And with a blow which rattled over the fen, he felled Dirk Hammerhand to the ground. He lay senseless for a moment, and then looked wildly round. His jaw was broken. “Villain!” groaned he. “It was I who was to give the buffet, not thou!” “Art mad?” asked the stranger, as he coolly picked up the coins, which Dirk had scattered in his fall. “It is the seller’s business to take, and the buyer’s to give.” And while Dirk roared for help in vain he leapt on mare Swallow and rode off shouting, “Aha! Dirk Hammerhand! So you thought to knock a hole in my skull, as you have done to many a better man than yourself. He is a lucky man who never meets his match, Dirk. I shall give your love to the Enchanted Prince, my faithful serving-man, whom they call Martin Lightfoot.” Dirk cursed the day he was born. Instead of the mare and colt, he had got the two wretched garrons which the stranger had left, and a face which made him so tender of his own teeth, that he never again offered to try a buffet with a stranger. CHAPTER XIV. HOW HEREWARD RODE INTO BRUGES LIKE A BEGGARMAN. The spring and summer had passed, and the autumn was almost over, when great news came to the Court of Bruges, where Torfrida was now a bower-maiden. The Hollanders had been beaten till they submitted; at least for the present. There was peace, at least for the present, through all the isles of Scheldt; and more than all, the lovely Countess Gertrude had resolved to reward her champion by giving him her hand, and the guardianship of her lands and the infant son. And Hereward? From him, or of him, there was no word. That he was alive and fighting, was all the messenger could say. Then Robert came back to Bruges, with a gallant retinue, leading home his bride. And there met him his father and mother, and his brother of Mons, and Richilda the beautiful and terrible sorceress,--who had not yet stained her soul with those fearful crimes which she had expiated by fearful penances in after years, when young Arnoul, the son for whom she had sold her soul, lay dead through the very crimes by which she had meant to make him a mighty prince. And Torfrida went out with them to meet Count Robert, and looked for Hereward, till her eyes were ready to fall out of her head. But Hereward was not with them. “He must be left behind, commanding the army,” thought she. “But he might have sent one word!” There was a great feast that day, of course; and Torfrida sat thereat: but she could not eat. Nevertheless she was too proud to let the knights know what was in her heart; so she chatted and laughed as gayly as the rest, watching always for any word of Hereward. But none mentioned his name. The feast was long; the ladies did not rise till nigh bedtime; and then the men drank on. They went up to the Queen-Countess’s chamber; where a solemn undressing of that royal lady usually took place.