There two
of them--one Starkwolf by name, the other Broher--hiding near each other,
"thought that, as they were monks, it might conduce to their safety if
they had shaven crowns; and set to work with their swords to shave each
other's heads as well as they could. But at last, by their war-cries and
their speech, recognizing each other, they left off fighting," and went
after Hereward.
So jokes, grimly enough, Leofric the Deacon, who must have seen them come
in the next morning, with bleeding coxcombs, and could laugh over the
thing in after years. But he was in no humor for jesting in the days in
which they lay at Well. Nor was he in jesting humor when, a week
afterwards, hunted by the Normans from Well, and forced too take to meres
and waterways known only to them, and too shallow and narrow for the
Norman ships, they found their way across into the old Nene, and so by
Thorney on toward Crowland, leaving Peterborough far on the left. For as
they neared Crowland, they saw before them, rowing slowly, a barge full of
men. And as they neared that barge, behold, ail they who rowed were blind
of both their eyes; and all they who sat and guided them were maimed of
both their hands. And as they came alongside, there was not a man in all
that ghastly crew but was an ancient friend, by whose side they had fought
full many a day, and with whom they had drunk deep full many a night.
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