The bishops and clergy were forever
cursing them; but this to them was nothing, for they were all accursed and
forsworn and reprobate. The earth bare no corn: you might as well have
tilled the sea, for all the land was ruined by such deeds, and it was said
openly that Christ and his saints slept."
And so was avenged the blood of Harold and his brothers, of Edwin and
Morcar, of Waltheof and Hereward.
And those who had the spirit of Hereward in them fled to the merry
greenwood, and became bold outlaws, with Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John,
Adam Bell, and Clym of the Cleugh, and William of Cloudeslee; and watched
with sullen joy the Norman robbers tearing in pieces each other, and the
Church who had blest their crime.
And they talked and sung of Hereward, and all his doughty deeds, over the
hearth in lone farm-houses, or in the outlaw's lodge beneath the hollins
green; and all the burden of their song was, "Ah that Hereward were alive
again!" for they knew not that Hereward was alive forevermore; that only
his husk and shell lay mouldering there in Crowland choir; that above
them, and around them, and in them, destined to raise them out of that
bitter bondage, and mould them into a great nation, and the parents of
still greater nations in lands as yet unknown, brooded the immortal spirit
of Hereward, now purged from all earthly dross, even the spirit of
Freedom, which can never die.
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