Which seemed to them more easily said than done.
CHAPTER XXXI.
HOW THEY FOUGHT AGAIN AT ALDRETH.
Hereward came back in fear and trembling, after all. He believed in the
magic powers of the witch of Brandon; and he asked Torfrida, in his
simplicity, whether she was not cunning enough to defeat her spells by
counter spells.
Torfrida smiled, and shook her head.
"My knight, I have long since given up such vanities. Let us not fight
evil with evil, but rather with good. Better are prayers than charms; for
the former are heard in heaven above, and the latter only in the pit
below. Let me and all the women of Ely go rather in procession to St.
Etheldreda's well, there above the fort at Aldreth, and pray St.
Etheldreda to be with us when the day shall come, and defend her own isle
and the honor of us women who have taken refuge in her holy arms."
So all the women of Ely walked out barefoot to St. Etheldreda's well, with
Torfrida at their head clothed in sackcloth, and with fetters on her
wrists and waist and ankles; which she vowed, after the strange, sudden,
earnest fashion of those times, never to take off again till she saw the
French host flee from Aldreth before the face of St. Etheldreda. So they
prayed, while Hereward and his men worked at the forts below.
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