great Canute. How Gilbert had obtained his white bear, and why he kept him
there in durance vile, was a mystery over which men shook their heads.
Again and again Hereward asked his host to let him try his strength
against the monster of the North. Again and again the shrieks of the
ladies, and Gilbert's own pity for the stripling youth, brought a refusal.
But Hereward settled it in his heart, nevertheless, that somehow or other,
when Christmas time came round, he would extract from Gilbert, drunk or
sober, leave to fight that bear; and then either make himself a name, or
die like a man.

Meanwhile Hereward made a friend. Among all the ladies of Gilbert's
household, however kind they were inclined to be to him, he took a fancy
but to one,--and that was to a little girl of eight years old. Alftruda
was her name. He liked to amuse himself with this child, without, as he
fancied, any danger of falling in love; for already his dreams of love
were of the highest and most fantastic; and an Emir's daughter, or a
Princess of Constantinople, were the very lowest game at which he meant to
fly. Alftruda was beautiful, too, exceedingly, and precocious, and, it may
be, vain enough to repay his attentions in good earnest. Moreover she was
English as he was, and royal likewise; a relation of Elfgiva, daughter of
Ethelred, once King of England, who, as all know, married Uchtred, prince
of Northumberland and grandfather of Gospatrick, Earl of Northumberland,
and ancestor of all the Dunbars. Between the English lad then and the
English maiden grew up in a few weeks an innocent friendship, which had
almost become more than friendship, through the intervention of the Fairy
Bear.

For as Hereward was coming in one afternoon from hunting, hawk on fist,
with Martin Lightfoot trotting behind, crane and heron, duck and hare,
slung over his shoulder, on reaching the court-yard gates he was aware of