“I do not know how you Frenchmen measure folks, when you see them; but to our mind she is,—for goodness, humility, and patience comparable only to an angel of God,” said Abbot Ulfketyl.
“You Englishmen will have to change your minds on many points, if you mean to stay here.”
“We shall not change them, and we shall stay here,” quoth the Abbot.
“How? You will not get Sweyn and his Danes to help you a second time.”
“No, we shall all die, and give you your wills, and you will not have the heart to cast our bones into the fens?”
“Not unless you intend to work miracles, and set up for saints, like your Alphege Edmund.”
“Heaven forbid that we should compare ourselves with them! Only let us alone till we die.”
“If you let us alone, and do not turn traitor meanwhile.”
Abbot Ulfketyl bit his lip, and kept down the rising fiend.
“And now,” said the priest, “deliver me over Torfrida the younger, daughter of Hereward and this woman, that I may take her to the King, who has found a fit husband for her.”