“Blessed old fool! He has done harm to us enough on earth, without leaving his second-cousins’ aunts’ malkins to harm us after he is in Heaven.” “Sir Hereward, Sir Hereward, I fear thou art not as good a Christian as so good a knight should be.” “Christian or not, I am as good a one as my neighbors. I am Leofric’s son. Leofric put Harthacanute on the throne, and your father, who was a man, helped him. You know what has befallen England since we Danes left the Danish stock at Godwin’s bidding, and put our necks under the yoke of Wessex monks and monk-mongers. You may follow your father’s track or not, as you like. I shall follow my father’s, and fight for Sweyn Ulfsson, and no man else.” “And I,” said Waltheof, “shall follow the anointed of the Lord.” “The anointed of Gospatrick and two or three boys!” said Hereward. “Knights! Turn your horses’ heads. Right about face, all! We are going back to the Bruneswold, to live and die free Danes.” And to Waltheof’s astonishment, who had never before seen discipline, the knights wheeled round; the men-at-arms followed them; and Waltheof and the Atheling were left to themselves on Lincoln Heath. CHAPTER XXIV. HOW ARCHBISHOP ALDRED DIED OF SORROW. In the tragedies of the next few months Hereward took no part; but they must be looked at near, in order to understand somewhat of the men who were afterwards mixed up with him for weal or woe. When William went back to the South, the confederates, Child Edgar the Atheling, Gospatrick, and their friends, had come south again from Durham. It was undignified; a confession of weakness. If a Norman had likened them to mice coming out when the cat went away, none could blame him. But so they did; and Osbiorn and his Danes, landing in Humber-mouth, “were met” (says the Anglo-Saxon chronicle) “by Child Edgar and Earl Waltheof and Marlesweyn, and Earl Gospatrick with the men of Northumberland, riding and marching joyfully with an immense army”; not having the spirit of prophecy, or foreseeing those things which were coming on the earth. To them repaired Edwin and Morcar, the two young Earls, Arkill and Karl, “the great Thanes,” or at least the four sons of Karl,--for accounts differ,--and what few else of the northern nobility Tosti had left unmurdered. The men of Northumberland received the Danes with open arms. They would besiege York. They would storm the new Norman Keep. They would proclaim Edgar king at York. In that Keep sat two men, one of whom knew his own mind, the other did not. One was William Malet, knight, one of the heroes of Hastings, a noble Norman, and châtelain of York Castle. The other was Archbishop Aldred.