The Camp of Refuge: A Tale of the Conquest of the Isle of Ely

by Charles MacFarlane

  CHAPTER XXI.

  THE MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT.

  As no corn came, and no wine could be had, the tribulations andmurmurings in the monastery grew louder and louder. Certain of themonks had never looked with a friendly eye upon Girolamo theSalernitan, but now there was suddenly raised an almost universalclamour among them that that dark-visaged and thin-bodied alien was,and ever had been, a necromancer. Unmindful of the many services he haddone, and forgetting how many times they had, when the drinking-hornscould be well filled, rejoiced and jubilated at his successes, and_specialiter_ on that not far by-gone day when he had burned the Normanwitch, in the midst of her incantations, with the reeds and grass ofthe fen, the monks now called him by the foulest and most horrible ofall names, and some of them even called out for his death. These mensaid that if Girolamo were brought to the stake and burned as he hadburned the Norman witch, the wrath of Heaven would be appeased, andmatters would go much better with the house of St. Etheldreda, and withall the English people. Albeit they all knew how innocently thosedevils had been made; and, albeit they had seen with their own eyes,that Girolamo was constant at prayers, mass, and confession, and thathe never prepared his mixtures and compounds until after prayer andlong fasting (to say nothing of his frequently partaking in theSacrament of our Lord's Supper), they rumoured, even like the Normans,that he had raised devils, and employed fen-fiends, and incubuses, andsuccubuses, and had lit hell-fires upon the pools and within the holyhouse at Crowland; that he was ever attended by a demon, called by himChemeia;[212] that he had been a Jew, and next a follower ofMahound;[213] that he had sold his soul to the devil of devils atJerusalem or Mecca: that he did not eat and drink like Saxons andChristians, only because he went to graves and charnel-houses at thedead of night, and feasted upon the bodies of the dead with his fiendsand hell-hounds--with a great deal more too horrible and obscene tomention.[214]

  Now before a breath of this bad wind reached him, Girolamo had begun togrow a-weary of the Fen-country; and but for his deadly-hatred to theNorman race and his great love for the Lord of Brunn, he would havequitted it and England, long before this season, to wander again intosome sunny climate. Ofttimes would he say to himself in his solitarymusings,--"Oh flat, wet, and fenny land, shall mine eyes never morebehold a mountain? Oh fogs, and vapours, and clouds for ever droppingrain, shall I never see a bright blue sky again?[215] Oh fireless,watery sun, scarcely brighter or warmer than the moon in my own landbeyond the Alps and the Apennines, shall I never see thee again in thyglory? Am I to perish in these swamps--to be buried in a bog? Oh forone glimpse before I die of mine own blue mountains, and bright blueseas and skies!--one glance at thy bay, oh beautiful Salerno, and atthe mountain of Saint Angelo and the hills of Amalfi, at the othermountains, and hills, and olive-groves, and gay vine-yards that girdthee in! There be no hills here but mud-banks; no trees but dull aldersand willows.[216] But courage, sinking heart, or sinking, shiveringframe, for there is food here for my revenge; there be Normans here tocircumvent and kill!"

  So did the Salernitan commune with himself in his many lonely hours(many because he sought them and avoided the society of men) before theevil tongues were wagged against him. Upon his first hearing what themonks were then beginning to say of him, he only muttered to himself,"This is a dull-witted generation that I have fallen among! TheseSaxons go still on all-fours! They are but ultra-montanes andbarbarians, knowing nothing of the history of past ages, or of theforce and effect of the natural sciences! Dolts are they all except theLord Hereward, and his share of wit is so great that none is left forhis countrymen. But Hereward is worthy of ancient Rome; and it is notthe stupid sayings of his people that will make me quit his side anddisappoint my vengeance. I have done these same Saxons some goodservice, and I will do them more before I die or go hence. They willthink better of me when they know more of me, and of the natural meanswherewith I work mine ends. Ha! ha! I needs must laugh when I hear thatGirolamo of Salerno, the witch-seeker and the destroyer of witches, thesworn foe to all magic save the MAGIA ALBA, which is no magic at all,but only science, should be named as a wizard and necromancer! Oh! yegood doctors, and teachers of Salerno who flourished and began to makea school for the study of Nature before the Normans came among us,think of this--think of your pupil, penitent, and devotee, being takenin these dark septentrional regions for a sorcerer! Ha! ha!"

