THE SUCCURSAL CELL.
The Abbat of Crowland’s letter, read aloud and slowly by the cheerful
fire, had no note of gladness in it. It began “Woe to the Church! woe
to the servants of God! woe to all of the Saxon race!” and it ended
with, “Woe! woe! woe!” It related how all the prelates of English birth
were being expelled by foreign priests, some from France and some from
Italy; how nearly every Saxon abbat had been deprived, and nearly every
religious house seized by men-at-arms and given over to strange
shavelings from Normandie, from Anjou, from Picardie, from Maine, from
Gasconie, and numberless other parts,[27] and how these alien monks,
who could not speak the tongue which Englishmen spoke, were occupying
every pulpit and confessional, and consigning the people to perdition
because they spoke no French, and preferred their old masters and
teachers to their new ones, put over them by violence and the sword!
Jealousies and factions continued to rage among the Saxon lords and
among those that claimed kindred with the national dynasties; sloth and
gluttony, and the dullness of the brain they produce, rendered of no
avail the might of the Saxon arm, and the courage of the Saxon heart.
Hence a _dies iræ_, a day of God’s wrath. Aldred,[28] the archbishop of
York, had died of very grief and anguish of mind: Stigand,[29] the
English and the true archbishop of Canterbury, after wandering in the
Danelagh and in Scotland, and flying for his life from many places, had
gone in helpless condition to the Camp of Refuge in the Isle of Ely:
Edgar Etheling, that royal boy, had been deserted by the Danes, who had
crossed the seas in many ships to aid him; and he had fled once more in
a denuded state to the court of Malcolm Caenmore, the Scottish king. In
all the north of England there had been a dismal slaughter: from York
to Durham not an inhabited village remained—fire and the sword had
made a wilderness there—and from Durham north to Hexham, from the Wear
to the Tyne, the remorseless conqueror, _Herodes, Herode ferocior_, a
crueller Herod than the Herod of old, had laid waste the land and
slaughtered the people. York Minster had been destroyed by fire, and
every church, chapel, and religious house had been either destroyed or
plundered by the Normans. Everywhere the Saxon patriots, after brief
glimpses of success, had met with defeat and extermination, save and
except only in the Camp of Refuge and the Isle of Ely; and there too
misfortune had happened. Edwin and Morcar,[30] the sons of Alfgar,
brothers-in-law to King Harold, and the best and the bravest of the
Saxon nobles, had quitted the Camp of Refuge, that last asylum of
Anglo-Saxon independence, and had both perished. All men of name and
fame were perishing. The Saxon commonalty were stupified with amazement
and terror,—_Pavefactus est Populus_.[31] The Normans were making war
even upon the dead or upon the tombs of those who had done honour to
their country as patriots, warriors, spiritual teachers and saints.
Frithric,[32] the right-hearted Abbat of St. Albans, had been driven
from his abbey with all his brethren; and Paul, a young man from
Normandie and a reputed son of the intrusive Archbishop Lanfranc, had
been thrust in his place. And this Paul, as his first act in office,
had demolished the tombs of all his predecessors, whom he called rude
and idiotic men, because they were of the English race! And next, this
Paul had sent over into Normandie for all his poor relations and
friends—men ignorant of letters and of depraved morals—and he was
dividing among this foul rapacious crew the woods and the farms, all
the possessions and all the offices of the church and abbey of St.
Albans. Crowland was threatened with the same fate, and he, the abbat,
was sick and brokenhearted, and could oppose the Normans only with
prayers—with prayers to which, on account of the sins of the nation,
the blessed Virgin and the saints were deaf. The brethren in the
succursal cell at Spalding must look to themselves, for he, the abbat,
could give them no succour; and he knew of a certainty that Ivo
Taille-Bois had promised the cell to some of his kith and kin in
foreign parts.
