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CHAPTER IV.

THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST.

It was on a wet evening in autumn, as the rain was descending in torrents upon swamps that seemed to have collected all the rains that had been falling since the departure of summer, and just as the monks of Ely were singing the Ave Maria (Dulce cantaverunt Monachi in Ely!) that Elfric, the whilom novice of Spalding, surrounded by some of the Lord Abbat's people and many of the town folk, who were all laughing and twitching at his cloak, arrived at the gate of the hospitium. Our Lord Abbat Frithric had brought with him two holy books. Elfric, our novice, had brought with him two grim Norman heads, for he had not been idle on the road, but had surprised and killed on the borders of the fen country first one man-at-arms and then another; and the good folk of Ely were twitching at his mantle in order that they might see again the trophies which he carried under his broad sleeve. At his first coming to the well-guarded ford across the Ouse the youth had made himself known. Was he not the youngest son of Goodman Hugh, who dwelt aforetime by Saint Ovin's Cross, hard by the village of Hadenham, and only a few bow-shot from the good town of Ely? And when the Saxons had seen the two savage Norman heads, and had looked in the youth's face, the

elders declared that he was the very effigies of the Goodman Hugh; and some of the younkers said that, albeit his crown was shorn, and his eye not so merry as it was, they recalled his face well, and eke the days when Elfric the son of Goodman Hugh played at bowls with them in the bowlingalley of Ely, and bobbed for eels with them in the river, and went out with them to snare wild waterfowl in the fens. Judge, therefore, if he met not with an hospitable reception from town and gown, from the good folk of Ely, and from all the monks!

So soon as Elfric had refreshed himself in the hospitium, he was called to the presence of Abbat Thurstan, and in truth to the presence of all the abbat's noble and reverend guests, for Thurstan was seated in his great hall, where the servitors were preparing for the supper. Elfric would have taken his trophies with him, but the loaf-man who brought the message doubted whether the abbat would relish the sight of dead men's heads close afore suppertime, and told him that his prowess was already known; and so Elfric proceeded without his trophies to the great hall, where he was welcomed by the noble company like another David that had slain two Goliaths. When he had told the story of Ivo Taille-Bois' long persecution and night attack, and his own flight and journey, and had answered numerous questions put to him by the grave assembly, Abbat Thurstan asked him whether he knew what had happened at Spalding since his departure, and what had become of Father Adhelm and his monks, and what fate had befallen the good Abbat of Crowland.

"After my flight from the succursal cell," said the youth, "I dwelt for a short season at Crowland,

hidden in the township, or in Deeping-fen, whither also came unto the abbey Father Adhelm and the rest of that brotherhood of Spalding; and there we learned how Ivo Taille-Bois had sent over to his own country to tell his kinsmen that he had to offer them a good house, convenient for a prior and five friars, ready built, ready furnished, and well provided with lands and tenements; and how these heretical and unsound Norman monks were hastening to cross the Channel and take possession of the succursal cell at Spalding. My Lord Abbat

of Crowland, having what they call the king's peace, and holding the letters of protection granted by Lanfranc".... "They will protect no man of Saxon blood, and the priest or monk that accepts them deserves excommunication," said Frithric, the Abbat of Saint Albans.

"Amen!" said Elfric; "but our Abbat of Crowland, relying upon these hollow and rotten reeds, laid his complaints before the king's council at that time assembled near unto Peterborough, and sought redress and restitution. But the Normans sitting in council not only refused redress and absolved Taille-Bois, but also praised him for what he had done in the way of extortion, pillage, sacrilege, and murder; and

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"My once wise brother thy Abbat of Crowland ought to have known all this beforehand," said the Abbat of Saint Albans ; " for do not these foreigners all support and cover one another, and form a close league, bearing one upon another, even as on the body of the old dragon scale is laid over scale?"

"Sic est, my Lord Abbat," said the youth, bowing reverentially to the dignitary of the church and the best of Saxon patriots, "so is it, my lord!

and dragons and devils are these Normans all! Scarcely had the decision of the king's council reached our house at Crowland ere it was surrounded by armed men, and burst open at the dead of night, as our poor cell at Spalding had been, and Father Adhelm and all those who had lived under his rule at Spalding were driven out as disturbers of the king's peace! I should have come hither sooner, but those to whom my obedience was due begged me to tarry awhile. Now I am only the forerunner of Father Adhelm and his brethren, and of my Lord Abbat of Crowland himself, for the abbat can no longer bear the wrongs that are put upon him, and can see no hope upon earth and no resting-place in broad England, except in the Camp of Refuge."

"Another abbat an outcast and a wanderer! This spacious house will be all too full of Saxon abbats and bishops: but I shall make room for this new comer," said Frithric of Saint Albans to Egelwin, Bishop of Durham.

Divers of the monks of Ely, and specialiter the chamberlain, who kept the accounts of the house, and the cellarer, who knew the daily drain made on the wine-butts, looked blank at this announcement of more guests; but the bounteous and big-hearted Abbat of Ely said, "Our brother of Crowland, and Father Adhelm of Spalding, shall be welcome here-yea, and all they may bring with them; but tell me, oh youth, are they near at hand, or afar off in the wilderness?"

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"The feet of age travel not so fast as the feet of youth," said Elfric; age thinks, youth runs. wot I was at Rumsey mere before they got to the Isle of Thorney, and crossed the Ouse before they came to the Nene; but as, by the blessing of the

saints," and the youth might have said, in consequence of exercise and low living, "Father Adhelm's podagra hath left him, they can hardly fail of being here on the day of Saint Edmund, our blessed king and martyr, and that saint's day is the next day after to-morrow."

"It shall be a feast-day," said Thurstan; “for albeit Saint Edmund be not so great a saint as our own saint, Etheldreda, the founder of this house, and the monks of Saint Edmund-Bury (the loons have submitted to the Norman!) have more to do with his worship than we have, King Edmund is yet a great saint-a true Saxon saint, whose worship is old in the land; and it hath been the custom of this house to exercise hospitality on his festival. Therefore will we hold that day as we have been wont to hold it; and our brothers from Crowland and Spalding, who must be faring but badly in the fens, shall be welcomed with a feast."

So bounteous and open-handed was the true Saxon Abbat of Ely. But the chamberlain set his worldly head to calculate the expense, and the cellarer muttered to himself, "By Saint Withburga and her holy well, our cellars will soon be dry!"

On Saint Edmund's eve, after evening service in the choir, and after saying his prayers apart in the chapel of Saint Marie, Frithric the Abbat of Saint Albans departed this life. His last words were, that England would be England still; and all those who heard the words and had English hearts believed that he was inspired, and that the spirit of prophecy spoke in his dying voice. The Abbat of Crowland was so near that he heard the passing-bell, as its sad sounds floated over the fens, telling all the faithful that might be there of their duty to put up a prayer

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