“If you are wise, to that country you yourselves will go. It is ready to receive you. This is ready to oppose you. You are attacking the Frenchman at his strongest point instead of his weakest. Did I not send again and again, entreating you to cross from Scheldtmouth to the Wash, and send me word that I might come and raise the Fen-men for you, and then we would all go north together?” “I have heard, ere now,” said Earl Osbiorn, haughtily, “that Hereward, though he be a valiant Viking, is more fond of giving advice than of taking it.” Hereward was about to answer very fiercely. If he had, no one would have thought any harm, in those plain-spoken times. But he was wise; and restrained himself, remembering that Torfrida was there, all but alone, in the midst of a fleet of savage men; and that beside, he had a great deed to do, and must do it as he could. So he answered,-- “Osbiorn the Earl has not, it seems, heard this of Hereward: that because he is accustomed to command, he is also accustomed to obey. What thou wilt do, do, and bid me do. He that quarrels with his captain cuts his own throat and his fellows’ too.” “Wisely spoken!” said the earls; and Hereward went back to his ship. “Torfrida,” said he, bitterly, “the game is lost before it is begun.” “God forbid, my beloved! What words are these?” “Swend--fool that he is with his over-caution,--always the same!--has let the prize slip from between his fingers. He has sent Osbiorn instead of himself.” “But why is that so terrible a mistake?” “We do not want a fleet of Vikings in England, to plunder the French and English alike. We want a king, a king, a king!” and Hereward stamped with rage. “And instead of a king, we have this Osbiorn,--all men know him, greedy and false and weak-headed. Here he is going to be beaten off at Dover; and then, I suppose, at the next port; and so forth, till the whole season is wasted, and the ships and men lost by driblets. Pray for us to God and his saints, Torfrida, you who are nearer to Heaven than I; for we never needed it more.” And Osbiorn went in; tried to take Dover; and was beaten off with heavy loss. Then the earls bade him take Hereward’s advice. But he would not. So he went round the Foreland, and tried Sandwich,--as if, landing there, he would have been safe in marching on London, in the teeth of the _élite_ of Normandy. But he was beaten off there, with more loss. Then, too late, he took Hereward’s advice,--or, rather, half of it,--and sailed north; but only to commit more follies.