The reading of this sad letter was interrupted by many ejaculations and
expressions of anger and horror, grief and astonishment; and when it
was over, the spirits of the community were so depressed that the
superior thought himself absolutely compelled to call upon the cellarer
and bid him fill the stoups again, to the end that there might be
another short _Biberes_. When the monks had drunk in silence, and had
crossed themselves after the draught, they began to ask each other what
was to be done? for they no longer doubted that Elfric had seen the
forty men-at-arms in the neighbourhood, or that Ivo Taille-Bois would
be thundering at their gate in the morning. Some proposed sending a
messenger into Spalding town, which was scarcely more than two good
bow-shots distant from the cell, lighting the beacon on the tower, and
sounding all the blast-horns on the house-top to summon the whole
neighbourhood to their aid; but the superior bade them reflect that
this would attract the notice of Ivo Taille-Bois, and be considered as
an hostile defiance; that the neighbourhood was very thinly peopled by
inexpert and timid serfs, and that most of the good men of Spalding
town who possessed arms and the art of wielding them had already taken
their departure for the Camp of Refuge. At last the superior said, “We
cannot attempt a resistance, for by means of a few lighted arrows the
children of Satan would set fire to our upper works, and so burn our
house over our heads. We must submit to the will of Heaven, and
endeavour to turn aside the wrath of our arch-persecutor. Lucia,[33]
the wife of Ivo Taille-Bois, was a high-born Saxon maiden when he
seized upon her (after slaying her friends), and made her his wife in
order to have the show of a title to the estates. As a maiden Lucia was
ever good and Saxon-hearted, especially devout to our patron saint,[34]
and a passing good friend and benefactress to this our humble cell. She
was fair among the daughters of men, fairest in a land where the
strangers themselves vouchsafe to say that beauty and comeliness
abound;[35] she may have gotten some sway over the fierce mind of her
husband, and at her supplications Ivo may be made to forego his wicked
purposes. Let us send a missive to the fair Lucia.”
Here Brother Cedric reminded Father Adhelm that a letter would be of
little use, inasmuch as the fair Lucia could not read, and had nobody
about her in the manor-house that could help her in this particular.
“Well then,” said the superior, “let us send that trusty and nimble
messenger Elfric to the manor-house, and let him do his best to get
access to the lady and acquaint her with our woes and fears. What
sayest thou, good Elfric?”
Albeit the novice thought that he had been but badly rewarded for his
last service, he crossed his arms on his breast, bowed his head, and
said, “Obedience is my duty. I will adventure to the manor-house, I
will try to see the Lady Lucia, I will go into the jaws of the monster,
if it pleaseth your reverence to command me so to do. But, if these
walls were all of stone and brick, I would rather stay and fight behind
them: for I trow that the fair Lucia hath no more power over Ivo
Taille-Bois than the lamb hath over the wolf, or the sparrow over the
sparrow-hawk.”
“But,” said the superior, “unless Heaven vouchsafe a miracle, we have
no other hope or chance than this. Good Elfric, go to thy cell and
refresh thyself with sleep, for thou hast been a wayfarer through long
and miry roads, and needest rest. We too are weary men, for we have
read a very long letter and deliberated long on weighty trying
business, and the hour is growing very late. Let us then all to bed,
and at earliest morning dawn, after complines, thou wilt gird up thy
loins and take thy staff in thine hand, and I will tell thee how to
bespeak the Lady Lucia, an thou canst get to her presence. I will take
counsel of my pillow, and call upon the saints to inspire me with a
moving message that I shall send.”
