CHAPTER V.

THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL.

At as early an hour as the church services and devotional exercises would allow, Thurstan opened a chapter in the chapter-house, which stood on the north side, hard by the chief gate of the church. As his lordship entered, he said—the words that were appointed to be said on such occasions—“May the souls of all the deceased brethren of this house, and the souls of all true believers, rest in peace!” And the convent replied, “Amen!” Then the Lord Abbat spoke again, and said, “_Benedicite_,” and the convent bowed their heads. And next he said, “Oh Lord! in thy name!” and then, “Let us speak of the order.” And hereupon all present crossed themselves, and bent their heads on their breasts, and the business of the chapter commenced. Only the prior, the sub-prior, the cellarer or bursar, the sacrist, and sub-sacrist, the chamberlain or treasurer, and the other chief officials or _obedientiarii_, and the other cloistered monks, _maturi fratres_, whose noviciate had been long passed, and whose monastic vows had been all completed, had the right of being present in chapter, and of deliberating and voting upon the business of the house and order. All that passed in chapter was, in a manner, _sub sigillo confessionis_, and not to be disclosed by any deliberating member to the rest of the convent, or to any of them, and much less was it to be revealed to any layman, or to any man beyond the precincts of the abbey. In these consultations, on the day next after the festival of Saint Edmund’s, the monks of Ely sat long with closed doors. When they came forth of the chapter-house it was noticed that the face of the Lord Abbat was very red, and that the faces of the prior and cellarer were very pale. A lay-brother, who had been working on the top of the chapter-house out-side, repairing some chinks in the roof, whispered to his familiars that he had heard very high words passing below, and that he had distinctly heard my Lord Abbat say, “Since the day of my election and investiture no brother of this house has been loaded with chains, and thrown into the underground dungeon; but, by the shrine of Saint Etheldreda, were I to find one traitor among us, I would bind him and chain him, and leave him to rot! And were there two of our brotherhood unfaithful to the good cause, and to King Harold, and plotting to betray the last hopes of England and this goodly house, and its tombs and shrines and blessed relics, to the Norman, I would do what hath been done aforetime in this abbey—I would bury them alive, or build them up in the niches left in our deep foundation walls!”[90]

Now the gossips of the house, making much out of little, went about the cloisters whispering to one another that some sudden danger was at hand, and that my Lord Abbat suspected the prior and the cellarer of some secret correspondence with the Norman knights that garrisoned Duke William’s castle near unto Cam-Bridge.

“If it be so,” said Elfric, the novice from Spalding, “I would advise every true Saxon monk, novice, and lay-brother, to keep their eyes upon the cellarer and the prior!”

“That shall be done,” said an old lay-brother.

“Aye, we will all watch their outgoings and their comings in,” said several of the gossips; “for the prior is a hard-dealing, peremptory man, and cunning and crafty at the same time, never looking one in the face; and ever since last pasque the cellarer hath shown an evil habit of stinting us underlings and loaf-eaters in our meat and drink.”

“He hath ever been given too little to drink himself to be a true Saxon,” said another; “we will watch him well!”

And they all said that they would watch the cellarer and eke the prior; that they would for ever love, honour, and obey Thurstan their good and bountiful Lord Abbat; and that they would all die with swords or spears in their hands rather than see the Normans enter the Camp of Refuge. So one-hearted was the community at this time.

