"
All men were silent, as the old Viking's voice, cracked and feeble when he
began, gathered strength from rage, till it rang through the still
night-air like a trumpet-blast.
The silence was broken by a long wild cry from the forest, which made the
women start, and catch their children closer to them. It was the howl of a
wolf.
"Hark to the witch's horse! Hark to the son of Fenris, how he calls for
meat! Are ye your fathers' sons, ye men of Bourne? They never let the gray
beast call in vain."
Hereward saw his opportunity and seized it. There were those in the crowd,
he well knew, as there must needs be in all crowds, who wished themselves
well out of the business; who shrank from the thought of facing the Norman
barons, much more the Norman king; who were ready enough, had the tide of
feeling begun to ebb, of blaming Hereward for rashness, even though they
might not have gone so far as to give him up to the Normans; who would
have advised some sort of compromise, pacifying half-measure, or other
weak plan for escaping present danger, by delivering themselves over to
future destruction. But three out of four there were good men and true.
The savage chant of the old barbarian might have startled them somewhat,
for they were tolerably orthodox Christian folk. But there was sense as
well as spirit in its savageness; and they growled applause, as he ceased.
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