“And blessed is the day in which Hereward meets the head of the house of Siward where he should be, at the head of his own men, in his own earldom. When I saw my friend, thy brother Osbiorn, brought into the camp at Dunsinane with all his wounds in front, I wept a young man’s tears, and said, ‘There ends the glory of the White-Bear’s house!’ But this day I say, the White-Bear’s blood is risen from the grave in Waltheof Siwardsson, who with his single axe kept the gate of York against all the army of the French; and who shall keep against them all England, if he will be as wise as he is brave.” Was Hereward honest in his words? Hardly so. He wished to be honest. As he looked upon that magnificent young man, he hoped and trusted that his words were true. But he gave a second look at the face, and whispered to himself: “Weak, weak. He will be led by priests; perhaps by William himself. I must be courteous; but confide I must not.” The men stood round, and looked with admiration on the two most splendid Englishmen then alive. Hereward had taken off his helmet likewise, and the contrast between the two was as striking as the completeness of each of them in his own style of beauty. It was the contrast between the slow-hound and the deer-hound; each alike high bred; but the former, short, sturdy, cheerful, and sagacious; the latter tall, stately, melancholy, and not over-wise withal. Waltheof was a full head and shoulders taller than Hereward,--one of the tallest men of his generation, and of a strength which would have been gigantic, but for the too great length of neck and limb, which made him loose and slow in body, as he was somewhat loose and slow in mind. An old man’s child, although that old man was as one of the old giants, there was a vein of weakness in him, which showed in the arched eyebrow, the sleepy pale blue eye, the small soft mouth, the lazy voice, the narrow and lofty brain over a shallow brow. His face was not that of a warrior, but of a saint in a painted window; and to his own place he went, and became a saint, in his due time. But that he could outgeneral William, that he could even manage Gospatrick and his intrigues Hereward expected as little as that his own nephews Edwin and Morcar could do it. “I have to thank you, noble sir,” said Waltheof, languidly, “for sending your knights to our rescue when we were really hard bested,--I fear much by our own fault. Had they told me whose men they were, I should not have spoken to you so roughly as I fear I did.” “There is no offence. Let Englishmen speak their minds, as long as English land is above sea. But how did you get into trouble, and with whom?”