Shortly after finishing the chapter in the usual manner, and coming out with his chaplains, singing _Verba Mea_, Lord Thurstan went into his own hall, and there assembled all the high and noble guests of the house, whether laics, or priests, or monks, and all the obedientiarii and cloistered brothers of the abbey, except the prior and the cellarer, who had gone to their several cells with faces yet paler than they were when they came forth from the chapter-house. In my Lord Abbat’s hall no business was discussed that appertained exclusively to the house or order: the deliberations all turned upon the general interests of the country, or upon the means of prolonging the struggle for national independence. Thurstan, after reminding the assembly that the Saxon heroes of the Camp of Refuge had foiled the Normans in two attempts they had made to penetrate into the Isle of Ely—the one in the summer of the present year, and the other in the summer of the preceding year, one thousand and sixty-nine—and that it was four good years since the battle of Hastings, which William the Norman had bruited on the continent as a victory which had given him possession of all England, frankly made it known to all present that he had certain intelligence that the Normans were making vast preparations at Cam-Bridge, at Bury, at Stamford, at Huntingdon, and even at Brunn, in order to invade the whole fenny country, and to press upon the Isle of Ely and the Camp of Refuge from many opposite quarters. My Lord Abbat further made it known that the duke had called to this service all his bravest and most expert captains, and a body of troops that had been trained to war in Brittanie and in other parts wherein there were fens and rivers and meres, and thick-growing forests of willow and alder, even as in the country of East Anglia. He also told them how Duke William had sworn by the splendour of God’s face that another year should not pass without seeing the Abbey of Ely in flames, the Camp of Refuge broken into and scattered, the rule of the Normans established over the whole land, and the refractory Saxons exterminated. “Now,” said my Lord Abbat, “it behoves us to devise how we shall withstand this storm, and to select some fitting and experienced captain that shall have authority over all the fighting men of our league, and that shall be able to measure swords with these vaunted leaders from foreign parts. Our brave Saxon chiefs in the camp, or in this house, and now present among us, are weary of their jealousies of one another, and have wisely agreed to obey, one and all, one single leader of experience and fame and good fortune, if such a leader can anywhere be found, having a true Saxon heart within him, and being one that hath never submitted to or negociated with the invader. Let us then cast about and try and find such a chief. Let every one speak his mind freely, and then we can compare and choose.”

