It was agreed on all sides that too much happiness had been lost already in their long separation, and that Alftrude and Hereward ought now to be married as quickly as possible; the great heiress whose lands were so coveted could be safe only under the protection of a warlike lord and devoted husband; and who was there in the land so brave and likely to be so devoted as the Lord of Brunn, who had known and loved her from his youth, and who had gotten her troth-plight? If the ladie remained single, and the fortune of war should prove for a season unfavourable, the Normans, by mixing fraud with force, might carry her off, as they carried off and forcibly wedded other English heiresses; but if she were once united to Hereward, even the Normans might hesitate ere they broke the sacred tie of the Church. Time was not needed for wooing, for there had been good and long wooing long ago; and but for the Normans would not Hereward and Alftrude long since have been husband and wife?[143] Thus reasoned all the kinsmen and kinswomen of the Ladie Alftrude; and yielding to their good advice, the Saxon heiress consented that her good old household priest should prepare the little church on the hill by the linden-grove, and that the wedding should take place on the morrow. Hereward was urged by a pleasant spirit of revenge to be thus urgent; for Ivo Taille-Bois was coming on the morrow with his men-at-arms and with his brother Geoffroy, that unmannerly and unlucky wooer; and so the Lord of Brunn would fain bid them to his marriage feast, if so it might be. But Hereward kept this pleasant thought to himself, or explained it to none but Elfric and Girolamo of Salerno. The morning after that happy meeting in the linden-grove was a bright winter’s morning. The sun rarely shines so bright in the summer time in the fen country. The little church was ready, the good old English priest was robed and at the altar; the path leading from the manor-house to the church, in lack of flowers, was strewed with rushes, and the serfs of the Ladie Alftrude were ranged on either side of the path; the lady herself was attired[144] as became a bride (a Saxon bride in the good old time before our fashions were corrupted); her fair young kinswomen, who were to stand by her side at the altar, were dressed and ready, and all other persons and things were ready about two hours before noon. There was music and there were fresh shouts of joy in the hall and outside of the manor-house when Lord Hereward stepped forth with his blushing bride on his arm and headed the gay procession. But though gay, the attendance was not so great as it might have been, for a great many of the armed men were not there, and even the sword-bearer and the Salernitan were both absent. Maid Mildred thought it very strange and very wrong that Elfric should be away at such a happy juncture; but the truth is that Elfric and Girolamo, and many of the fighting men, had something else to do.