It was not an hour since Hereward first fell upon the Normans on the causey, and everything that he could do for this night was already done. He bade Elfric count the prisoners and the number of the slain. Without counting those who had perished in the fens, more than two score Normans lay stark dead on the causey. More were wounded, but not half a score of Saxons were slain. The exceeding great light which had come from the burning town was now dying away, for the flames had consumed everything that was consumable in Spalding. But many torches were soon lighted, and by their light the Lord of Brunn and his faithful sword-bearer marched hastily towards the manor-house, over which their hearts had long been hovering; and they were followed thitherward by Ivo Taille-Bois and the rest of the prisoners, and by a part of the Saxon force, the rest of those three hundred true men being left to guard the river and the succursal cell. At the sound of his horn the drawbridge was lowered and the gates of the manor-house were thrown open to the Lord of Brunn; and then was there happy meeting in the hall with the Ladie Alftrude and the maid Mildred—so happy that Hereward and Elfric forgot for the time the shame and woe of that bloody morning, and the young dame and the maiden forgot their own late agony and danger: nor was it when the lady brought her first-born son, rosy from his sleep, and put him in the arms of his glad sire, and when maid Mildred hung upon the arm of the sword-bearer and called him her deliverer, and said that she would never more leave him, but go whithersoever he might go, that these sad things could be brought back to the mind, or that either Hereward or Elfric could recollect that henceforward they and those who were dearest unto them must lead a wandering life in the wilds and the fens. Nay, when a cheerful fire was lit in the great hall, and the tables were well spread, and the drinking-horns well filled, every good Saxon present seemed to think that this joy must last. Yet if, in the morning after this happy meeting, there came sad thoughts and many and much sadder recollections, there was no craven panic, nor so much as any visible perturbation or confusion. _Vir serenissimus_, a most serene and imperturbable man, was the Lord of Brunn: and to this high quality of his nature was mainly owing all that he had done and all that he lived to do afterwards. The Ladie Alftrude was worthy to mate with such a lord; and their serenity made serene and confident all those that were about them. And therefore was it that when the foul treason at Ely was made known to all of them, and when much more bad news was brought in, as that the Normans had stormed and taken the lady’s manor-house at Ey and the lord’s manor-house at Brunn, and had been admitted again into Crowland Abbey, these good Saxons lost not heart and abated not of hope, but vowed that they would fight to the last for Lord Hereward, and be true to him in every extremity.