Some named one chief, and some another: many brave and expert men were named successively and with much applause, and with many expressions of hope and confidence; but when Father Adhelm, the expelled prior of the succursal cell at Spalding, stood up in his turn, and with the briefest preamble named Hereward the son of Leofric, the late Lord of Brunn, Hereward the truest of Saxons, the other chiefs seemed to be all forgotten, even by those who had severally proposed them, and the assembly listened in silence, or with a silence interrupted only by shouts of triumph, while this good prior and whilom neighbour of Hereward related the chief events of that warrior’s life, and pointed out the hereditary and the personal claims he had to the consideration of his countrymen. Ever since the earliest days in which the Saxons gained a footing on the land, the Lords of Brunn, the ancestors of Hereward, had been famed for their valour in the field, famed for their prudence in the Witan and in all other councils, had been famed above all their neighbours for their hospitality! And when the Saxons embraced the Gospel as preached by Saint Augustine and his disciples, who had been so devout as the Lords of Brunn? who so bountiful to the shrines of saints and religious houses? who so ready to fight unto death in defence of the church? Notable it was, and known unto all that dwelt in the land of fens, that the house of Crowland, and the house of Ely, and the shrine of Saint Etheldreda, had been served in the hour of need by many of Hereward’s forefathers. When the unconverted, heathenish Danes were ravaging the country, and burning all the monasteries, and tethering their horses in the chapels of royal palaces, one Lord of Brunn fought in the ranks by the side of Friar Tolli,[91] from sunrise to sunset, for the defence of the Abbey of Crowland, nor ceased fighting until three of the Danish sea-kings had been slain, and the monks had had time to remove their relics, and their books, and their sacred vases, into the impenetrable marshes of that vicinity. Another Lord of Brunn,[92] who at the call of the monks had marched across the fens with all his people, and with all of his family that could wield a sword, had perished close under the walls of Ely Abbey, after defeating the Pagans, and driving them back towards their ships. The blood of each of these Lords of Brunn ran in the veins of Hereward, and his deeds had proved him worthy of the blood. In his youth—in the days of Edward[93] the Confessor—when the cunning Normans were beginning to beset the court of the childless king, and to act as if the inheritance was already their own, and the people of England already their slaves, it chanced that our Hereward, who had been on a pilgrimage to Canterbury,[94] came back to the sea by Dover, and found Count Eustace of Boulogne, and his French men-at-arms engaged in a fierce quarrel with the men of Dover, and galloping through the streets with their naked swords in their hands, striking men and women, and crushing divers children under their horses’ hoofs. Hereward, though but a stripling, drew his blade, rallied the dull townsfolk, who before had no leader, (and so were fighting loosely and without order, and without any science of war,) and renewing the battle at a vantage, he slew with his own hand a French knight; and then the men of Dover slew nineteen of the strangers, wounded many more, and drove Count Eustace and the rest out of the town to fly in dismay back to king Edward. Later, when Harold,[95] as earl of the eastern counties, and chief of king Edward’s armies, marched into Wales to curb the insolent rage of King Griffith, Hereward attended him, and fought with him among the mountains and glens, and lakes and morasses of Wales, until that country was reduced by many victories, and Harold took shipping to return to King Edward with the head of Griffith stuck upon the rostrum or beak of his galley. Later still, when Hereward was of manly age, and King Edward the Confessor was dead, having bequeathed his crown to Harold, and Harold as our true king raised his banner of war to march against his own unnatural brother Earl Tostig,[96] who had brought the King of Norway and a great army of Norwegians into the country of York to deprive him of his throne or dismember his kingdom, Hereward marched with him with many of his father’s stout men of Brunn, and fought under Harold’s eye in the great battle at Stamford Bridge—that battle which ceased not until Earl Tostig and the king of Norway were both slain, and the river was choked up with the Norwegian dead. From Stamford Bridge the march of bold Harold was to Hastings, for the Normans had landed while he had been vanquishing the Norwegians. On that long and rapid march,[97] when hundreds of tried soldiers lagged behind, Hereward kept pace with his royal master; and when the battle was arrayed he was seen riding by Harold’s side; and when the battle joined, his battle-axe was seen close by the battle-axes of Harold and the king’s two loyal and brave brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dealing terrible blows, and cutting the steel caps and the coats of mail of the Normans like chaff. Saxons, remember that he fought at Hastings through nine long hours, and did not yield until ye saw that ye were betrayed! Separated from his king in the fury of the last _melée_, Hereward attempted to rally the East Angles and the men of Kent; and failing in that, and hearing a mighty rumour that Harold the king was slain, he galloped to the port of Winchelsey with a few of his father’s trusty people, and there embarked for foreign parts, vowing that he would never bow his head to the conqueror. The father[98] of Hereward, being old and infirm, and infected by the unmanly fears which made so many Saxons throw aside the sword before the conquest of England was well begun, had made haste to tender his allegiance to the son of the harlot, had obtained his peace, and had been allowed to retain his lordship of Brunn, after paying sundry fines for his son’s patriotism. But latterly the old Lord of Brunn had been gathered to his fathers, and a Norman chief had seized his manor-house and all his lands, and was now keeping them as his patrimony. Such, being told briefly, was the story which Father Adhelm told to my Lord Abbat of Ely and his guests and officials; and when he had done, he asked, where could a better chief be found for the Camp of Refuge than Hereward the true Saxon, and legitimate Lord of Brunn? And, hereupon, there was a clapping of hands and shouting of voices in all that noble and devout assembly—a shouting so loud that it echoed through all the abbey, and was heard as far off as Saint Ovin’s Cross; and the indwellers of the town of Ely, albeit they knew not what it meant, took up the cry, and shouted, “Hereward to the Camp of Refuge! Hereward for England!”

“Bethinks me,” said the cautelous Abbat of Crowland, when the noise had ceased, “that perchance Hereward will not come to us at our summons. He must know how false our country has proved to herself, and how great the progress the conqueror hath made in it: his lands and all his inheritance are gone, a price is set upon his head in England, and his valour and experience in war, and his other good qualities, have made for him a prosperous and honorable home in a foreign land.[99] While yet in my poor house at Crowland, a shipman from the Wash, who trades to the opposite coast, told me that he had lately seen at Ypres my Lord Hereward, living in great affluence and fame; and the mariner further told me that Hereward had said to him that he would never wend back to a land of cowards and traitors; that he had carved himself out new estates in the fattest lands of the Netherlands, and that England had nothing to give him except dishonour or a grave.”[100]

These representations damped the hopes of some of the company; but as Hereward’s mind could not be known without a trial, it was determined to send some trusty messenger across the seas, who might gain access to the presence of the chief, and at the same time purchase and bring back with him a supply of arms and warlike harness, with other things much needed in the Camp of Refuge. The difficulties of this embassage struck all that were present: “And who,” said the Lord Abbat, “shall be this trusty and expert messenger?”