  But when Girolamo saw that the Saxon people were beginning to avoid himas one that had the pest, and that the monks of Ely were pointing athim with the finger, and that silent tongues and angry eyes, withcrossings and spittings on the ground and coarse objurgations, met himwherever he went, he grew incensed and spoke freely with the Lord ofBrunn about it.

  "Girolamo, my friend and best coadjutor," said the Lord of Brunn,"think nothing of it! This is but the talk of ignorance or malice.Beshrew me an I do not think that the Normans have gotten some traitorto raise this babel and thereby injure us. But the Lord Abbat Thurstan,who hath shrieved and assoiled thee so often, will now answer for thepurity of thy faith as for his own, and will silence these murmurers."

  But it was not so: Hereward made too large an account not of the goodwill, but of the power of Thurstan, not knowing all that passed in thechapters of the house, nor so much as suspecting half of the cabalsthat were framing in secret meetings and in close discussions by nightin the dormitories. No sooner had the Lord Abbat begun to reprehendsuch as spoke evil of the Salernitan, than the factious and false partsof the monks declared among themselves that, Christian prelate as hewas, he had linked himself with a sorcerer; and in charges they hadalready prepared, and with great privacy written down upon parchment,they inserted this--that Abbat Thurstan, unmindful of the duties of hisholy office, and in contempt of the remonstrances of the prior, thechamberlain, and others, the majority of the house Ely, had madehimself the friend and defensor of the said Girolamo of Salerno, thatdark mysterious man who had notoriously sold himself to the arch-fiend,who had gone into the depths and iniquities of necromancy beyond allprecedent, and who had, by his truly diabolical art, raised devils,trafficked with witches, and brought hell-fires upon earth.

  It was at this juncture of time that two pretended pilgrims anddevotees of Saint Etheldreda arrived at the guest-house of Ely, givingout that they had with great risk and real danger found their waythrough the lines of the beleaguering Normans, but that, so entire wastheir devotion to the saint, no perils could prevent them from comingto the shrine. It was not much noted at the time, but it was wellremembered afterwards, and when it was all too late, that these twopalmers spent much more of their time in walking and talking outsidethe abbey walls with the prior and the chamberlain, than in the prayinginside the church and in the chapel of the saint: that they seemed toshun the Lord Abbat, and that they took their departure in a suddenmanner, and without taking leave of the Abbat as good pilgrims werewont to do. And almost immediately after the departure of the two falsepalmers, a proclamation was made by sound of trumpet and by DukeWilliam's orders, that the Abbat of Ely, having leagued himself with asorcerer (having long before leagued himself with traitors and rebelsand robbers), had incurred the anathemas of the church, which wouldsoon be pronounced upon him by bell, book, and candle,[217] and withall the formalities in use. And after this had been proclaimed by soundof trumpet in the Camp, and at the cross of the town of Cam-Bridge, andat the crosses of Peterborough, Huntingdon, Stamford, and many othertowns, the cloister-monks most adverse to the Lord Abbat began to throwoff all secrecy and disguise, and to talk as loud as trumpets both inthe streets of Ely and in the monastery, calling Girolamo a sorcererand worse. Upon this the dark Salernitan came up from the Camp to themonastery, and demanded to be heard in the church or in the hall, inthe presence of the whole house. Thurstan, with right good will,assented; and although some of the monks tried to oppose it, Girolamowas admitted to plead his own defence and justification in the greathall. It was the envious prior's doing, but the novice
s and all theyounger monks were shut out, for the prior feared greatly the effect ofthe speech of the Salernitan, who by this time had made himself masterof the Saxon tongue, while in the Latin tongue and in Latin quotations,Girolamo had few equals on this side the Alps. He presented himselfalone, having forcibly and successfully opposed the Lord Hereward, whowould fain have accompanied him to the abbey. "If you should be withme," he had said to the Lord of Brunn, "they will impute it to me, incase of my effacing these vile stigmas, that I have been saved by yourfavour and interference, or by the respect and awe which is due to you,or by the dread they entertain of your arms; and should I fail in mydefence, they might afterwards work you great mischief by representingyou as mine advocate. No! good my Lord, alone will I stand upon mydefence, and bring down confusion upon these calumniators!"

