“Have mercy, mercy, Lord King! Make not that fiend earl over us. Even Ivo Taillebois there would be better than he. Send him to be earl over the imps in hell, or over the wild Welsh who are worse still: but not over us, good Lord King, whom he hath polled and peeled till we are--” “Silence!” said William, laughing, as did all round him, “Thou art a cunning rogue enough, whoever thou art. Go into limbo, and behave thyself till I come back.” “All saints send your grace good sport, and thereby me a good deliverance,” quoth Hereward, who knew that his fate might depend on the temper in which William returned. So he was thrust into an outhouse, and there locked up. He sat on an empty barrel, meditating on the chances of his submitting to the king after all, when the door opened, and in strode one with a drawn sword in one hand, and a pair of leg-shackles in the other. “Hold out thy shins, fellow! Thou art not going to sit at thine ease there like an abbot, after killing one of us grooms, and bringing the rest of us into disgrace. Hold out thy legs, I say!” “Nothing easier,” quoth Hereward, cheerfully, and held out a leg. But when the man stooped to put on the fetters, he received a kick which sent him staggering. After which he recollected very little, at least in this world. For Hereward cut off his head with his own sword. After which (says the chronicler) he broke away out of the house, and over garden walls and palings, hiding and running, till he got to the front gate, and leaped upon mare Swallow. And none saw him, save one unlucky groom-boy, who stood yelling and cursing in front of the mare’s head, and went to seize the bridle. Whereon, between the imminent danger and the bad language, Hereward’s blood rose, and he smote that unlucky groom-boy; but whether he slew him or not, the chronicler had rather not say. Then he shook up mare Swallow, and rode for his life, with knights and squires (for the hue and cry was raised) galloping at her heels. Who then were astonished but those knights, as they saw the ugly potter’s garron gaining on them length after length, till she and her rider had left them far behind? Who then was proud but Hereward, as the mare tucked her great thighs under her, and swept on over heath and rabbit burrow, over rush and fen, sound ground and rotten all alike to that enormous stride, to that keen bright eye which foresaw every footfall, to that raking shoulder which picked her up again at every stagger? Hereward laid the bridle on her neck, and let her go. Fall she could not, and tire she could not; and he half wished she might go on forever. Where could a man be better than on a good horse, with all the cares of this life blown away out of his brains by the keen air which rushed around his temples? And he galloped on, as cheery as a boy, shouting at the rabbits as they scuttled from under his feet, and laughing at the dottrel as they postured and anticked on the mole-hills.