Elfric humbly saluted the superior and all his elders by name, wished
them a holy night, and withdrew from the refectory and hall to seek the
rest which he really needed: but before entering his cell he went to
the house-top to look out at the broad moon, and the wood, and the
river, and the open country, intersected by deep cuts and ditches,
which lay in front of the succursal cell. The night had become frosty,
and the moon and the stars were shining their brightest in a
transparent atmosphere. As the novice looked up the course of the
Welland he thought he distinguished something afar off floating on the
stream. He looked again, and felt certain that a large boat was
descending the river towards the house. He remained silent and almost
breathless until the vessel came so near that he was enabled to see
that the boat was filled with men-at-arms, all clad in mail, who held
their lances in their hands, and whose shields were fastened to the
sides of the boat, glittering in the moonlight. “I count forty and one
lances and forty and one shields,” said the youth to himself, “but
these good friars will tell me that I have seen bulrushes and
willow-leaves.” He closed his eyes for a time and then rubbed them and
looked out again. There was the boat, and there were the lances and the
shields and the men-at-arms, only nearer and more distinct, for the
current of the river was rapid, and some noiseless oars or paddles were
at work to increase the speed without giving the alarm. “I see what is
in the wind,” thought Elfric; “the Normans would surprise us and expel
us by night, without rousing the good people of Spalding town.” He ran
down the spiral staircase; but, short as was the time that he had been
on the housetop, every light had been extinguished in the hall during
the interval, every cell-door had been closed; and a chorus of loud
snores that echoed along the corridor told him that, maugre their
troubles and alarms, all the monks, novices, and lay-brothers were
already fast asleep. “I will do what I can do,” said the youth, “for if
I wake the superior he will do nothing. If the men of Spalding town
cannot rescue us, they shall at least be witnesses to the wrongs put
upon us. Nay, Gurth the smith, and Wybert the wheelwright, and Nat the
weaver, and Leolf the woodsman, be brave-hearted knaves, and have the
trick of archery. From the yon side of those ditches and trenches,
which these heavy-armed Normans cannot pass, perchance a hole or two
may be driven into their chain jerkins!”
Taking the largest horn in the house he again ascended to the roof, and
turning towards the little town he blew with all his strength and
skill, and kept blowing until he was answered by three or four horns in
the town. By this time the boat was almost under the walls of the
monastery, and an arrow from it came whistling close over the youth’s
head. “There are neither battlements nor parapets here,” said he, “and
it is now time to rouse the brethren.” In a moment he was in the
corridor rapping at the doors of the several cells, wherein the monks
slept on, not hearing the blowing of the horns; but before half the
inmates were roused from their deep slumber the Normans had landed from
the boat, and had come round to the front of the house shouting,
“Taille-Bois! Taille-Bois! Notre Dame to our aid! and Taille-Bois to
his own! Get up, ye Saxon churls that be ever sleeping or eating, and
make way for better men!”
The superior forgot his gout and ran to the hall. They all ran to the
hall, friars, novices, lay-brothers, and hinds,[36] and lights were
brought in and hurried deliberations commenced, in which every one took
part. Although there was overmuch sloth, there was little cowardice
among these recluses. If there had been any chance of making good the
defence of the house, well I ween the major part of them would have
voted for resistance; but chance there was none, and therefore, with
the exception of Elfric, whose courage, at this time of his life,
bordered on rashness, they all finally agreed with the superior that
the wisest things to do would be to bid Hubert the portarius throw open
the gate and lower the bridge; to assemble the whole community in the
chapel, light up all tapers on the high altar and shrines, and chant
the _Libera Nos Domine_—Good Lord deliver us!
“It is not psalmody that will save us from expulsion,” thought Elfric.
Now Hubert the porter was too old and too much disturbed in spirit to
do all that he had to do without help; and Father Cedric bade the
sturdy novice go and assist him.
“May I die the death of a dog—may I be hanged on a Norman gibbet,”
said Elfric to himself, “if I help to open the gates to these midnight
robbers!” And instead of following Hubert down to the gate, he went
again (_sine Abbatis licentiâ_, without license or knowledge of his
superior) to the house-top, to see whether any of the folk of Spalding
town had ventured to come nigh. As he got to the corner of the roof
from which he had blown the horn, he heard loud and angry voices below,
and curses and threats in English and in Norman French. And he saw
about a score of Spalding-men in their sheepskin jackets and with bows
and knives in their hands, menacing and reviling the mail-clad
men-at-arms. The Saxons soon got themselves well covered from the foe
by a broad deep ditch, and by a bank; but some of the Normans had
brought their bows with them, and a shaft let fly at the right moment
when one of the Saxons was exposing his head and shoulders above the
bank, took effect, and was instantly followed by a wild scream or
yell—“Wybert is down! Wybert is slain!”
