As soon as it was dark, Hereward the liberator took one score and ten armed men into the lightest of the barks, and silently and cautiously ascended the river until he came close to the walls of the convent. The caution was scarcely needed, for the Normans, albeit they were ever reproaching the Saxons with gluttony and drunkenness, were feasting and drinking at an immoderate rate, and had taken no care to set a watch. Brightly the light of a great wood fire and of many torches shone through the windows of the hall as Hereward landed with his brave men and surrounded the house, while the mariners were taken good care of the ferry-boat.
“If these men were in their own house,” said Hereward, “it is not I that would disturb their mirth on such a night; but as they are in the house of other men, we must even pull them forth by the ears. So! where be the ladders?”
A strong ladder brought from the bark was laid across the moat, and ten armed men passed one by one over this ladder to the opposite side of the moat. The well-armed men were led by the brother of Wybert the wright, and by another of the men who had fled from Spalding town on that wicked night when Ivo Taille-Bois broke into the house. Now these two men of Spalding well knew the strong parts and the weak parts of the cell—as well they might, for they had ofttimes helped to repair the woodwork and the roof of the building. Having drawn the strong ladder after them to the narrow ledge of masonry on which they had landed, they raised it against the wall, and while some steadied it, first one armed man and then another climbed up by the ladder to the top of the stone and brick part of the walls. Then the brother of Wybert climbing still higher, by clutching the beams and the rough timber got to the house-top, and presently told those below in a whisper that all was right, that the door at the head of the spiral staircase was unfastened and wide open.
In a very short time ten armed men and the two hinds from Spalding town were safe on the roof; and the brother of Wybert said, “Now Saxons!” and as he heard the signal, Lord Hereward said, “Now Saxons, your horns!” And three stout Saxons, well skilled in the art of noise-making, put each his horn to his mouth and sounded a challenge, as loud as they could blow. Startled and wrathful, but not much alarmed, was the intrusive prior from Angers when he heard this noise, and bade his Angevin sacrist go to the window, and see what the Saxon slaves wanted at this time of night with their rascaille cow-horns! But when the sacrist reported that he saw a great bark lying in the river, and many armed men standing at the edge of the moat (in the darkness the sacrist took sundry stumps of willow-trees for warriors), the man of Angers became alarmed, and all Ivo Taille-Bois’ kindred became alarmed, and quitting the blazing fire and their good wine, they all ran to the windows of the hall to see what was toward. As they were a ruleless, lawless, unconsecrated rabble, who knew not what was meant by monastic discipline, and respect, and obedience, they all talked and shouted together, and shouted and talked so loud and so fast that it was impossible for any Christian man to be heard in answer to them. But at length the pseudo-prior silenced the gabble for a minute, and said, “Saxons, who are you, and what do you want at this hour, disturbing the repose of holy men at a holy season?”
Even this was said in Norman-French, which no man understood or could speak, except Hereward and the dark stranger who had attended him hither. But the Lord of Brunn gave out in good round French, “We are Saxons true, and true men to King Harold, and we be come to pull you out of this good nest which ye have defiled too long!”
“Get ye gone, traitors and slaves!” cried the false prior from Angers; “ye cannot cross our moat nor force our gates, and fifty Norman lances are lying hard by.”
“False monk, we will see,” quoth the Lord of Brunn. “Now, Saxons, your blast-horns again; blow ye our second signal!”
The hornmen blew might and main; and before their last blast had ceased echoing from an angle of the walls, another horn was heard blowing inside the house, and then was heard a rushing and stamping of heavy feet, and a clanging of swords in the hall, and a voice roaring, “Let me cleave the skull of two of these shavelings for the sake of Wybert the wright!”
“Thou art cold and shivering, Girolamo,” said Hereward; “but step out of that quagmire where thou art standing, and follow me. We will presently warm ourselves at the fireside of these Frenchmen.” Girolamo followed the Lord of Brunn to the front of the house; and they were scarcely there ere the drawbridge was down, and the gate thrown open.
“Well done, Ralph of Spalding,” said Hereward, who rushed into the house followed by the score of armed men. But those who had descended from above by the spiral staircase had left nothing to be done by those who ascended from below. The false prior and all his false fraternity had been seized, and had been bound with their own girdles, and had all been thrown in a corner, where they all lay sprawling the one on the top of the other, and screaming and begging for Misericorde. The brother of Wybert the wright had given a bloody coxcomb to the prior, and one of Hereward’s soldiers had slit the nose of a French monk that had aimed at him with a pike; but otherwise little blood had been shed, and no great harm done, save that all the stoups of wine and all the wine-cups had been upset in the scuffle. The brother of Wybert begged as a favour that he might be allowed to cut the throats of two of the false monks; but the Lord of Brunn, so fierce in battle, was aye merciful in the hour of victory, and never would allow the slaying of prisoners, and so he told the good man of Spalding town that the monks must not be slain; but that, before he had done with them, they should be made to pay the price of his brother’s blood; nay, three times the price that the Saxon laws put upon the life of a man of Wybert’s degree.