“Were it not for the greenness of his years and the lowliness of his condition,” said the Prior of Spalding, “I would even venture to recommend for the mission my bold-hearted, clear-headed, and nimble-footed novice, Elfric.”

“Brother, thou hast said it,” responded Thurstan; “thy novice shall go! Let the youth be summoned hither.”

The novice was soon kneeling at my Lord Abbat’s feet, and was soon made acquainted as well with the difficult task he was expected to perform, as with the uncomfortable doubts which had been propounded by the Abbat of Crowland. When asked by his own immediate superior, Father Adhelm, whether he would undertake the task, he answered, “Marry, and that I will right gladly. When I first went to Spalding, I knew well Hereward, the son of the Lord of Brunn, and some of those that were nearest to him. If England is to be saved, he is the man that will save it. I would go to the world’s end to find him and bring him hither. I love my country, and I love travelling better than my meat and drink. I have oft-times prayed to Saint Ovin that he would vouchsafe me the grace of going into foreign parts! Moreover, my prime duty is obedience to my superiors. Let me depart instantly, and I will the sooner bring you back Lord Hereward!”

“Thou art very confident,” said the Abbat of Crowland: “how knowest thou that Hereward will come with thee?”

“My lord and master,” said the novice, “I ween I can take over with me a word of command, or a prayer more potential than a command, and one which Hereward could not withstand even if he were king of all the Netherlands’ country, and sure death stood upon the English beach to seize him on return!”

“What does this young man mean?” said the Abbat of Crowland.

Elfric blushed, stammered, and could not go on.

“What dost thou mean?” said his Prior of Spalding.

Elfric stammered more than before, which angered his superior, and brought down some harsh words upon his head.

“Nay,” said the good old Bishop of Lindisfarn,[101] “chide not the young man, but give him to collect his thought and frame his speech. He may know more of Lord Hereward than any one here knoweth. But ... but I hope that this novice of a goodly house doth not think of employing any witchcraft or unlawful spell! _De maleficio libera nos!_ From witchcraft and sacrilege, and all the arts of the devil, good Lord deliver us!”

The bishop crossed himself; they all crossed themselves; and Elfric not only crossed himself, but likewise said “_Libera nos!_” and “_Amen!_” But when he had so done and so said, his merry eye twinkled, and there was as much of a smile about his mouth as the reverence due to the company allowed of in a novice.

“If there be magic,” said he, “it is all white magic; if there be a spell, it is not an unholy spell.” And as Elfric said these words he looked into the good-natured, right hearty, and right English face of my Lord Abbat Thurstan.

“Speak on, boy,” said the abbat; “speak out, my brave boy, and fear nought!”

Being thus heartened, Elfric said: “Then, to speak with reverence before this noble and reverend company, I wot well there were, when I was first at Spalding, and when my Lord Hereward was at Brunn, certain love-passages....”

“Certain _what_?” said the expelled Abbat of Cockermouth, who was somewhat deaf.

“Love-passages,” said Elfric, looking very archly, and with a laugh in his eyes, if not on his lips; “certain love-passages between the son of the Lord of Brunn and the noble maiden Alftrude, the young daughter and heiress to the lord of the neighbouring town, that old Saxon lord, Albert of Ey.”[102]

“Truth, the two houses stood not very far apart,” said the Abbat of Crowland; “but Albert of Ey was no friend to the old Lord of Brunn.”

