If there were a dozen knights left of all those whom he
used to heap with wealth and honor, worthy the name of knights, they would
catch us between here and Stratford, and make a free man of their lord."
So spake--or words to that effect, according to the Latin chronicler, who
must have got them from Leofric himself--the good knight of Herepol.
"Hillo, knaves!" said he, seeing the two, "are you here eavesdropping? out
of the castle this instant, on your lives."
Which hint those two witty knaves took on the spot.
A few days after, Hereward was travelling toward Buckingham, chained upon
a horse, with Sir Robert and his men, and a goodly company of knights
belonging to Ivo. Ivo, as the story runs, seems to have arranged with
Ralph Pagnel at Buckingham to put him into the keeping of a creature of
his own. And how easy it was to put out a man's eyes, or starve him to
death, in a Norman keep, none knew better than Hereward.
But he was past fear or sorrow. A dull heavy cloud of despair had settled
down upon his soul. Black with sin, his heart could not pray. He had
hardened himself against all heaven and earth, and thought, when he
thought at all, only of his wrongs: but never of his sins.
They passed through a forest, seemingly somewhere near what is Newport
Pagnel, named after Ralph, his would-be jailer.
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