As he passed her, he offered to kiss her; she put him back, and helped him
on with his armor, while he thanked her confusedly.
"He was as glad not to kiss me, after all!"
She looked after him as he stood, his hand on his horse's withers. How
noble he looked! And a great yearning came over her. To throw her arms
round his neck once, and then to stab herself, and set him free, dying, as
she had lived, for him.
Two bonny boys were wrestling on the lawn, young outlaws who had grown up
in the forest with ruddy cheeks and iron limbs.
"Ah, Winter!" she heard him say, "had I had such a boy as that!--"
She heard no more. She turned away, her heart dead within her. She knew
all that these words implied, in days when the possession of land was
everything to the free man; and the possession of a son necessary, to pass
that land on in the ancestral line. Only to have a son; only to prevent
the old estate passing, with an heiress, into the hands of strangers, what
crimes did not men commit in those days, and find themselves excused for
them by public opinion. And now,--her other children (if she ever had any)
had died in childhood; the little Torfrida, named after herself, was all
that she had brought to Hereward; and he was the last of his house. In him
the race of Leofric, of Godiva, of Earl Oslac, would become extinct; and
that girl would marry--whom? Whom but some French conqueror,--or at best
some English outlaw.
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