There was Winter, and Gwenoch,
and Gery, Hereward's cousin,--ancestor, it may be, of the ancient and
honorable house of that name, and of those parts; and Duti and Outi, the
two valiant twins; and Ulfard the White, and others, some of whose names,
and those of their sons, still stand in Domesday-book.
"And what," asked Hereward, after the first congratulations were over, "of
my mother? What of the folk at Bourne?"
All looked each at the other, and were silent.
"You are too late, young lord," said Azer.
"Too late?"
"The Norman"--Azer called him what most men called him then--"has given it
to a man of Gilbert of Ghent's,--his butler, groom, cook, for aught I
know."
"To Gilbert's man? And my mother?"
"God help your mother, and your young brother, too. We only know that
three days ago some five-and-twenty French marched into the place."
"And you did not stop them?"
"Young sir, who are we to stop an army? We have enough to keep our own.
Gilbert, let alone the villain Ivo of Spalding, can send a hundred men
down on us in four-and-twenty hours."
"Then I," said Hereward in a voice of thunder, "will find the way to send
two hundred down on him"; and turning his horse from the gate, he rode
away furiously towards Bourne.
He turned back as suddenly, and galloped into the field.
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