So much the better if thou art not,” thought Hereward; and bargained with her for a pannikin against a lodging for the horse in the turf-house, and a bottle of bad hay.

Then he went in, bringing his panniers with him with ostentatious care.

“Thou canst sleep there on the rushes. I have naught to give thee to eat.”

“Naught needs naught,” said Hereward; threw himself down on a bundle of rush, and in a few minutes snored loudly.

But he was never less asleep. He looked round the whole cabin; and he listened to every word.

The Devil, as usual, was a bad paymaster; for the witch’s cabin seemed only somewhat more miserable than that of other old women. The floor was mud, the rafters unceiled; the stars shone through the turf roof. The only hint of her trade was a hanging shelf, on which stood five or six little earthen jars, and a few packets of leaves. A parchment, scrawled with characters which the owner herself probably did not understand, hung against the cob wall; and a human skull—probably used only to frighten her patients—dangled from the roof-tree.

But in a corner, stuck against the wall, was something which chilled Hereward’s blood a little. A dried human hand, which he knew must have been stolen off the gallows, gripping in its fleshless fingers a candle, which he knew was made of human fat. That candle, he knew, duly lighted and carried, would enable the witch to walk unseen into any house on earth, yea, through the court of King William himself, while it drowned all men in preternatural slumber.

Hereward was very much frightened. He believed as devoutly in the powers of a witch as did then—and does now, for aught Italian literature, e permissu superiorum, shows—the Pope of Rome.

So he trembled on his rushes, and wished himself safe through that adventure, without being turned into a hare or a wolf.

“I would sooner be a wolf than a hare, of course, killing being more in my trade than being killed; but—who comes here?”

And to the first old crone, who sat winking her bleared eyes, and warming her bleared hands over a little heap of peat in the middle of the cabin, entered another crone, if possible uglier.