“Most true, my lord; but Albert died before his neighbour, and left his wide estates to his fair daughter Alftrude, having first given her in ward to this Lanfranc, who is by some called Archbishop of Canterbury, and whose will and power few can gainsay. Moreover, the Ladie Alftrude is cousin to the Ladie Lucia, whom Ivo Taille-Bois hath made his wife; and as that arch-enemy of our house extends his protection to his wife’s cousin, not wishing that her lands should be seized by any hungry Norman other than a relation of his own, the heiress of Ey hath been allowed to live in the old manor-house, and to enjoy such proportion of her father’s wealth as Lanfranc chooseth to allow her. Many Norman knights have sought her hand, as the best means of obtaining her land, but the Saxon maiden had ever said Nay! And Lanfranc, who hath done violence to the very church for his own interest, and Ivo Taille-Bois, who got his own Saxon wife by violence, have hitherto had power enough to prevent any great wrong or violence being done to Ladie Alftrude, the heiress of Ey. Now the Ladie Alftrude remembers the times that are past, and sighs and weeps for the return of Hereward, vowing that she will wed none but him, and that——”

“Thou seemeth well informed in these matters,” said one of the monks; “but prithee, how didst thou obtain thine information?”

Elfric stammered a little, and blushed a good deal as he said, “The young Ladie Alftrude hath long had for her handmaiden one Mildred of Hadenham, a daughter of my late father’s friend, a maiden well behaved and well favoured, and pious withal; and when I was sent to the manor-house of Ey upon the business of our own house at Spalding, and when I met Mildred at the church, or wake, or fair, we were ever wont to talk about my Lord Hereward and my Ladie Alftrude, as well as of other matters.”

“Father Adhelm,” said my Lord Abbat of Crowland in a whisper, “surely thou hast allowed too much liberty to thy convent.”

“My lord,” replied the Prior of Spalding, “It is but a novice that speaks; Elfric is not a cloister monk.”

“No, and never will be,” said the Abbat of Crowland, in another whisper.

“I now see thy spell,” said Thurstan, addressing Elfric, who was standing silent, and still blushed; “I now see the witchcraft that thou wouldest use. And dost thou believe that the Ladie Alftrude so loves Hereward that she will jeopardise her estates for him, and call home and marry him, though an outlaw? And dost thou believe that Lord Hereward so loveth the Ladie Alftrude as to quit his new-found fortunes for her, and to come at her bidding into England?”

“I believe in loving hearts,” replied Elfric; “I believe in all that Mildred ever told me about Ladie Alftrude; and I can guess better than your shipman and trader of the Wash what it was that made Lord Hereward talk so high about his greatness in foreign parts, and vilipend[103] his own country, and made declarations that he would never return to a land of cowardice, and treachery, and falsehood. The exile hath heard that the Ladie Lucia hath become the wife of Ivo-Taille-Bois, probably without hearing the violence and the craft which brought about that unholy marriage; and probably without knowing how much the Ladie Lucia grieves, and how very a prisoner she is in her own manor-house, and in the midst of her own lands and serfs. My Lord Hereward may also have heard some unlucky rumours about a marriage between the Lady Alftrude and some brother or cousin of Taille-Bois, which idle gossips said was to take place with the sanction of Lanfranc; and judge ye, my lords and holy fathers, whether this would not be enough to drive Hereward mad! But a little wit and skill, and a little good luck, and all these cross and crooked things may be made straight. If I can win to see the Ladie Alftrude, and get from her some love-token and some comfortable messages to the exiled Lord of Brunn, and if I can declare and vow, of mine own knowledge, that the heart of the fair Saxon is aye the same, write me down a traitor or a driveller, my lords, an I bring not Hereward back with me.”

“Of a surety he will do it,” said Abbat Thurstan, rubbing his hands joyously.

“I understand not much of this love logic, but I think he will do it,” said the Abbat of Crowland.

“He will do anything,” said the Prior of Spalding; “but once let loose on this wild flight, we shall never again get the young hawk back to hand.”

