Brother Brihtmer, lately professed, added the observation that he knew a man or two—servants or tenants of the Abbey—Oswi, the miller, for instance, who carried off the ram for wrestling at Bury fair. With a few such at Erith he thought that he might be trusted to discuss the situation with the Ely men, if they got so far. He would also provide ten stout carls to row the barge from Erith to Soham and to undertake what else might be required of them at the latter place.
It was a notable day in the annals of the little town of Soham when the Ramsey barge, propelled by ten rowers, five a side, clad in the abbey uniform of bare arms and legs and a loose gown of green falding, was sighted on the far side of Soham mere. Quite a considerable throng of the principal inhabitants watched it from the wooden jetty, to which were moored the cobbles of the Soham fishermen. The reeve, in a murrey coat and blue hood, was an important figure in the group, and was accompanied by a select party of the leading sokemen. The local clergy were in attendance with a hastily improvised band of thurifers and choristers. These, with some of the better class of artificers, smiled with conscious importance, as specially nominated guests at the feast which the Ramsey monks brought with them for their entertainment in the parish gild-hall. The rest of the crowd, consisting of mariners and farm churls, were curious rather than enthusiastic, and more suspicious than curious: for Ramsey is far from Soham, and ancient adage told them that fýnd synt feorbúend—far-dwellers are enemies. At the first landing of the venerable passengers a temporary disturbance was caused by Grim, the fisherman of Ely monastery, who provocatively bit his thumb at the starboard bow oar of the abbat’s crew. When this difference had been adjusted by the intervention of the district hundred-man the procession was started for the church. At the tail of it, behind the boat-carls, stalked a black-avised monk of Ely, Peter by name, who pointedly withdrew from an official part in the ceremonies.
The banquet in the gild-hall was altogether a splendid affair. In the whole of their official experience the reeve, the hundred-man, and the local clergy had never received so warm a welcome or participated in such royal cheer. No thin English vintage this that was passed to them in the loving cup, fresh from dignified and consecrated lips, but rich old wine, warmed by Greek suns and cooled in the caverns of Ramsey cellars. The cottars who were admitted at the lower board had never known what it was to have so much ale, and so good, as the monastic vats supplied. Brother Peter of Ely looked on from the door, but took no part in the entertainment. He remarked that the Ramsey dignitaries were modest drinkers, and that the boat-carls looked at their blisters and passed the can to their Soham neighbours with the merest pretence of absorption.
As the liquor in the wassail bowls ebbed a gradual silence crept on the festal party. One after other, official and reverend heads declined upon the board: rustic bodies dropped from their benches on the floor, and stertorous slumber filled the hall. Only the abbat and prior sat erect and looked about them with ferret eyes, and the boat-carls spat on their hands and inspected their blisters. Brother Peter withdrew to the mere-strand, and by the lapping waters mused on the weakness of human heads and the shocking aspect of intemperance in which one has not participated.
What is this spectacle which presents itself to Brother Peter, meditative on the muddy margin of Soham mere, at the grey hour when country cocks do crow and bells do toll? A procession, silent but solid, actual not ghostly, of ten men bearing a coffer strung upon poles. Two dignified figures, their heads wrapt from the raw air in their hoods, bring up the rear. So our friends are making an early and unannounced departure! This is no time to ask the wherefore. Brother Peter tucks up his frock and runs his fleetest to the church. When he looks back from the porch he sees a vessel launched on the shimmering lake, with a broadening track of broken water in its wake.
The abbat and his men are two miles away over the mere when a strange clamour reaches their ears. Horns are blown; a church bell clangs; cries of “Haro” echo over the water; lights flash upon the strand. The boat-carls rest upon their oars; the abbat smiles; the prior chuckles. “Two miles: impossible!” says he; “and, as lay-brother Oswald was so prudent as to hide the oars of the Ely boat in the church tower, they won’t get started in a hurry.”
The prior sits in the sternage and directs the vessel’s course. Between him and the abbat Saint Felix reposes in his box. As they quit the mere and enter the narrow channel which connects it with the Ouse the abbat suggests a psalm and raises Jubilate Deo. The bow oars respond with a three-man glee in the fen-men’s fashion.
Sleeping Barway they pass, well out of hearing of their pursuers, and then they take the right hand fork of the river, and follow the Ouse stream which we now call the West River. Here they find themselves in a maze of willow-fringed islets and wandering channels which quit and re-enter the main stream. The sopping, gurgling freshets that drain the shallow meres on either hand, as the tidal waters drop, warn them of the perils of a divergence from the river’s course. But prior Alfwin knows what he is about, and holds on in the channel that in ten miles will bring them to Erith bank. Nevertheless their transit, impeded by snags and shallows and fallen trees, is of necessity slow. Under such circumstances one must think it an unwarranted security that induced some of the boat-carls to open a spare beer jar and beguile their toil with ill-timed refreshment. Three comatose bodies under the thwarts impose a severe addition of labour on the more self-respecting members of the crew.
It is the hour of prime, and alas! brother Alfwin, where are we now? Indubitably we are stuck in the mud, and the water is falling. We land on soggy banks, and with labour the boat-carls lift and pole the barge into deeper waters. The operation is repeated several times. Faint cries of “Haro” are borne by the breeze over the fens, and the Lord Abbat shudders with cold and fright. Praised be the saints, at last we are back in the main stream. But what is this? Is not this the identical snag on which we nearly wrecked ourselves the best part of an hour ago? Deus in adjutorium! Here is the black prow of the Ely barge rounding the corner, not a hundred yards away, and Monk Peter stands in the bows, raucously shouting and shaking his fist at us! Half-naked figures start up out of the fen and run, hopping from tuft to tuft, on the bank, cheering and waving as they run—friends, foes, or simple spectators, who knows?