“Now speak, Elfric, and to the point; tell the tale shortly, and after the evening meal the lamp shall be trimmed and we will draw our stools round the hearth in the hall, and read the abbat’s epistle and deliberate thereupon.”

Upon this injunction of Father Adhelm, the youth began to relate with very commendable brevity, that the abbey of Crowland was surrounded and in good part occupied by Norman knights and men-at-arms, who were eating the brotherhood out of house and home, and committing every kind of riot and excess; that the abbat had in vain pleaded the king’s peace, and shown the letters of protection granted him by Lanfranc,[[21]] the new foreign primate of the kingdom; that the Normans had seized upon all the horses and mules and boats of the community; and that the abbat (having received disastrous intelligence from the north[[22]] and from other parts of England where the Saxon patriots had endeavoured to resist the conqueror), had fallen sick, and had scarcely strength to dictate and sign the letter he brought.

“These are evil tidings indeed,” said the superior, “but the storm is yet distant, and may blow over without reaching us. It is many a rood from Crowland to Spalding, and there is many a bog between us. Those accursed knights and men-at-arms will not readily risk their horses and their own lives in our fens; and now that Ivo Taille-Bois hath so often emptied our granaries, and hath crippled or carried off all our cattle, we have the protecting shield of poverty. There is little to be got here but bare walls, and Ivo, having the grant of the neighbouring lands from the man they call King William, is not willing that any robber but himself should come hitherward. His mansion guards the causeway, and none can pass thereon without his bene placet. But, oh Elfric! what of the demon-possessed Ivo? Rests he not satisfied with the last spoils he made on our poor house? Abides he not true to his compact that he would come no more, but leave us to enjoy his king’s peace and the peace of the Lord? Heeds he not the admonition addressed to him by Lanfranc? Speak, Elfric, and be quick, for methinks I hear the step of the cellarer by the refectory door.”

“The strong keep no compact with the weak,” responded the novice, “and these lawless marauders care little for William their king, less for their archbishop, and nothing for the Lord! While I was hid in Crowland Abbey waiting for my Lord Abbat’s letter, I heard from one of the friars who can interpret their speech, that some of these Normans were saying that Ivo Taille-Bois wanted the snug nest at Spalding to put cleaner birds into it: that Ivo had made his preparations to dispossess us. And lo! as I came homeward through the fens, and passed as near as I might to the manor-house which Taille-Bois made his own by forcibly marrying the good Saxon[[23]] owner of it, I heard the flourish of trumpets, and anon I saw, tramping along the causeway towards the well-garrisoned manor-house, forty Norman men-at-arms!”

“Not so, surely not so, Elfric,” said the superior in a quake, “danger cannot be so near us as that!”

“His eyes must have deceived him,” cried all the brothers.

“Nay,” said the youth, “I saw, as plainly as I now see the faces of this good company, their lances glinting in the setting sun, and their bright steel caps and their grey mail, and....”

“Fen-grass and willows,”[[24]] cried the superior, who seemed determined not to give credit to the evil tidings, “what thou tookest for spears were bulrushes waving in the breeze, and thy steel-caps and grey mails were but the silvery sides of the willow-leaves turned upwards by the wind! Boy, fasting weakens the sight and makes it dim!”

“Would it were so,” quoth Elfric; “but so was it not! I heard the trumpet give challenge from the battlements—I heard the other trumpet give response—I heard the tramping of many hoofs along the hard solid causeway; and, creeping nearer to the road, I saw lances and horses and men—and they were even forty!”

“It cannot be,” said one of the monks, “for, when he made his last paction with us, Ivo Taille-Bois swore, not only by three Saxon saints but eke by six saints of Normandie, that he would do us and our house no further wrong.”