She
looked at the fair child, and reproached herself for a moment; at the poor
old mother, whining and mumbling, her soft southern heart quite broken by
the wild chill northern sea-breeze; and reproached herself still more. But
was it not her duty? Him she loved, and his she was; and him she must
follow, over sea and land, till death; and if possible, beyond death again
forever. For his sake she would slave. For his sake she would be strong.
If ever there rose in her a homesickness, a regret for leaving Flanders,
and much more for that sunnier South where she was born, he at least
should never be saddened or weakened by one hint of her sadness and
weakness. And so it befell that, by the time they made the coast, she had
(as the old chronicler says) "altogether conquered all womanly softness."
And yet she shuddered at the dreary mud-creek into which they ran their
ships, at the dreary flats on which they landed shivering, swept over by
the keen northeast wind. A lonely land; and within, she knew not what of
danger, it might be of hideous death.
But she would be strong. And when they were all landed, men, arms,
baggage, and had pitched the tents which the wise Hereward had brought
with them, she rose up like a queen, and took her little one by the hand,
and went among the men, and spoke:--
"Housecarles and mariners! you are following a great captain upon a great
adventure.
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