“Then this to avenge him, for Wybert was a good man and true;” and
Elfric, who had brought a bow with him from the corridor, drew the
string to his ear and let fly an arrow which killed the Norman that had
killed Wybert the wright. It was the men-at-arms who now yelled; and,
even as their comrade was in the act of falling, a dozen more arrows
came whistling among them from behind the bank and made them skip.
Ivo Taille-Bois lifted up his voice and shouted, “Saxon churls, ye mean
to befriend your fainéant[37] monks; but if ye draw another bow I will
set fire to the cell and grill them all!”
This was a terrible threat, and the poor men of Spalding knew too well
that Ivo could easily do that which he threatened. The noise had
reached the chapel, where the superior was robing himself, and Father
Cedric came to the house-top to conjure the Saxons to retire and leave
the servants of the saints to the protection of the saints. At the top
of the spiral staircase he found the novice with the bow in his hand;
and he said unto him, “What dost thou here, _et sine licentiâ_”?[38]
“I am killing Normans,” said Elfric; “but Wybert the wright is slain,
and the men of Spalding are losing heart.”
“Mad boy, get thee down, or we shall all be burned alive. Go help
Hubert unbar the gate and drop the bridge.”
“That will I never, though I break my monastic vow of obedience,” said
the youth. “But hark! the chain rattles!—the bridge is down—the hinge
creaks—by heaven! the gate is open—Ivo Taille-Bois and his devils are
in the house! Then is this no place for me!” And before the monk could
check him, or say another word to him, the novice rushed to the
opposite side and leaped from the roof into the deep moat. Forgetting
his mission—which was to conjure the Saxons in the name of Father
Adhelm the superior of the house not to try the arms of the flesh,—old
Cedric followed to the spot whence the bold youth had taken his spring,
but before he got there Elfric had swum the moat and was making fast
for the Welland, in the apparent intention of getting into the fens
beyond the river, where Norman pursuit after him could be of no avail.
The monk then went towards the front of the building and addressed the
Saxons who still lingered behind the ditch and the bank, bemoaning the
fate of Wybert, and not knowing what to do. Raising his voice so that
they might hear him, Cedric beseeched them to go back to their homes in
the town; and he was talking words of peace unto them when he was
struck from behind by a heavy Norman sword which cleft his cowl and his
skull in twain: and he fell over the edge of the wall into the moat.
Some of the men-at-arms had seen Elfric bending his bow on the
house-top, and the Norman who had been slain had pointed, while dying,
in that direction. After gaining access they had slain old Hubert and
the lay-brother who had assisted him in lowering the drawbridge; and
then, while the rest rushed towards the chapel, two of the men-at-arms
found their way to the roof, and there seeing Cedric they despatched
him as the fatal archer and as the daring monk who had blown the horn
to call out the men of Spalding. As Father Cedric fell into the moat,
and the Normans were seen in possession of the cell, the men of
Spalding withdrew, and carried with them the body of Wybert. But if
they withdrew to their homes, it was but for a brief season and in
order to carry off their moveable goods and their families; for they
all knew that Ivo Taille-Bois would visit the town with fire and sword.
Some fled across the Welland and the fens to go in search of the Camp
of Refuge, and others took their way towards the wild and lonesome
shores of the Wash.
But how fared the brotherhood in the chapel below? As Ivo Taille-Bois
at the head of his men-at-arms burst into the holy place—made holy by
the relics of more than one Saxon saint, and by the tomb and
imperishable body of a Saxon who had died a saint and martyr at the
hand of the Danish Pagans in the old time, before the name of Normans
was ever heard of—the superior and friars, dressed in their stoles, as
if for high mass, and the novices and the lay-brothers, were all
chanting the _Libera Nos_; and they seemed not to be intimidated or
disturbed by the flashing of swords and lances, or by the sinful
imprecations of the invaders; for still they stood where they were, in
the midst of tapers and flambards, as motionless as the stone effigies
of the saints in the niches of the chapel; and their eyes moved not
from the books of prayer, and their hands trembled not, and still they
chanted in the glorious strain of the Gregorian chant[39] (which Time
had not mended), _Libera Nos Domine!_ “Good Lord deliver us!” and when
they had finished the supplication, they struck up in a more cheerful
note, _Deus Noster Refugium_, God is our Refuge.
