Hereward, The Last of the English

In the garden outside, the wryneck (as is his fashion in May) was calling Pi-pi-pi among the gooseberry bushes, till the cobwalls rang again

a certain holy bishop of St. Dunstan's party, riding down to Corfe through the forest, saw the wicked queen-mother Elfrida (her who had St. Edward stabbed at Corfe Gate) exercising her "mechanic art," under a great tree; in plain English, performing heathen incantations; and how, when she saw that she was discovered,

in her old age; and spent her days in the churches, leaving Torfrida to do and learn what she would. Her nurse, moreover, was a Lapp woman, carried off in some pirating foray, and skilled in all the sorceries for which the Lapps were famed throughout the North. Her uncle, partly from good-nature, partly from a pious hope that she might "enter religion," and leave her wealth to the Church, had made her his pupil, and taught her the mysteries of books; and she had proved to be a str

help from the powers below, when the saints above were slack to hear them. Churchmen, even, were bold enough to learn the mysteries of nature, Algebra, Judicial Astrology, and the occult powers of herbs

th and disease. Riches, honors, and royalties, too, were under the command of the powers of darkness. For that generation, which was but too apt to take its Bible in hand upside down, had somehow a firm faith in the word of the Devil, and believed devoutly his somewhat startling assertion, that the kingdoms of the world were his, and the glory of them; for to him they were delivered, and to whomsoever he would he gave

ume which he would not have willingly lent to the simple monks under his charge; nor to Torfrida eith

discovered, besides the lawful sciences of arithmetic and astronomy, music and geometry"; how he acquired from the Saracens the abacus (a counting table); how he escaped from the Moslem magician, his tutor, by making a compact with the foul fiend, and putting himself beyond the power of magic, by hanging himself under a wooden bridge so as to touch neither earth nor water; how he taught Robert, King of France, and Otto the Kaiser;

e till he had sung mass at Jerusalem; and how both had come true,-the latter in mockery; for he was stricken with de

ther terrible warnings have on young folk, who are minded to

ary flats and muddy dikes, by a whole dream-world of fantastic imaginations,

s, to marry whom they liked. But Torfrida had as yet bullied the Abbot and coaxed the Count successfully. Lances had been splintered, helmets split, and more than one life lost in her honor; but she had only, as the best safeguard she could devise, given some hint of encouragement to one Ascelin, a tall knight of St. Valeri, the most renowned bully of those parts, by bestowing on him a scrap of ribbon, and bidding him keep it against all comers. By this means she in

revious exploits, busied all the gossips of the town. Would he and his men rise and plunder the abbey? Was not the chatelain mad in leaving young Arnulf with him all day? Madder still, in taking him out to battle against the Count of Guisnes? He might be a spy,-the avant-courrier of some great invading force. He was come to s

escued a wounded man. A day or two after came fresh news of some doughty deed; and then another, and another.

had it been possible, more than e

side of him, and on the other Hereward, looking "as fresh as flowers in May," she looked down on him

he heard he forgot all about the Sultan's daughter, and the Princess of Constantinople, and the Fairy of Brocheliaunde, and all the other pretty birds which were still in the bus

ee him, and win his love. But neither saw the other for a while; and it m

n, she would have done exactly what she did, and taken the bitter with the sweet, the u