CHAPTER II.

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, 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 ire, a day of God's wrath. Aldred, the archbishop of York, had died of very grief and anguish

of mind: Stigand, 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, the sons of Alfgar, brothers-in-law to King Harold, and the best and 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. 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.

Frithrie, the right-hearted Abbat of St. Albans, had been driven from his abbey with all his brethren; and Paul, a young man from Nor-mandie and a reputed son of the intrusive Archbishop Lanfrane, 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 thesame fate, and he, the abbat, was sick and broken-hearted, 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 sueeour; 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, 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, 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; 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 TailleBois 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