“You are surely Englishwomen?” asked he of the foremost, as he lifted his cap.
The lady bowed assent, beneath a heavy veil.
“Then you are my guests. Let them pass in.” And Hereward threw himself off his horse, and took the lady’s bridle.
“Stay,” she said, with an accent half Wessex, half Danish. “I seek the Countess Judith, if it will please you to tell me where she lives.”
“The Countess Judith, lady, lives no longer in St. Omer. Since her husband’s death, she lives with her mother at Bruges.”
The lady made a gesture of disappointment.
“It were best for you, therefore, to accept my hospitality, till such time as I can send you and your ladies on to Bruges.”
“I must first know who it is who offers me hospitality?”
This was said so proudly, that Hereward answered proudly enough in return,--
“I am Hereward Leofricsson, whom his foes call Hereward the outlaw, and his friends Hereward the master of knights.”
She started, and threw her veil hack, looking intently at him. He, for his part, gave but one glance, and then cried,--
“Mother of Heaven! You are the great Countess!”
“Yes, I was that woman once, if all be not a dream. I am now I know not what, seeking hospitality--if I can believe my eyes and ears--of Godiva’s son.”
“And from Godiva’s son you shall have it, as though you were Godiva’s self. God so deal with my mother, madam, as I will deal with you.”
“His father’s wit, and his mother’s beauty!” said the great Countess, looking upon him. “Too, too like my own lost Harold!”
“Not so, my lady. I am a dwarf compared to him.” And Hereward led the garron on by the bridle, keeping his cap in hand, while all wondered who the dame could be, before whom Hereward the champion would so abase himself.
“Leofric’s son does me too much honor. He has forgotten, in his chivalry, that I am Godwin’s widow.”
“I have not forgotten that you are Sprakaleg’s daughter, and niece of Canute, king of kings. Neither have I forgotten that you are an English lady, in times in which all English folk are one, and all old English feuds are wiped away.”
“In English blood. Ah! if these last words of yours were true, as you, perhaps, might make them true, England might be saved even yet.”
“If there were one man in it, who cared for aught but himself.”