  And thus it was all alone that the dark and thin and sad Salernitanentered the great hall, in the midst of a coughing and spitting, and anuplifting and a turning away of eyes, as if the monks felt sulphur intheir gorges, and saw some fearful and supernatural object with theireyes. Nothing abashed, the Salernitan threw off the black mantle whichhe ordinarily wore, and stepping unto the midst of the hall--the monksbeing seated all round him--he made the blessed sign of the cross,threw up his hands for a moment as if in prayer, and then spoke. Andwhen he first began to speak, although he more immediately faced theabbat and his friendly honest countenance, his coal-black eyes, whichseemed all of a blaze, rested and were fixed upon the envious falsevisage of the prior, who wriggled in his seat, and whose eyes were bentupon the ground, all unable to encounter the burning glances of thatanimated, irate Italian.

  "My good Lord Abbat," said Girolamo, looking as we have said, not atThurstan, but at the prior, "what is this horrid thing that I hear?What are these evil rumours which have been raised against me, while Ihave been adventuring my life for the service of this house and thegood Saxon cause?"

  "There hath been some idle talk about sortilege, and it grieves me tosay that this idle talk hath of late become very loud in this house,"responded Thurstan.

  "And who be they who first raised this talk?" said Girolamo; "where aremy accusers? Who are the members of this house that have not seen aswell my devotion to Heaven as the earthly and natural and legitimatemeans by which I have worked out mine ends for the furtherance of thegood cause? Where are they, that I may speak to them and tell them totheir faces how much they have erred or how greatly they have lied? Butthey dare not look me in the face!"

  And as he said these words he turned his burning eyes from the prior tothe chamberlain, and then from the chamberlain to another cankerousmonk, and to another, and another, and they all pulled their cowls overtheir brows and looked down upon the floor. But at last the chamberlainfound voice and courage enough to raise his head a little; and he said,"Oh, stranger! since thy first coming amongst us thou hast done thingsmost strange--so strange that wise and good men have thought they haveseen the finger of the devil in it."

  Quoth the Salernitan, "It was to do strange things that I came hither,and it was because I could do them that the brave and pious Lord ofBrunn brought me with him to bear part in a contest which was desperatebefore we came. But I tell thee, oh monk, that all of even thestrangest things I have done have been done by legitimate and naturalmeans, and by that science which I have acquired by long study and muchfasting, and much travelling in far-off countries, where many thingsare known which are as yet unknown in these thy boreal regions. Tospeak not of the marvels I have witnessed in the East, I tell thee,Saxon, that I have seen the doctors who teach, or who used to teach, inthe schools of my native town before the Norman barbarians came amongus, do things that would make thy dull eyes start out of their sockets,and the hair stand erect round thy tonsure; and yet these doctors andteachers were members of that Christian Church to which thou, and I,and all of us belong--were doctors in divinity, and priests, andconfessors, and men of holy lives; and it never passed through theirbright and pure minds that what the ignorant could not understandshould be imputed to them or to their scholars as a crime. Saxon, Isay, take the beam of ignorance out of thine eye, and then wilt thousee that man can do marvellous things without magic or the aid of thedevil. The real wizard or witch is the lowest and most benighted ofmankind, and necromancy can be employed only for the working out ofwicked and detestable ends. But what was and what is the end I have inview? Is it wicked to defend this house and the shrines of yournational saints from violence and spoliation? Is it detestable in onewho hath known in his own person and in his own country the woes offoreign conquest, to devote his sword and his life, his science, andall the little that is his, to the cause of a generous peoplestruggling against fearful odds for their independence, and fightingfor their own against these Norman invaders!"

  "By Saint Etheldreda," said Abbat Thurstan, "these ends and objectscannot be sinful! and as sinful means can be employed only for sinfulends, so can righteous ends be served only by righteous means. Firemingles with fire, and water with water: but fire and water will notmingle or co-exist." And divers of the cloister-monks, who had neverbeen touched by the venom that was about to ruin the house of Ely andthe whole country of England, took up and repeated the Abbat's words,speaking also of the facts in evidence, as that Girolamo the Salernitanhad many times conferred great benefit on the Saxon cause, and thelike. And even some of the house who had turned too ready an ear totheir own fears, or to the evil and crafty whisperings and suggestionsof the prior and his faction, assented to Thurstan's proposition, andsaid that verily it appeared the Salernitan was free from the damnableguilt wherewith he was charged, and that if he had used any magic atall, it was only that Magia Alba, or White Magic, which proceeded fromthe study and ingenuity of man, and which might be used without sin.

