It was late when they got back to Crowland. The good Abbot received them
with a troubled face.
"As I feared, my Lord, you have been too hot and hasty. The French have
raised the country against you."
"I have raised it against them, my lord. But we have news that Sir
Frederick--"
"And who may he be?"
"A very terrible Goliath of these French; old and crafty, a brother of old
Earl Warrenne of Norfolk, whom God confound. And he has sworn to have your
life, and has gathered knights and men-at-arms at Lynn in Norfolk."
"Very good; I will visit him as I go home, Lord Abbot. Not a word of this
to any soul."
"I tremble for thee, thou young David."
"One cannot live forever, my lord. Farewell."
A week after, a boatman brought news to Crowland, how Sir Frederick was
sitting in his inn at Lynn, when there came in one with a sword, and said:
"I am Hereward. I was told that thou didst desire, greatly, to see me;
therefore I am come, being a courteous knight," and therewith smote off
his head. And when the knights and others would have stopped him, he cut
his way through them, killing some three or four at each stroke, himself
unhurt; for he was clothed from head to foot in magic armor, and whosoever
smote it, their swords melted in their hands. And so, gaining the door, he
vanished in a great cloud of sea-fowl, that cried forever, "Hereward is
come home again!"
And after that, the fen-men said to each other, that all the birds upon
the meres cried nothing, save "Hereward is come home again!"
And so, already surrounded with myth and mystery, Hereward flashed into
the fens and out again, like the lightning brand, destroying as he passed.
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