"
Poor Martin Lightfoot spoke thus bravely only to keep up his spirits and
his young lord's; for, in spite of his confidence in Hereward's prowess,
he had given him up for a lost man: and the tears ran down his rugged
cheeks, as the old priest, rising up and seizing Hereward's two hands in
his, besought him, with the passionate and graceful eloquence of his race,
to have mercy upon his own youth.
Hereward understood his meaning, though not his words.
"Tell him," he said to Martin, "that fight I must, and tell him that
shrive me he must, and that quickly. Tell him how the fellow met me in the
wood below just now, and would have slain me there, unarmed as I was; and
how, when I told him it was a shame to strike a naked man, he told me he
would give me but one hour's grace to go back, on the faith of a
gentleman, for my armor and weapons, and meet him there again, to die by
his hand. So shrive me quick, Sir Priest."
Hereward knelt down. Martin Lightfoot knelt down by him, and with a
trembling voice began to interpret for him.
"What does he say?" asked Hereward, as the priest murmured something to
himself.
"He said," quoth Martin, now fairly blubbering, "that, fair and young as
you are, your shrift should be as short and as clean as David's."
Hereward was touched.
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