and then he whistled and stepped gaily forward, as if his father’s house was still his own house,[125] and his father there to meet and bless him. But, alack! his father was six feet under the sod of the churchyard, and a fierce Norman was in the house, with many men-at-arms. Awakening from his evening dream, and feeling that the invasion of England was no dream—the bloody battle of Hastings no dream—the death of his father no dream—and that it was a sad reality that he was a dispossessed man, barred out by force and by fraud from his own, the young Lord of Brunn avoided the direct path to the manor-house, and struck into a narrow sloppy lane which led into the township. As he came among the low houses, or huts, the good people where beginning to bar their doors for the night. “They will open,” said Hereward, “when they know who is come among them!” He made straight for the abode of one who had been his foster brother; and he said as he entered it, “Be there true Saxon folk in the house?” “Yea,” said the man of the house. “Then wilt thou not be sorry to see Hereward the Saxon and thy foster-brother;” and so saying he unmuffled himself and threw off his dirty ship cloak; and his foster brother fell at his feet, and kissed his hand, and hugged his knee, and said, “Is it even my young Lord Hereward?” and so wept for joy. “It is even I,” said the young Lord of Brunn; “it is even I come back to get mine own, and to get back for every honest man his own. But honest men must up and help. Will the honest folk of Brunn strike a blow for Hereward and for themselves? Will the town-people, and my kith and kindred and friends in the old days, receive and acknowledge me?” It was the wife of the foster-brother that was now kneeling and clasping Hereward’s knee, and that said, “The women of Brunn would brand every catiff in the township that did not throw up his cap and rejoice, and take his bill-hook and bow in his hand for the young Lord of Brunn!”