In leaving the abbey, the Conqueror did not remove with him all the Normans. On the contrary, he called up still more knights and men-at-arms, and ordered them all to quarter themselves upon the monks, and be by them entertained with meat, drink, and pay, as well as lodging.[[246]] The Norman knights and soldiers kept possession of the best parts of the house, respecting only the inner apartments of the restored abbat: the knights suspended their arms and shields in the great hall, where the arms of the Saxon thanes had lately hung, and in the refectory at every meal-time a hungry Norman soldier was seated by the side of every monk. This was a strange and unseemly sight to see in the common hall of so noble and once so religious a house; but it was the will of the Conqueror that it should be so, and the monks had brought down all these mischiefs upon their own heads. From the lands and revenues especially appertaining to Thurstan as lord abbat, the Norman knights were not allowed to take much; but upon those appertaining to the monks in common, they fell without restriction and without remorse, seizing a manor here and a manor there, and getting them converted into heritable property, to their heirs for ever, by grant and fief-charter from Duke William. And while so many broad hides were taken from them for good, the monks were compelled to pledge other lands, and the very revenues of the shrines, in order to pay the imposed fine of a thousand marks, and in order to find meat and drink, and whatsoever else was demanded by their rapacious guests. Sad grew the monks of Ely, and every day thinner. The knights and men-at-arms ever helped themselves first, and very often left their unwilling hosts nothing to eat. The proverb about the glorious feast of the monks of Ely seemed to have become nothing but a proverb, or the mere legend of a state of happiness which had passed away never to return. Greater still had been the woes of the monks if the restored abbat had been prone to spite and vengeance, for the Normans were willing to put a rod of iron in his hands, and would have rejoiced to see him use it; but Thurstan had a forgiving heart, and when he had deprived the worst of the officials of their offices, and had gotten the prior and the chamberlain removed to other houses far away from the Isle of Ely, he took pity upon all the rest of the convent, and did what in him lay to comfort them in their afflictions, and to supply their wants from his own store. Thus lived the monks, and thus the abbat, for about the space of three years: at the end of that time the good old Thurstan died, and was interred in the chancel among his mitred predecessors.[[247]] And then still worse befel the monks; for Duke William, or his brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, brought over one of their most fighting and turbulent monks from Normandie, and made him lord abbat of Ely;[[248]] and this new abbat did not cease from persecuting the Saxon monks until two-thirds of them were in their graves, and their places supplied by French monks. These were the things which befel the convent after their foul rebellion against Abbat Thurstan, and their fouler betrayal of the Camp of Refuge.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A FIRE AND A RESCUE.
It was dark night before the Lord of Brunn and his party got near unto the river Welland and Spalding, and great had been their speed to get thither so soon.[[249]] As they halted near the river-bank, under cover of some willows, they saw boats filled with Normans passing and repassing, and heard them hailing one another. In remarking upon this to his lord, the sword-bearer said, “Our barks on these waters have been overpowered! The Normans have been trying to encompass us by water as well as by land. No marvel were it to me to find them on every river between this and Trent or Humber; but it is not they that will stop good fenmen like us.”
“Yet we be come hither in good time, for they may be preparing to lay siege to my ladie in the moated manor house. I would wager my best trained hawk against a kestrel that Ivo Taille-Bois is come hitherward from Stamford to recover what he calls his own!” So said Lord Hereward.
Quoth Elfric: “An Ivo be here, we will beat him and catch him again! And when we catch him, we will not let him go, as we did, my lord, on the happy day of thy marriage.”
While they were thus discoursing with low voices among the willow-trees, a great and bright light was suddenly seen in the direction of Spalding, from which they were still distant some three old English miles. A first they thought it was but a beacon-fire lighted by the Normans, or perhaps by the Saxons; but the light grew and spread very fast, and showed itself as a portentous blaze, and sparks were seen flying upwards into the murky night-air, and then a great body of smoke came rolling before the night-wind, which was blowing freshly down the river. Hereward uttered the name of his wife the Ladie Alftrude,[[250]] Elfric uttered the name of Mildred, and both said a hurried prayer, for each believed that the Normans had set fire to the manor-house. In an instant the whole band was again in motion, rushing rapidly but silently along the willow-fringed bank of the Welland; but when they got nearer and came to a turn of the river, they made out that the fire was not on this, but on the other side of the river, and that, instead of the manor house, it must be either the succursal cell or the poor little township of Spalding that was in a blaze. And when they got nearer still, they saw that it was the little town; but they also saw that the cell was beleagured, and that many armed men, carrying torches in their hands, were crossing the river and running towards the manor-house.
“Unto the blessed saints be the praise,” said Lord Hereward, “but we be come just in time! My Saxons true, leave here among the willows the wine and stores, and let us forward to the rescue of the Ladie Alftrude and mine infant son.[[251]] Be quiet till you reach the end of the causey, on which they are gathering their force, and then shout and fall on!”
Away went the Saxons among the willows and tall rushes, until they came close to the causey which led from the bank of the river to the moated manor-house, and which was hard and dry now, although in the winter season it was for the most part under water. The Normans, who were making an exceeding great noise themselves, heard not the little unavoidable noise made by Lord Hereward’s people; and notwithstanding the light thrown up by the burning town, the Frenchmen saw not more of the Saxons than they heard of them, until they set up their shouts of “Hereward for England! The Saxons to the rescue!” And scarcely had the first of these shouts ceased to be echoed ere Hereward and his true men were upon the causey and hewing down the astounded enemy, of whom not a few were without their arms, for they had been bringing across the river great beams and planks wherewith to cross the moat of the manor-house. The Normans that were still on the opposite side of the river, beleaguering the succursal cell, came down to their boats and attempted to cross over to succour their countrymen on the causey; but Lord Hereward posted fifty good archers among the willows at the very edge of the water, and, taking good aim in the red fire-light, these good bowmen sent such fatal flights of arrows into the boats that the Normans put back in dismay: and the boats which had been going up and down the river, full of armed men, took all to flight upon hearing the shouts of “Hereward for England,” and never stopped until they got out of the Welland into the broad Wash, where the Conqueror, by the advice of the false Danes, had collected a fleet of ships. At these good signs some of the town folk of Spalding, who had fled into the fens to escape the Norman fury, returned towards their burning town and threatened the rear of their foe; and some other of the town folk, who had thrown themselves into the Cell to assist the true monks who had driven out the false ones, now joined in shouting “Hereward for England;” and getting to the house-top, assailed their beleaguerers with arrows and javelins, and whatsoever else they could get to hurl at them. Thus stood the Norman host, part on one side of the river and part on the other, and no communication between them. Yet when those on the causey were joined by a great band that had been up to the manor-house, they were far more numerous than the Saxon party. With the band that came down from the manor-house was Ivo Taille-Bois himself; and his people shouted as he came upon the ground where battle had been joined, “A Taille-Bois! a Taille-Bois!”
The Lord of Brunn, who had made a good free space with his own single battle-axe, now cried out in his loudest and cheeriest voice, “Welcome, oh Ivo Taille-Bois! I as good as told thee on my wedding-day at Ey that we should meet again! Ivo, all that I ask of thee now is that thou wilt not turn from me! Ivo Taille-Bois, this is a fair field! Here is good hard ground, and no fen-pool; so, Sir Ivo, stand forward, and let thee and me prove which is the better man and the better knight!”