“Pish! we are all gallant men, we English. It is not courage that we want, it is brains. So the Yorkshire and Lindsay men, and the Nottingham men too, will go with Waltheof. And round here, and all through the fens, every coward, every prudent man even,--every man who likes to be within the law, and feel his head safe on his shoulders,--no blame to him--will draw each from me for fear of this new Earl, and leave us to end as a handful of outlaws. I see it all. As William sees it all. He is wise enough, the Mamzer, and so is his father Belial, to whom he will go home some day. Yes, Torfrida,” he went on after a pause, more gently, but in a tone of exquisite sadness, “you were right, as you always are. I am no match for that man. I see it now.” “I never said that. Only--” “Only you told me again and again that he was the wisest man on earth.” “And yet, for that very reason, I bade you win glory without end, by defying the wisest man on earth.” “And do you bid me do it still?” “God knows what I bid,” said Torfrida, bursting into tears. “Let me go pray, for I never needed it more.” Hereward watched her kneeling, as he sat moody, all but desperate. Then he glided to her side, and said gently,-- “Teach me how to pray, Torfrida. I can say a Pater or an Ave. But that does not comfort a man’s heart, as far as I could ever find. Teach me to pray, as you and my mother do.” And she put her arms round the wild man’s neck, and tried to teach him, like a little child. CHAPTER XXVI. HOW HEREWARD FULFILLED HIS WORDS TO THE PRIOR OF THE GOLDEN BOROUGH. In the course of that winter died good Abbot Brand. Hereward went over to see him, and found him mumbling to himself texts of Isaiah, and confessing the sins of his people. “‘Woe to the vineyard that bringeth forth wild grapes. Woe to those that join house to house, and field to field,’--like us, and the Godwinssons, and every man that could, till we ‘stood alone in the land.’ ‘Many houses, great and fair, shall be without inhabitants.’ It is all foretold in Holy Writ, Hereward, my son. ‘Woe to those who rise early to fill themselves with strong drink, and the tabret and harp are in their feasts; but they regard not the works of the Lord.’ ‘Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge.’ Ah, those Frenchmen have knowledge, and too much of it; while we have brains filled with ale instead of justice. ‘Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure’; and all go down into it, one by one. And dost thou think thou shalt escape, Hereward, thou stout-hearted?” “I neither know nor care; but this I know, that whithersoever I go, I shall go sword in hand.” “‘They that take the sword shall perish by the sword,’” said Brand, and blessed Hereward, and died. A week after came news that Thorold of Malmesbury was coming to take the Abbey of Peterborough, and had got as far as Stamford, with a right royal train.