To which proposal Hereward gave no encouragement. “And now, my très beausire, may I ask you, in return, what business brings you to Flanders?” “Have I not told you?” “No, but I have guessed. Gilbert of Ghent is on his way to William of Normandy.” “Well. Why not?” “Why not?--certainly. And has brought out of Scotland a few gallant gentlemen, and stout housecarles of my acquaintance.” Gilbert laughed. “You may well say that. To tell you the truth, we have flitted, bag and baggage. I don’t believe that we have left a dog behind.” “So you intend to ‘colonize’ in England, as the learned clerks would call it? To settle; to own land; and enter, like the Jews of old, into goodly houses which you builded not, farms which you tilled not, wells which you digged not, and orchards which you planted not?” “Why, what a clerk you are! That sounds like Scripture.” “And so it is. I heard it in a French priest’s sermon, which he preached here in St. Omer a Sunday or two back, exhorting all good Catholics, in the Pope’s name, to enter upon the barbarous land of England, tainted with the sin of Simon Magus, and expel thence the heretical priests, and so forth, promising them that they should have free leave to cut long thongs out of other men’s hides.” Gilbert chuckled. “You laugh. The priest did not; for after sermon I went up to him, and told him how I was an Englishman, and an outlaw, and a desperate man, who feared neither saint nor devil; and if I heard such talk as that again in St. Omer, I would so shave the speaker’s crown that he should never need razor to his dying day.” “And what is that to me?” said Gilbert, in an uneasy, half-defiant tone; for Hereward’s tone had been more than half-defiant. “This. That there are certain broad lands in England, which were my father’s, and are now my nephews’ and my mother’s, and some which should by right be mine. And I advise you, as a friend, not to make entry on those lands, lest Hereward in turn make entry on you. And who is he that will deliver you out of my hand?” “God and his Saints alone, thou fiend out of the pit!” quoth Gilbert, laughing. But he was growing warm, and began to tutoyer Hereward. “I am in earnest, Gilbert of Ghent, my good friend of old time.” “I know thee well enough, man. Why in the name of all glory and plunder art thou not coming with us? They say William has offered thee the earldom of Northumberland.” “He has not. And if he has, it is not his to give. And if it were, it is by right neither mine nor my nephews’, but Waltheof Siwardsson’s. Now hearken unto me; and settle it in your mind, thou and William both, that your quarrel is against none but Harold and the Godwinssons, and their men of Wessex; but that if you go to cross the Watling street, and meddle with the free Danes, who are none of Harold’s men--” “Stay. Harold has large manors in Lincolnshire, and so has Edith his sister; and what of them, Sir Hereward?”