Hereward, The Last of the English

been a thorn in the side of Baldwin of Lille,

rests of Flanders, in morasses and alluvial islands whose names it is impossible now to verify, so much has the land changed, both by inundations and by embankments, by the brute forces of nature and the noble triumphs of art, dwelt a folk, poor, savage, livi

t of those old Frisians and Batavians, who had defied, and all but successfully resisted, the power of Rome; mingled with fresh crosses o

hat generally accompanies it, sturdy common sense. They could not understand why they should obey foreign Frank rulers, whether set over them by Dagobert or by Charlemagne. They could not understand why they were to pay tithes to foreign Frank priests, who had forced on them, at the swo

ath of their nominal sovereigns the Counts of Flanders; then of the Kaisers of Germany; and, in the thirteenth century, of the Inquisition itself. Then a crusade was preached against them as "Stadings," heretics who paid no tithes, ill-used monks and nuns, and worshipped (or were said to worship) a black cat and the foul fiend among the meres and fens. Conrad of Marpurg, the brutal Director of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, burnt them at his wicked will, extirpatin

guilds; embanking the streams, draining the meres, fighting each other and the neighboring prin

t with bur

n baths of h

with the st

pe and

Protestant Du

wn blood, with laws and customs like those of his own Anglo-Danes, living in a land so exactly like his own that every mere and fen and wood reminded

e clouds!" and died where he stood. But that was not the least reason why he should not invade any other man's land, and try whether or not he, too, would die where he stood. To him these Frieslanders were simply savages, probably heathens, who would not ob

esome Hollanders to his younger son Robert, t

hich was right in the sight of their own eyes, and finding themselves none the worse therefor,-though the Countess Gertrude doubtless could buy fewer silks of Greece or gems of Italy. But to such a distressed lady a champion could not long be wanting; and Robert, aft

od-natured good sense foresaw that the fiery Robert would raise storms upon his path

ht Eustace of Guisnes to reason, it seemed to him that he was a man who would do his work. So when the great Marqui

o be called," said Baldwin, smiling. "But some man's son you are, if e

ard b

l's son, here is my Viking's welcome to all V

ard t

oes were a hundred to one. You will not fail where yo

hed, vain a

re I have been, an

all brothers, and all know each other's c

her in the face, and each saw that th

ng, as was his fancy, the Norse rovers'

" and he pointed to Arnulf. "I am

ert's face. He, haplessly for himse

respected in the family of the Baldwins as they should

to the spirit, like David and Solomon. And so it was in other realms besides Flanders during the middle age. The father handed on the work-for ruling was hard work in those days-to the son most able to do it. Therefore we can believe Lambert

civil wars, and all the train of miseries which for some years after this history made infamous the house of Baldwin, as

l younger sons of English noblemen, to their infinite benefit,-held himself to be an injured man for life, because his father called his first-born Baldwin, and promised him the s

hear his elder brother called Baldwin of Mons, when he himself had not a foot of land of his own. Harder still to hear him called Baldwin the Good,

he wild Viking would have crushed the growing snake within his bosom; for he was a knight and a gentleman. But it was hidden from his eyes. He had to "dree his weird,"-to commit great si

ned to you

your ma

d to keep his Viking fo

o 'leding,' as the Nors

attempts pleased his vanity, all the mor

r two, till he has conquered these Friesland frogs

back," thought Robert to hi

ight go," q

o with hi

ee poked through with a Friesland pi

poute

boy? He thinks of naught but blood and

ad after this

ears that I bid him bide at home, and try to govern

E

passed between Hereward and the

g, and smiling jollily, as

e, beausire. Come with

and Robert went

on the set

o great a

ough of men to know that I need not be asha

obeyed

e who y

the corner of his eyes,

eve I know already. I have asked far and wide of chapmen, and mer

that I was a

eland, three years since, and will swear t

as," quo

sau on the face of the earth; every man's hand against me,

t-hearted, shrewdest-headed, hardest-handed Berserker in the North Seas.

he Westminster miracle-worker t

e Refuge for the Destitute,' they call Flanders; I suppose because I am too good-n

nst everybody else (as will be seen), and yet quarrelled with nobody-at least in hi

the wicked Hollanders, and avenge