The rest of the business was soon arranged, and precisely and in every part as the novice himself suggested. No one thought of exacting oaths of fidelity from Elfric. His faith, his discretion, and his valour had been well tried already, and his honest countenance gave a better assurance than oaths and bonds. As Saxon monks were the least acceptable of all visitors to the Normans, and as the dress of monk or palmer no longer gave protection to any man of English birth, and as the late novice of Spalding might chance to be but too well known in Ivo Taille-Bois’ vicinity, Elfric disguised himself as one of the poorest of the wandering menestrels—half musician, half beggar and idiot; and in this guise and garb, he, on the second day after the feast of Saint Edmund, set out alone to find his way across the fens, through the posts and watches of the Normans, and so on to the manor-house and the jealously guarded bower of the Ladie Alftrude. He was to return to Ely, if good fortune attended him, within seven days; and then he would be ready to proceed to the country of the Netherlanders, to seek for Lord Hereward, and to purchase the warlike harness that was wanted. As soon as he had taken his departure from the abbey, a quick boat was sent down the Ouse with orders to the steadiest and oftenest-tried shipman of Lynn to get his good bark in readiness for a sea-voyage, and to bring it up to Ely, in order to take on board an important passenger bound on an embassage for my Lord Abbat.

Although the love of the Lady Alftrude might perchance bring back Lord Hereward, it was not likely that it should buy from the trading men of Ypres, or Ghent, or Bruges, the bows and the cross-bows, the swords and the lanceheads, the coats of mail, and the other gear that were so much wanted; and therefore Abbat Thurstan, after collecting what little he could from his guests and in the Camp of Refuge, and after taking his own signet-ring from his finger, and his own prelatical cross of gold and chain of gold from his neck, called upon the chamberlain and the cellarer and the sacrist for all the coin that had been put by the pilgrims into the shrine-box. This time the livid-faced cellarer was silent and obedient; but the chamberlain, demurring to the order of my Lord Abbat, said, “Surely these contributions of the faithful were at all times devoted to the repairing and beautifying of our church!”

“Thou sayeth it,” quoth my Lord Abbat; “but if we get not weapons and harness wherewith to withstand the invaders, we shall soon have no church left us to repair or beautify. By the holy face and incorruptible body of Saint Etheldreda, I will strip her very shrine of the gold plates which adorn it, and of the silver lamps which burn before it, and melt the gold and the silver, and barter the ingots for arms, rather than see the last refuge of my countrymen broken in upon, and the accursed Normans in my house of Ely!”

“But doth not this savour of sacrilege?” said the sacrist.

“Not so much as of patriotism and of real devotion to our saint and foundress. Saint Etheldreda, a true Saxon and East Anglian saint, will approve of the deed, if it should become necessary to strip her shrine. Her honour and sanctity depend not on lamps of silver and plates of gold, however rich and rare: the faithful flocked to her tomb, and said their orisons over it when it was but a plain stone block, with no shrine near it; and well I ween more miracles were wrought there, in the simple old times, than we see wrought now. Should the Normans get into our church, they will strip the shrine, an we do not; and they will rifle the tombs of Saint Sexburga, Saint Ermenilda, and Saint Withburga[104] and cast forth the bodies of our saints upon the dung-heap! Oh, sacrist! know ye not how these excommunicated foreigners are everywhere treating the saints of Saxon birth, and are everywhere setting up strange saints, whose names were never before heard by Englishmen, and cannot be pronounced by them! The reason of all this is clear: our Saxon hagiology is filled with the names of those that were patriots as well as saints, and we cannot honour them in one capacity without thinking of them in the other.”

“This is most true,” said the chamberlain; “and the Normans be likewise setting up new shrines to the Blessed Virgin, and bringing in Notre Dames, and our Ladie of Walsingham, and other Ladies that were never heard of before; and they are enforcing pilgrimages in wholly new directions! If these things endure, alack and woe the while for our house of Ely, and for the monks of Saint Edmund’s-Bury, and for all Saxon houses! Our shrine boxes will be empty; we shall be neglected and forgotten in the land, even if the Normans do not dispossess us.”