"Now, lads," said Hereward, "home with you all, and make your peace with
your fathers. In this house you never drink ale again."

They looked at him, surprised.

"You are disbanded, my gallant army. As long as I could cut long thongs
out of other men's hides, I could feed you like earl's sons: but now I
must feed myself; and a dog over his bone wants no company. Outlawed I
shall be before the week is out; and unless you wish to be outlawed too,
you will obey orders, and home."

"We will follow you to the world's end," cried some.

"To the rope's end, lads: that is all you will get in my company. Go home
with you, and those who feel a calling, let them turn monks; and those who
have not, let them learn

'For to plough and to sow,
And to reap and to mow,
And to be a farmer's boy.'

Good night."

And he went in, and shut the great gates after him, leaving them
astonished.

To take his advice, and go home, was the simplest thing to be done. A few
of them on their return were soundly thrashed, and deserved it; a few were
hidden by their mothers for a week, in hay-lofts and hen-roosts, till
their father's anger had passed away. But only one turned monk or clerk,