“I tell thee again I will leave nought for the Normans!” quoth Lord Hereward. And while he was speaking, his merry men all, aided and assisted by the honest monks, who revered the memory of Abbat Brand, were packing; and before the prior could finish a maledicite which he began, all the gold and silver, all the linen and silks and embroidered hangings, and all the effigies of the Saxon saints, and all the silver-gilded plates from their shrines, were carefully made up into divers parcels, for facility of carriage, and the relics of the saints were packed up in coffers. Ywere, an un-Saxon monk of the house, had succeeded in concealing the testaments, mass-hackles, cantel-copes, and such other small things, which he afterwards laid at the feet of the French abbat; but Hereward’s people had gotten all the things of great value: they had climbed up to the holy rood, and had taken away the diadem from our Lord’s head, all of pure gold, and had seized the bracket that was underneath his feet, which was all of red-gold: they had climbed up the campanile, or belfry, and had brought down a table that was hid there, all gold and silver; they had seized two shrines of gold and nine reliquaries of silver, and fifteen large crucifixes of gold and of silver; and, altogether, they had so many treasures in money, in raiment and in books, as no man could tell another.
The prior now snivelled and said, “Lord Hereward, my Lord of Brunn, wilt thou then leave us nothing to attract pilgrims to our shrines? Thou mightest as well carry off the house and the church, as carry these things away with thee!”
“Our house will be discredited and we shall starve!” said the sacrist. “Lord of Brunn, leave us at least the bones of our saints!”
“Once more,” said Hereward, “once more and for the last time I tell ye all that I will leave to the Norman spoilers and oppressors nought that I can carry. If I could carry away the house and the church and the altars, by Saint Ovin and his cross, by Saint Withburga and her blessed and ever-flowing well, I would do it!—but only to bring them back again when this storm shall be passed, and when every true Saxon shall get his own.”
Then turning to Elfric, Hereward said, “Where is the sacrist’s register of all these effects and properties?”
Elfric handed a very long scroll of parchment to his lord. This parchment had been placed in the hands of Elfric by the sub-sacrist, one of the honest party, and the parchment contained, in good Saxon writing, a list of the treasures, even as they had been left on the day of the death of the good Abbat Brand.
“Now write me at the bottom of this scroll a receipt and declaration,” said the Lord of Brunn to the sub-sacrist. “Say that I, Hereward the Saxon, have taken away with me into the Isle of Ely, and unto that hallowed house of the true Saxon Abbat Lord Thurstan, all the things above enumerated. Say that I have removed them only in order to save them from the thievish hands of the Normans, or only to prevent their being turned against ourselves—say that I swear by all my hopes of life eternal to do my best to restore them uninjured so soon as the Normans are driven out of England; and say that I will make bot for every loss and for every injury. Mortal man can do no more than this.”
The sub-sacrist, maugre the threats and maledictions of his superior the sacrist, and of the prior and refectorarius, and all the upper officials, quickly engrossed on the parchment all that the Lord of Brunn wanted; and Hereward, being himself a scholar and penman, signed it with his name. Next he called for signatures of witnesses. Girolamo of Salerno wrote a sic subscribitur, and wrote his signature, and Elfric, who had improved as much in learning as in the art of war, did the same. Some others made the sign of the cross opposite to their names that were written for them; but upon the whole it was a good receipt, and solemn and well witnessed. The Lord of Brunn handed the parchment to the prior, bidding him to take care of it, and show it to his new abbat Torauld as soon as that Frenchman should arrive with his one hundred and sixty men-at-arms; but the prior cast the parchment upon the ground, saying that the house was impiously spoiled—that nothing would ever be gotten back again—that nothing was left in the house but woe, nakedness, and tribulation.
“Oh prior!” said Hereward, and he smiled as he said it—“oh untrue and un-Saxon prior! the savoury odours that come upwards from thy kitchen tell me that there is something more than this. By saint Ovin! it is not Torauld of Fescamp and his men-at-arms that shall eat this thy feast! Elfric, see those viands served up in the refectory, and we will eat them all, be they cooked or uncooked, done or underdone.”
“My Lord,” responded Elfric, “the roast meats be done to a turn, the boiled meats and the stewed meats, and fowl and fish be all ready. The cook of this house of Peterborough, being no caterer for Normans, but a Saxon true, and one that hath owed his promotion to thine uncle, of happy memory, the Abbat Brand, hath seen to all these things, and hath advanced the good dinner by an hour or twain.”