“This is an evil business. The Danes are here, where they have no business, instead of being off Scheldtmouth, as I entreated them. But go we must, or be forever shamed. Now, true wife, are you ready? Dare you leave home and kin and friends, once and for all, to go, you know not whither, with one who may be a gory corpse by this day week?” “I dare,” said she. So they went down to Calais by night, with Torfrida’s mother, and all their jewels, and all they had in the world. And their housecarles went with them, forty men, tried and trained, who had vowed to follow Hereward round the world. And there were two long ships ready, and twenty good mariners in each. So when the Danes made the South Foreland the next morning, they were aware of two gallant ships bearing down on them, with a great white bear embroidered on their sails. A proud man was Hereward that day, as he sailed into the midst of the Danish fleet, and up to the royal ships, and shouted: “I am Hereward the Berserker, and I come to take service under my rightful lord, Sweyn, king of England.” “Come on board, then; we know you well, and right glad we are to have Hereward with us.” And Hereward laid his ship’s bow upon the quarter of the royal ship (to lay alongside was impossible, for fear of breaking oars), and came on board. “And thou art Hereward?” asked a tall and noble warrior. “I am. And thou art Swend Ulfsson, the king?” “I am Earl Osbiorn, his brother.” “Then, where is the king?” “He is in Denmark, and I command his fleet; and with me are Canute and Harold, Sweyn’s sons, and earls and bishops enough for all England.” This was spoken in a somewhat haughty tone, in answer to the look of surprise and disappointment which Hereward had, unawares, allowed to pass over his face. “Thou art better than none,” said Hereward. “Now, hearken, Osbiorn the Earl. Had Swend been here, I would have put my hand between his, and said in my own name, and that of all the men in Kesteven and the fens, Swend’s men we are, to live and die! But now, as it is, I say, for me and them, thy men we are, to live and die, as long as thou art true to us.” “True to you I will be,” said Osbiorn. “Be it so,” said Hereward. “True we shall be, whatever betide. Now, whither goes Earl Osbiorn, and all his great meinie?” “We purpose to try Dover.” “You will not take it. The Frenchman has strengthened it with one of his accursed keeps, and without battering-engines you may sit before it a month.” “What if I asked you to go in thither yourself, and try the mettle and the luck which, they say, never failed Hereward yet?” “I should say that it was a child’s trick to throw away against a paltry stone wall the life of a man who was ready to raise for you in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, five times as many men as you will lose in taking Dover.” “Hereward is right,” said more than one Earl. “We shall need him in his own country.”