joined, his battle-axe was seen close by the battle-axes of Harold and the king’s two loyal and brave brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dealing terrible blows, and cutting the steel caps and the coats of mail of the Normans like chaff. Saxons, remember that he fought at Hastings through nine long hours, and did not yield until ye saw that ye were betrayed! Separated from his king in the fury of the last _melée_, Hereward attempted to rally the East Angles and the men of Kent; and failing in that, and hearing a mighty rumour that Harold the king was slain, he galloped to the port of Winchelsey with a few of his father’s trusty people, and there embarked for foreign parts, vowing that he would never bow his head to the conqueror. The father[98] of Hereward, being old and infirm, and infected by the unmanly fears which made so many Saxons throw aside the sword before the conquest of England was well begun, had made haste to tender his allegiance to the son of the harlot, had obtained his peace, and had been allowed to retain his lordship of Brunn, after paying sundry fines for his son’s patriotism. But latterly the old Lord of Brunn had been gathered to his fathers, and a Norman chief had seized his manor-house and all his lands, and was now keeping them as his patrimony. Such, being told briefly, was the story which Father Adhelm told to my Lord Abbat of Ely and his guests and officials; and when he had done, he asked, where could a better chief be found for the Camp of Refuge than Hereward the true Saxon, and legitimate Lord of Brunn? And, hereupon, there was a clapping of hands and shouting of voices in all that noble and devout assembly—a shouting so loud that it echoed through all the abbey, and was heard as far off as Saint Ovin’s Cross; and the indwellers of the town of Ely, albeit they knew not what it meant, took up the cry, and shouted, “Hereward to the Camp of Refuge! Hereward for England!” “Bethinks me,” said the cautelous Abbat of Crowland, when the noise had ceased, “that perchance Hereward will not come to us at our summons. He must know how false our country has proved to herself, and how great the progress the conqueror hath made in it: his lands and all his inheritance are gone, a price is set upon his head in England, and his valour and experience in war, and his other good qualities, have made for him a prosperous and honorable home in a foreign land.[99] While yet in my poor house at Crowland, a shipman from the Wash, who trades to the opposite coast, told me that he had lately seen at Ypres my Lord Hereward, living in great affluence and fame; and the mariner further told me that Hereward had said to him that he would never wend back to a land of cowards and traitors; that he had carved himself out new estates in the fattest lands of the Netherlands, and that England had nothing to give him except dishonour or a grave.”[100]