been captured with him in the marsh. Add to all this that the Normans, who had not before tried what it was to make war in the fens, had a contempt of their enemy, and a measureless confidence in their own skill and prowess, and it will be understood that their discomfiture was unavoidable. They came down from the upland country in separate bodies, and towards points far apart; and before they could place themselves, or contract their intended circle and give the hand to one another, Hereward attacked them separately, and beat them one by one. Nor did the Normans fare much better when they gave up their plan of circle and united their forces in one head. The Lord of Brunn, who had counted upon being driven from Spalding into the wilderness, found not only that he could maintain himself there, but that he could also hold his own good house at Brunn; for, when the Norman host marched upon that manor, they fell into an ambuscade he had laid for them, and suffered both loss and shame, and then fled from an enemy they had hardly seen; for the fenners had willow-trees for their shields, or they had bent their bows in the midst of the tall growing rushes. Thus passed the summer months; and Duke William[255] was still on the northern borders, fighting against Malcolm Caenmore; and as that Scots war became more and more obstinate, the Duke was compelled to call to his aid nearly the whole of his splendid chivalry, and almost every Norman foot-soldier that he could prudently withdraw from England. With such mighty forces Duke William marched from the left bank of the Tweed to end of the Frith of Forth, and all through the Lothians; and thereupon the Scots king, albeit he would not deliver up the Saxon nobles who had taken refuge at his court, came and agreed with Duke William, and delivered hostages, and promised to be his man. But by this time another year was spent, and the fens were again impracticable; and, moreover, the Norman conqueror was compelled to tarry long at Durham, in order to settle the North country. Before the quinzaine of this Nativity the goodly stock of Lord Hereward was increased by the birth of a daughter, and Elfric was a father. The two children were baptized on the same day; and at the feast, which was given in the same hall at Spalding wherein Ivo Taille-Bois and the Ladie Lucia had given their great feast for the christening of their first-born, the merry sword-bearer said, “Well, we be still here! and it is now my opinion that I shall be a grandfather before the Normans shall drive us out of the fens!” The carefully guarded Norman prisoners of rank and note were very sad; but Ivo Taille-Bois was the saddest of them all on this festal day, for his wife and child were far away from him, living under the protection of the primate Lanfranc at Canterbury, and, much as he had tried, he could get no news of them; nor could he see any prospect of regaining his liberty, inasmuch as the Lord of