Fierce and unrighteous man as he was, Ivo Taille-Bois stood for a
season on the threshold of the chapel with his mailed elbow leaning on
the font that held the holy water; and, as the monks chanted, some of
his men-at-arms crossed themselves and looked as if they were conscious
of doing unholy things which ought not to be done. But when the
superior glanced at him a look of defiance, and the choir began to sing
_Quid Gloriaris?_ “Why boasteth thou thyself, thou tyrant, that thou
canst do mischief?” Ivo bit his lips, raised up his voice—raised it
higher than the voices of the chanting monks, and said, “Sir Priest, or
prior, come forth and account to the servant of thy lawful King William
of Normandie for thy unlawful doings, for thy gluttonies, backslidings,
and rebellions, for thy uncleanliness of life and thy disloyalty of
heart!” But Father Adhelm moved not, and still the monks sang on: and
they came to the versets—“Thou hast loved to speak all words that may
do hurt; oh! thou false tongue—therefore shall God destroy thee for
ever: He shall take thee and pluck thee out of thy dwelling.”
“False monk, I will first pluck thee out of thine,” cried Ivo, who knew
enough church Latin to know what the Latin meant that the monks were
chanting; and he strode across the chapel towards the superior, and
some of his men-at-arms strode hastily after him, making the stone
floor of the chapel ring with the heavy tread of their iron-bound
shoon; and some of the men-at-arms stood fast by the chapel door,
playing with the fingers of their gloves of mail and looking in one
another’s eyes or down to the ground, as if they liked not the work
that Ivo had in hand. The monks, the novices, the lay-brothers, all
gathered closely round their superior and linked their arms together so
as to prevent Ivo from reaching him; and the superior, taking his
crucifix of gold from his girdle, and raising it high above his head
and above the heads of those who girded him in, and addressing the
Norman chief as an evil spirit, or as Sathanas the father of all evil
spirits, he bade him avaunt! Ivo had drawn his sword, but at sight of
the cross he hesitated to strike, and even retired a few steps in
arrear. The monks renewed their chant; nor stopped, nor were
interrupted by any of the Normans until they had finished this Psalm.
But when it was done Ivo Taille-Bois roared out, “Friars, this is
psalmody enough! Men-at-arms, your trumpets! Sound the charge.” And
three Normans put each a trumpet to his lips and sounded the charge;
which brought all the men-at-arms careering against the monks and the
novices and the lay-brothers; so that the living fence was broken and
some of the brethren were knocked down and trampled under foot, and a
path was opened for Ivo, who first took the golden crucifix from the
uplifted hand of Father Adhelm and put it round his own neck, and then
took the good father by the throat and bade him come forth from the
chapel into the hall, where worldly business might be done without
offering insult or violence to the high altar.
“I will first pour out the curses of the church on thy sacrilegious
head,” said the superior, throwing off the Norman count, and with so
much strength that Ivo reeled and would have fallen to the ground among
the prostrate monks, if he had not first fallen against some of his
men-at-arms. Father Adhelm broke away from another Norman who clutched
him, but in so doing he left nearly all his upper garment in the
soldier’s hand, and he was rent and ragged and without his crucifix
when he reached the steps of the altar and began his malediction.
“Stop the shaveling’s tongue, but shed no blood here,” cried Ivo;
“seize him, seize them all, and bring them into the refectory!”—and so
saying the chief rushed out of the chapel into the hall. It was an
unequal match—thirty-nine men-at-arms against a few monks and boys and
waiting men; yet before the superior could be dragged from the high
altar, and conveyed with all his community into the hall, several of
the Normans were made to measure their length on the chapel floor (they
could not wrestle like our true Saxons), and some of them were so
squeezed within their mail sleeves and gorgets[40] by the grip of Saxon
hands, that they bore away the marks and smarts that lasted them many a
day. It was for this that one of them cut the weazen[41] of the sturdy
old cook as soon as he got him outside the chapel door, and that
another of them cut off the ears of the equally stout cellarer.