  Now as these things were said in the hall, the prior, fearing that hisplot might be counter-plotted, and the meshes he had woven be torn topieces, and blown to the winds, waxed very desperate; and, afterwhispering for awhile in the ear of the chamberlain who sat by him, hethrew his cowl back from his head, and standing up, spoke passionately.But while the prior spoke he never once looked at Girolamo, whoremained standing in the middle of the great hall, firm and erect, andwith his arms crossed over his breast. No! desperate as he was, theprior could not meet the fiery glances of that dark thin man; and so heeither looked at the round and ruddy face of Thurstan, or in the facesof those monks of his own faction who had made up their minds tosupport him in all that he might say or do.

  "It seemeth to me," said the prior, "that a wicked man may pretend toserve a good cause only for the sake of injuring it, and that a weakman may be brought to believe that good can come out of things that areevil, and that witchcraft and all manner of wickednesses may beemployed against an enemy, albeit this is contrary to the doctrine ofour Church, and is provocative of the wrath of Heaven. Now, from thefirst coming of this alien among us, things have gone worse and worsewith us. Not but that there have been certain victories and other shortglimpses of success, meant only to work upon our ungodly pride, anddelude us and make our present misery the keener. When this alien firstcame, the Lord Abbat liked him not--I need not tell ye, my brethren,that the Lord Abbat said to many of us, that he liked not the looks ofthe stranger the Lord Hereward brought with him; or that I and thecellarius, and many more of us, thought from the beginning that the manwas a Jew--an Israelite--yea, one of that accursed race that crucifiedour Lord!..."

  "Liar or idiot," said the fiery man of Italie, "thou wilt be cursed forsaying it!"

  "That which I have said I have said," quoth the prior; "we took theefor a Jew, and the Lord Abbat confessed, then, that thou didst verilylook like one, although he hath altered his tone since. And stranger, Inow tell thee to thy face (but still the prior looked not in Girolamo'sface) that I believe thou mayest well be that wandering Jew that cannotdie until the day of Judgment come."

  The Salernitan shrieked rather than said, "This is too horrible, tooatrocious! Malignant monk, wouldst drive m
e mad, and make me slay theehere in the midst of thy brothers?"

  "In this hallowed place I am safe from thy magic and incantations,"said the prior.

  Girolamo could not speak, for the words stuck in his throat, but hewould, mayhap, have sprung upon the prior with his dagger, if the LordAbbat had not instantly raised his hand and his voice, and said,"Peace! stranger peace! Let the prior say all that he hath to say, andthen thou shalt answer him. Nay, by Saint Etheldreda! by SaintSexburga, and by every saint in our Calendarium, I will answer him too!For is he not bringing charges against me, and seeking to deprive me ofthat authority over this house which was given me by heaven, and byKing Edward the Confessor, and by the unanimous vote of the brethren ofEly in chapter assembled? Prior, I have long known what manner of manthou art, and how thou hast been pining and groaning and plotting formy seat and crozier; but thou art now bolder than thou wast wont to be.'Tis well! Therefore speak out, and do ye, my children, give ear untohim. Then speak, prior! Go on, I say!" In saying these words, LordThurstan was well nigh as much angered as Girolamo had been; but hisanger was of a different kind, and instead of growing deadly pale andashy like the Salernitan, his face became as red as fire; and insteadof moving and clenching his right hand, as though he would clutch someknife or dagger, he merely struck with his doubled fist upon the tablebefore him, giving the table mighty raps. All this terrified the cravenheart of the prior, who stood speechless and motionless, and who wouldhave returned to his seat if the cellarer had not approached him andcomforted him, and if several cloister-monks of the faction had notmuttered, "Go on to the end, oh, prior! thou hast made a goodbeginning."

  And then the prior said, "I will go on if they will give me pledge notto interrupt me until I have done."

