"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 cutthroats 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? 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 homedwelling Saxon monks know how to make the tonsure 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 broken-hearted, 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 that 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 ?"

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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 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."

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"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, 66 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."

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"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 for 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! 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.