At last they were all conveyed, bound with their cords or girdles, into
the hall. The Taille-Bois, with his naked sword in his hand, and with a
man-at-arms on either side of him, sat at the top of the hall in the
superior’s chair of state; and the superior and the rest of the
brotherhood were brought before him like criminals.
“Brother to the devil,” said Ivo, “what was meant by thy collecting of
armed men—rebel and traitor serfs that shall rue the deed!—thy
sounding of horns on the house-top; thy fighting monks that have killed
one of my best men-at-arms; thy long delay in opening thy doors to
those who knocked at them in the name of King William; thy outrages in
the chapel, and all thy other iniquities which I have so oft-times
pardoned at the prayer of the Lady Lucia? Speak, friar, and tell me why
I should not hang thee over thine own gateway as a terror and an
example to all the other Saxon monks in this country, who are all in
their hearts enemies and traitors to the good king that God and victory
have put over this land!”
Had it not been that Father Adhelm was out of breath, from his
wrestling in the Chapel, I wist he never would have allowed Ivo
Taille-Bois to speak so long without interruption. But by the time the
Norman paused, the superior had partly recovered his breath; and he did
not keep the Norman waiting for his answer.
“Son of the fire everlasting,” cried Adhelm, “it is for me to ask what
meanest thou by thy transgressions, past and present? Why hast thou
from thy first coming among us never ceased from troubling me and these
other servants of the saints, the brothers of this poor cell? Why hast
thou seized upon and emptied our granaries and our cellars (more the
possessions of the saints and of the poor than our possessions)? Why
hast thou carried off the best of our cattle? Why hast thou and thy
people lamed our horses and our oxen, and killed our sheep and poultry?
Why hast thou caused to be assailed on the roads, and beaten with
staves and swords, the lay-brothers and servants of this house? Why
didst thou come at the dead of night like a chief of robbers with thy
men-at-arms and cut-throats to break in upon us and to wound and slay
the servants of the Lord, who have gotten thy king’s peace, and letters
of protection from the Archbishop Lanfranc?[42] Oh, Ivo Taille-Bois!
tell me why thou shouldst not be overtaken by the vengeance of man’s
law in this world, and by eternal perdition in the next?”
Ivo was not naturally a man of many words; and thinking it best to cut
the discussion short, he grinned a grim grin, and said in a calm and
business-like tone of voice, “Saxon! we did not conquer thy country to
leave Saxons possessed of its best fruits. This house and these wide
domains are much too good for thee and thine: I want them, and long
have wanted them, to bestow upon others. Wot ye not that I have beyond
the sea one brother and three cousins that have shaved their crowns and
taken to thy calling—that in Normandie, Anjou, and Maine there are
many of my kindred and friends who wear hoods and look to me for
provision and establishment in this land of ignorance and heresy, where
none of your home-dwelling Saxon monks know how to make the tonsure[43]
in the right shape?”
“Woe to the land, and woe to the good Christian people of it!” said the
superior and several of his monks; “it is then to be with us as with
the brotherhood of the great and holy abbey of St. Albans! We are to be
driven forth empty-handed and brokenhearted, and our places are to be
supplied by rapacious foreigners who speak not and understand not the
tongue of the English people! Ah woe! was it for this that Saxon saints
and martyrs died and bequeathed their bones to our keeping and their
miracles to our superintendence; that Saxon kings and queens descended
from their thrones to live among us, and die among us, and enrich us,
so that we might give a beauty to holiness, a pomp and glory to the
worship of heaven, and ample alms, and still more ample employment to
the poor? Was it for this the great and good men of our race, our
thanes and our earls, bequeathed lands and money to us? Was it to
fatten herds of alien monks, who follow in the bloody track of conquest
and devastation, and come among us with swords and staves, and clad in
mail even like your men-at-arms, that we and our predecessors in this
cell have laboured without intermission to drain these bogs and fens,
to make roads for the foot of man through this miry wilderness, to cut
broad channels to carry off the waste waters to the great deep, to turn
quagmires into bounteous corn fields, and meres into green
pastures?”[44]
While the Saxon monks thus delivered themselves, Ivo and his Normans
(or such of them as could understand what was said) ofttimes
interrupted them, and spoke in this wise—“King William hath the
sanction of his holiness the Pope for all that he hath done or doth.
