And thus Torfrida--whether from woman’s sentiment of pity, or from a woman’s instinctive abhorrence of villany and wrong,--had become there and then an Englishwoman of the English, as she proved by strange deeds and sufferings for many a year. “Where is that Norseman, Martin?” asked Hereward that night ere he went to bed, “I want to hear more of poor Hardraade.” “You can’t speak to him now, master. He is sound asleep this two hours; and warm enough, I will warrant.” “Where?” “In the great green bed with blue curtains, just above the kitchen.” “What nonsense is this?” “The bed where you and I shall lie some day; and the kitchen which we shall be sent down to, to turn our own spits, unless we mend our manners mightily.” Hereward looked at the man. Madness glared in his eyes, unmistakably. “You have killed him!” “And buried him, cheating the priests.” “Villain!” cried Hereward, seizing him. “Take your hands off my throat, master. He was only my father.” Hereward stood shocked and puzzled. After all, the man was “No-man’s-man,” and would not be missed; and Martin Lightfoot, letting alone his madness, was as a third hand and foot to him all day long. So all he said was, “I hope you have buried him well and safely?” “You may walk your bloodhound over his grave, to-morrow, without finding him.” And where he lay, Hereward never knew. But from that night Martin got a trick of stroking and patting his little axe, and talking to it as if it had been alive. CHAPTER XVIII. HOW EARL GODWIN’S WIDOW CAME TO ST. OMER. It would be vain to attempt even a sketch of the reports which came to Flanders from England during the next two years, or of the conversation which ensued thereon between Baldwin and his courtiers, or Hereward and Torfrida. Two reports out of three were doubtless false, and two conversations out of three founded on those false reports. It is best, therefore, to interrupt the thread of the story, by some small sketch of the state of England after the battle of Hastings; that so we may, at least, guess at the tenor of Hereward and Torfrida’s counsels. William had, as yet, conquered little more than the South of England: hardly, indeed, all that; for Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and the neighboring parts, which had belonged to Sweyn, Harold’s brother, were still insecure; and the noble old city of Exeter, confident in her Roman walls, did not yield till two years after, in A.D. 1068.