CHAPTER VII.

HEREWARD'S RETURN.

THERE may be between Thamesis and Tyne worse seas and more perilous rocks; but when the northeast wind blows right into that gulf, and the waves of the German Ocean are driven on by the storms of winter, the practised mariner will tell ye that the navigation of the Wash, the Boston Deeps, and the Lynn Deeps, is a fearful thing to those who know the shoals and coasts, and a leap into the jaws of death to those that know them not. Besides the shallows near shore, there be sand-banks and treacherous shoals in the middle of the bay, and these were ofttimes shifting their places or changing their shapes. Moreover, so many rivers and broad streams and inundations, that looked like regular rivers in the wet seasons of the year, poured their waters into the Wash, that it required all the skill of the mariner and pilot to find a way into the proper bed of any one particular river, as the Ouse, the Nene, or the Welland. Here are many quicksands, fatal to barks when concealed under the water; and even in summer-tide, when the waters are dried, the shepherds and their flocks are often taught by a woeful experience that these quicksands have a wonderful force in sucking in and holding fast whatsoever cometh upon them. In this sort the

perils of shipmen are not over even when they reach the shore, and are advancing to tread upon what seemeth like terra firma. The Wash and its sand-banks and the quicksands had made more East-Anglian widows and orphans than were made by any other calamity besides, save always the fierce Norman conquest.

It was under one of the fiercest and loudest tempests that ever blew from the sky of winter, and upon one of the roughest seas that ever rolled into the Wash, that five barks, which seemed all to be deeply laden and crowded with men, drove past the shoal called the Dreadful, and made for that other shoal called the Inner Dousing. The sun, which had not been visible the whole day, now showed itself like a ball of fire as it sank in the west behind the flats and fens of Lincolnshire; and when the sun was down the fury of the tempest seemed to increase. When they had neared the Inner Dousing, four of the barks took in all their sail and lay-to as best they could in the trough of the sea; but the fifth bark stood gallantly in for the Wash, with nearly all her sails up. Swift as it bounded over the waves, it was dark night before the foremost bark reached the little cape where stands the chapel of Our Ladie. Here the bark showed three lights at her mast-head, and then three lights over her prow, and then three over her stern. Quickly as might be, these lights from on board the fifth and foremost bark were answered by three times three of lights on the belfry of Our Ladie's chapel; and had it not been for the roaring of the winds and the loud dashing of the sea on the resounding shore, those on land by Our Ladie's chapel might have heard a three times three of hearty cheers from

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those on shipboard, and those on the ship might have heard every cheer given back with interest and increase by the crowd of true Saxons that stood by the chapel. The bark next showed at her masthead a broad blue light, such as had never been seen before in these parts; and presently from the lee side of the Inner Dousing four other bright blue lights gleamed across the black sky; and having in this wise answered signal, the four barks followed in the track of the fifth and came up with it off Our Ladie's chapel. Still keeping a little in advance, like the pilot and amiral of the little fleet, the bark that had first reached the coast glided into the Lynn Deeps; and as it advanced towards the mouth of the Ouse, signal-lights or pilotinglights rose at every homestead and hamlet, from Kitcham to Stone's-end, from Stone's-end to Castle Rising, and from Castle Rising to the good town of Lynn. And besides these stationary lights, there were other torches running along the shore close above the line of sea foam. And much was all this friendly care needed, the deeps being narrow and winding, and the shoals and sand-banks showing themselves on every side, and the wind still blowing a hurricane, and the masts of the barks bending and cracking even under the little sail that they now carried. On this eastern side of the Wash few could have slept, or have tarried in their homes this night; for when-near upon midnight, and as the monks of Lynn were preparing to say matins in the chapel of Saint Nicholas-the five barks swirled safely in to the deep and easy bed of the Ouse, and came up to the prior's wharf, and let go their anchors, and threw their stoutest cordage ashore, to the end that the mariners there might

make them fast, and so give a double security against wind and tide, the wharf and all the river bank was covered with men, women, and children, and the houses in the town behind the river bank were nearly all lighted up, as if it had been Midsummer's eve, instead of being the penultimate night of the Novena of Christmas. It was not difficult to make out that the foremost of the barks and one other belonged to Lynn, inasmuch as the Lynn folk leaped on board of them as soon as they were made fast at the wharf, calling upon their town fellows, their brothers or sons, and hugging them more Saxonico when they found them out on the crowded decks. The other barks were of foreign structure, and the mariners seemed to be all foreigners; but the many passengers in each of them were all Englishmen, and landsmen besides; for they had all been very sea-sick, and were now very impatient to get their feet upon dry land.

The first that landed from the foremost bark was a tall, robust, and handsome man, dressed as Saxon noblemen and warriors were wont to dress before the incoming of the ill fashions of Normandie. He carried in his right hand a long straight and broad sword, the blade of which was curiously sheathed, and the hilt of which formed a cross. When he had crossed the plankings of the wharf, and reached the solid ground, he knelt on one knee and kissed the cross of his sword; and then throwing himself prone upon the earth, and casting wide his arms as though he would embrace it and hug it, he kissed the insensate soil, and thanked his God and every saint in the Saxon calendar for that he had been restored to the land which gave him birth, and which held the dust and bones of his fathers.

Some who had seen him in former days on the Spalding side of the Wash, and some who had been apprised of his coming, began instantly to shout, "It is he !-it is Lord Hereward of Brunn! It is Hereward the Saxon! It is the Lord of Brunn come to get back his own, and to help us drive out the Normans!" The shouts were taken up on every side, mariners and landsmen, foreigners and home-born fensmen, and women and children, crying, "It is Hereward the Saxon! Long live the young Lord of Brunn, who will never shut his hall-door in the face of a poor Englishman, nor turn his back on a Frenchman!" Some hemmed him in, and kissed his hands, and the sheath of his long straight sword, and the skirts of his mantle, and the very sandals on his feet; while others held their glaring torches close over his head, that they might see him and show him to their mates. was one Nan of Lynn, and a well-famed and wellspoken woman, that said, as she looked upon the Lord Hereward, "We Englishwomen of the fens will beat the men-at-arms from Normandie, an we be but led by such a captain as this! With that

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steel cap on his head, and that scarlet cloak over his shoulders, he looks every inch as, stalward and as handsome a warrior as the archangel Michael, whose portraiture we see in our church!"

The person nearest in attendance on Lord Hereward was that lucky wight Elfric, who had been to seek him in foreign parts; but it was Elfric no longer attired either as a tattered menestrel or as a shaveling novice, but as something betwixt a blithesome page and an armed retainer. He too had more than one tear of joy in his eye as he trod upon the shore; but this tender emotion soon gave