Lanfranc loveth not Saxon priests and monks, and Saxon priests and
monks love not the king nor any of the Normans, but are ever privately
preaching and prating about Harold and Edgar Etheling, and putting evil
designs into the heads of the people. The Saxon saints are no saints:
who ever heard their names beyond sea? Their half-pagan kings and
nobles have heaped wealth here and elsewhere that generous Norman
knights and better bred Norman monks[45] might have the enjoyment of
it. The nest is too good for these foul birds: we have better birds to
put into it. Let us then turn these Englishers out of doors.”
The last evil deed was speedily done, and superior, monks, novices,
lay-brothers, were all thrust out of the gateway, and driven across the
bridge. If the well-directed arrow of Elfric had slain one man-at-arms
and the folk of Spalding town had slightly wounded two or three others,
the Normans had killed Father Cedric, Hubert the porter, and the man
that assisted him, had killed the cook, and cut off the ears of the
cellarer. The conquerors therefore sought to shed no more blood, and
the Taille-Bois was satisfied when he saw the brotherhood dispossessed
and turned out upon the wide world with nothing they could call their
own, except the sandals on their feet, and the torn clothes on their
backs, and two or three church books. When a little beyond the moat
they all shook the dust from their feet against the sons of the
everlasting fire; and the superior, leisurely and in a low tone of
voice, finished the malediction which he had begun in the chapel
against Ivo Taille-Bois. This being over, Father Adhelm counted his
little flock and said, “But oh, my children, where is the good Cedric?”
“Cedric was killed on the house-top, and lies dead in the moat,” said
one of the lay-brothers who had learned his fate when the rest of the
community were ignorant of it.
“Peace to his soul, and woe to him that slew him!” said the superior;
“but where is Elfric? I see not the brave boy Elfric.”
“I saw Elfric outside the walls of our house and running for the
Welland, just as the Normans were admitted,” said the lay-brother who
had before spoken, “and it must have been he that sent the arrow
through the brain of the man-at-arms that lies there on the green
sward.”
“He will send his arrows through the brains of many more of them,” said
the superior. “My children, I feel the spirit of prophecy speaking
within me, and I tell ye all that Elfric, our whilome novice, will live
to do or cause to be done more mischief to the oppressors of his
country than all the chiefs that have taken up arms against them. He
hath a head to plan, and a heart to dare, and a strong hand to execute.
I know the course he will take. He will return to the Isle of Ely, the
place of his birth, in the midst of the many waters, and throw himself
into the Camp of Refuge, where the Saxon motto is ‘Death or
Independence.’”
Before moving to the near bank of the Welland, or to the spot to which
the Normans had sent down the ferry-boat, Father Adhelm again counted
his little flock, and said, “Cedric lies dead in the moat, Hubert and
Bracho lie cold under the archway, Elfric the novice is fled to be a
thorn in the sides of these Normans, but, oh tell me! where is good
Oswald the cook?”
“After they had dragged your reverence into the hall, a man-at-arms cut
his throat, even as Oswald used to cut the throats of swine; and he
lies dead by the chapel-door.”
“_Misericordia!_ (O mercy on us!) Go where we will, we shall never find
so good a cook again!”
Although it seemed but doubtful where or when they should find material
for another meal the afflicted community repeated the superior’s alacks
and misericordias! mourning the loss of old Oswald as a man and as a
Saxon, but still more as the best of cooks.[46]