“Factum est,” said Torauld, “consider all this as done.”

And in order that it might be done the more easily, Ivo Taille-Bois superadded one hundred and forty men to those that the fighting abbat brought with him, thus making Torauld’s whole force consist of one hundred and sixty well-armed Frenchmen. At the head of this little army, with sword girded round his middle and with battle-axe tied to his saddle-bow, the monk of Fescamp began his march from Stamford Town. As soon as the disloyal monks heard that he was coming, they drove away by main force the very few Saxon soldiers that remained about the house, and began to prepare sackcloth and ashes for themselves, and a sumptuous feast for the Abbat Torauld, hoping thereby to conciliate him, and make him forget the bold doings of my Lord Abbat Brand.

But before that uncanonical abbat and his men-at-arms could get half way to Peterborough,[[175]] the Lord Hereward, who had been duly apprised of all these late proceedings and intentions, arrived at the abbey with Elfric his sword-bearer, and about three-score fighting men; and before the monks could make fast their gates he was within the house. There be some who do say that the entrance was not got without a fight, and that some of my Lord Hereward’s people set fire to a part of the monastery; but I ween there was no fighting or beating of monks until Torauld, that very stern man, got possession of the house, and that there was no fire until a time long after the visit of the Saxons, when the monks of Peterborough, being disorderly and drunken, set fire to the house themselves by accident. The Lord of Brunn made straight for the house which King Etheldred of happy memory had built for the Lord Abbats. A building it was very large and stately; all the rooms of common habitation were built above-stairs, and underneath were very fair vaults, and goodly cellars for sundry uses; and the great hall above was a magnificent room, having at the upper end, in the wall, very high above the floor, three stately thrones, whereon were seated the effigies of the three royal founders, carved curiously in wood, and painted and gilt.[[176]] In this hall stood Hereward and his merry men. Little did the monks wot of this visit. They thought the Lord of Brunn was many a league off, fighting in the fens; and when he came among them like one dropped from the clouds, and they saw in his honest, plain-speaking face that he was angered, the traitors began to blush, and some of them to turn pale; and when this first perturbation was over, they began to welcome him in the very words of a speech they had prepared for the welcoming of Torauld. But Hereward soon cut their speech short, and asked the prior of the house what was become of the twenty men he had left there for the protection of the house. The prior said that the men had behaved in a riotous manner, eating and drinking all the day long, and had deserted and run away because they had been reproved.

“It likes me not to call a priest a liar, but this is false!” said the Lord of Brunn; “thou and thy French faction have driven away those honest men; and here be some of them to speak for themselves, and to tell thee, oh prior, how busy thou hast been ever since the death of my good uncle (peace to his soul!) in preparing to make terms with the French—in preparing to welcome the shaven cut-throat that is now a-coming to rule over this house!”

The men stood forward, and the loyal part of the monks (alas! that they were so few) stood forward also, and told the traitors to their faces all that they had been doing. The prior and the chamberlain, the refectorarius and the rest of the officials, then began to excuse themselves on the plea of their weakness, and on the plea of the great danger in which they stood.

“You confess, then,” said Hereward, “that you cannot of yourselves defend this house and its shrines?”

“Of a surety we confess it,” said the prior; “nor is this house to be held against the Normans even with a garrison of armed men. Peterborough is not Ely, good my lord! There Saxon monks may hold their own; but here it cannot be done.”

“So ho!” quoth Hereward, “this is where I would have thee! and therefore, oh prior, since thou canst not keep thy gilded crosses and silver vessels, thy chalices and pateras, thy drapery and rich church hangings, and as all these things and all other the property of this house will fall into the hands of the Norman thieves if they are not removed, I will and must carry them all off to Ely, where thou allowest they will be in safe Saxon keeping.”

“Wouldst thou despoil the temple of the Lord? Wouldst thou rob the shrines of Saxon saints?” said the sacrist.

“My Lord of Brunn, thou darest not do the deed,” said the prior.