“Then this to avenge him, for Wybert was a good man and true;” and Elfric, who had brought a bow with him from the corridor, drew the string to his ear and let fly an arrow which killed the Norman that had killed Wybert the wright. It was the men-at-arms who now yelled; and, even as their comrade was in the act of falling, a dozen more arrows came whistling among them from behind the bank and made them skip.
Ivo Taille-Bois lifted up his voice and shouted, “Saxon churls, ye mean to befriend your fainéant[[37]] monks; but if ye draw another bow I will set fire to the cell and grill them all!”
This was a terrible threat, and the poor men of Spalding knew too well that Ivo could easily do that which he threatened. The noise had reached the chapel, where the superior was robing himself, and Father Cedric came to the house-top to conjure the Saxons to retire and leave the servants of the saints to the protection of the saints. At the top of the spiral staircase he found the novice with the bow in his hand; and he said unto him, “What dost thou here, et sine licentiâ”?[[38]]
“I am killing Normans,” said Elfric; “but Wybert the wright is slain, and the men of Spalding are losing heart.”
“Mad boy, get thee down, or we shall all be burned alive. Go help Hubert unbar the gate and drop the bridge.”
“That will I never, though I break my monastic vow of obedience,” said the youth. “But hark! the chain rattles!—the bridge is down—the hinge creaks—by heaven! the gate is open—Ivo Taille-Bois and his devils are in the house! Then is this no place for me!” And before the monk could check him, or say another word to him, the novice rushed to the opposite side and leaped from the roof into the deep moat. Forgetting his mission—which was to conjure the Saxons in the name of Father Adhelm the superior of the house not to try the arms of the flesh,—old Cedric followed to the spot whence the bold youth had taken his spring, but before he got there Elfric had swum the moat and was making fast for the Welland, in the apparent intention of getting into the fens beyond the river, where Norman pursuit after him could be of no avail. The monk then went towards the front of the building and addressed the Saxons who still lingered behind the ditch and the bank, bemoaning the fate of Wybert, and not knowing what to do. Raising his voice so that they might hear him, Cedric beseeched them to go back to their homes in the town; and he was talking words of peace unto them when he was struck from behind by a heavy Norman sword which cleft his cowl and his skull in twain: and he fell over the edge of the wall into the moat. Some of the men-at-arms had seen Elfric bending his bow on the house-top, and the Norman who had been slain had pointed, while dying, in that direction. After gaining access they had slain old Hubert and the lay-brother who had assisted him in lowering the drawbridge; and then, while the rest rushed towards the chapel, two of the men-at-arms found their way to the roof, and there seeing Cedric they despatched him as the fatal archer and as the daring monk who had blown the horn to call out the men of Spalding. As Father Cedric fell into the moat, and the Normans were seen in possession of the cell, the men of Spalding withdrew, and carried with them the body of Wybert. But if they withdrew to their homes, it was but for a brief season and in order to carry off their moveable goods and their families; for they all knew that Ivo Taille-Bois would visit the town with fire and sword. Some fled across the Welland and the fens to go in search of the Camp of Refuge, and others took their way towards the wild and lonesome shores of the Wash.
But how fared the brotherhood in the chapel below? As Ivo Taille-Bois at the head of his men-at-arms burst into the holy place—made holy by the relics of more than one Saxon saint, and by the tomb and imperishable body of a Saxon who had died a saint and martyr at the hand of the Danish Pagans in the old time, before the name of Normans was ever heard of—the superior and friars, dressed in their stoles, as if for high mass, and the novices and the lay-brothers, were all chanting the Libera Nos; and they seemed not to be intimidated or disturbed by the flashing of swords and lances, or by the sinful imprecations of the invaders; for still they stood where they were, in the midst of tapers and flambards, as motionless as the stone effigies of the saints in the niches of the chapel; and their eyes moved not from the books of prayer, and their hands trembled not, and still they chanted in the glorious strain of the Gregorian chant[[39]] (which Time had not mended), Libera Nos Domine! “Good Lord deliver us!” and when they had finished the supplication, they struck up in a more cheerful note, Deus Noster Refugium, God is our Refuge.
Fierce and unrighteous man as he was, Ivo Taille-Bois stood for a season on the threshold of the chapel with his mailed elbow leaning on the font that held the holy water; and, as the monks chanted, some of his men-at-arms crossed themselves and looked as if they were conscious of doing unholy things which ought not to be done. But when the superior glanced at him a look of defiance, and the choir began to sing Quid Gloriaris? “Why boasteth thou thyself, thou tyrant, that thou canst do mischief?” Ivo bit his lips, raised up his voice—raised it higher than the voices of the chanting monks, and said, “Sir Priest, or prior, come forth and account to the servant of thy lawful King William of Normandie for thy unlawful doings, for thy gluttonies, backslidings, and rebellions, for thy uncleanliness of life and thy disloyalty of heart!” But Father Adhelm moved not, and still the monks sang on: and they came to the versets—“Thou hast loved to speak all words that may do hurt; oh! thou false tongue—therefore shall God destroy thee for ever: He shall take thee and pluck thee out of thy dwelling.”
“False monk, I will first pluck thee out of thine,” cried Ivo, who knew enough church Latin to know what the Latin meant that the monks were chanting; and he strode across the chapel towards the superior, and some of his men-at-arms strode hastily after him, making the stone floor of the chapel ring with the heavy tread of their iron-bound shoon; and some of the men-at-arms stood fast by the chapel door, playing with the fingers of their gloves of mail and looking in one another’s eyes or down to the ground, as if they liked not the work that Ivo had in hand. The monks, the novices, the lay-brothers, all gathered closely round their superior and linked their arms together so as to prevent Ivo from reaching him; and the superior, taking his crucifix of gold from his girdle, and raising it high above his head and above the heads of those who girded him in, and addressing the Norman chief as an evil spirit, or as Sathanas the father of all evil spirits, he bade him avaunt! Ivo had drawn his sword, but at sight of the cross he hesitated to strike, and even retired a few steps in arrear. The monks renewed their chant; nor stopped, nor were interrupted by any of the Normans until they had finished this Psalm. But when it was done Ivo Taille-Bois roared out, “Friars, this is psalmody enough! Men-at-arms, your trumpets! Sound the charge.” And three Normans put each a trumpet to his lips and sounded the charge; which brought all the men-at-arms careering against the monks and the novices and the lay-brothers; so that the living fence was broken and some of the brethren were knocked down and trampled under foot, and a path was opened for Ivo, who first took the golden crucifix from the uplifted hand of Father Adhelm and put it round his own neck, and then took the good father by the throat and bade him come forth from the chapel into the hall, where worldly business might be done without offering insult or violence to the high altar.
“I will first pour out the curses of the church on thy sacrilegious head,” said the superior, throwing off the Norman count, and with so much strength that Ivo reeled and would have fallen to the ground among the prostrate monks, if he had not first fallen against some of his men-at-arms. Father Adhelm broke away from another Norman who clutched him, but in so doing he left nearly all his upper garment in the soldier’s hand, and he was rent and ragged and without his crucifix when he reached the steps of the altar and began his malediction.