So they cleansed out the old
house: though they did not take down the heads from off the gable; and
Torfrida went about it, and about it, and confessed that England was,
after all, a pleasant place enough. And they were as happy, it may be, for
a week or two, as ever they had been in their lives.
"And now," said Torfrida, "while you see to your army, I must be doing;
for I am a lady now, and mistress of great estates. So I must be seeing to
the poor."
"But you cannot speak their tongue."
"Can I not? Do you think that in the face of coming to England and
fighting here, and plotting here, and being, may be, an earl's countess, I
have not made Martin Lightfoot teach me your English tongue, till I can
speak it as well as you? I kept that hidden as a surprise for you, that
you might find out, when you most needed, how Torfrida loved you."
"As if I had not found out already! O woman! woman! I verily believe that
God made you alone, and left the Devil to make us butchers of men."
Meanwhile went round through all the fens, and north into the Bruneswold,
and away again to Lincoln and merry Sherwood, that Hereward was come
again. And Gilbert of Ghent, keeping Lincoln Castle for the Conqueror, was
perplexed in mind, and looked well to gates and bars and sentinels; for
Hereward sent him at once a message, that forasmuch as he had forgotten
his warning in Bruges street, and put a rascal cook into his mother's
manors, he should ride Odin's horse on the highest ash in the Bruneswold.
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