  "I give the pledge," said the Abbat; and the Salernitan said, "Thepledge is given."

  Being thus heartened, the prior went on. Girolamo the Salernitan, hesaid, had been seen gnashing his teeth and shooting fire out of hiseyes at the elevation of the Most Holy; had been heard muttering in anunknown tongue behind the high altar, and among the tombs and shrinesof the saints; and also had he often been seen wandering by night, whenhonest Christians were in their beds, among the graves of the poor ofEly, and gazing at the moon and stars, and talking to some unseendemon. He had never been seen to eat and drink enough to support life;and therefore it was clear that he saved his stomach for midnightorgies in the church-yard with devils and witches. It was not true thatall the devils at Crowland were sham-devils, for some of the novicesand lay-brothers of the house, and some of the clowns of Crowland town,who had been seduced, and made to disguise themselves in order to givea cover to what was doing, had since declared that, although all theircompany made only twelve in number, they had seen twice twelve when theinfernal lights were lit in the dark cellars of the house where theirpranks began; and it was a notable fact that one of the Crowland hinds,first cousin to Orson the smith, had been so terrified at this increaseof number and at all that he had heard and seen on that fearful night,that he had gone distraught,[218] and had never yet recovered it. Itwas known unto all men how, not only on that night and in that place,but also on many other nights and in many other places, the alien hadmade smells that were not of earth, nor capable of being made byearthly materials, and had made fire burn upon water, mixing flame andflood! Now, the Lord Abbat himself had said that fire and water wouldnot mingle! Nor would they but by magic. The convent would all rememberthis! Not content with possessing the diabolical arts himself, Girolamohad imparted them to another: Elfric the sword-bearer, from whom betterthings might have been expected, considering his training in a godlyhouse, had been seen mixing and using these hellish preparations whichhe could not have done if he had not first spat upon the cross andcovenanted with witches and devils. Nay, so bold-faced had this youngman been in his crime that he hath done this openly! The stranger hadbeen seen many times in battle, and in the thickest of the fight, yet,while the Saxons fell thick around him, and every man that was notkilled was wounded, he got no hurt,--no not the smallest! When thearrows came near him they turned aside or fell at his feet withouttouching him. There was a Norman knight, lately a prisoner in the SaxonCamp, who declared that when he was striking at the thin stranger withthe certainty of cleaving him with his battle-axe, the axe turned asidein his firm strong hands as though some invisible hand had caught holdof it. Moreover, there was a Norman man-at-arms who had solemnly vowedthat he had thrust his sword right through the thin body of the alien,had driven the hilt home on his left breast; and that when he withdrewhis sword, instead of falling dead to the earth, the stranger stooderect, laughing scornfully at him, and losing no blood, and showing nosign of any wound. Now all these things fortified the belief that thestranger was the Jew that could not die! Seeing that a deep impressionwas made upon many of his hearers who had gone into the hall with thedetermination of believing that there had been no magic, and thatnothing unlawful had been done by the defenders of the liberties of theSaxon people and the privileges of the Saxon church, the cunning priorturned his attack upon Thurstan. It was notorious, he said, thatThurstan had been a profuse and wasteful abbat of that house, taking nothought of the morrow, but feasting rich and poor when the house was atthe poorest; that he was a man that never kept any balance between whathe got and what he gave; and that he had always turned the deaf side ofhis head to those discreet brothers the chamberlain, the sacrist, thecellarer and refectorarius, who had long since foretold the dearth andfamine which the convent were now suffering. [Here nearly every monkpresent laid his right hand upon his abdomen and uttered a groan.] Itwas known unto all of them, said the prior, that under the rule andgovernment of Thurstan such things had been done in the house as hadnever been done under any preceding abbat. The shrine-boxes had beenemptied; the plates of silver and of gold, the gifts of pious kings andqueens, had been taken from the shrines themselves; the treasurebrought from the abbey of Peterborough had only been brought to begiven up to the Danes and sent for ever from England, together with thelast piece of silver the pilgrims had left in the house of Ely! Andthen the Jews! the Jews! Had not dealings been opened with them? Hadnot a circumcised crew been brought into the patrimony of SaintEtheldreda, and lodged in the guest house of the abbey? Had not theabbat's seal been used in sealing securities that were now in the handsof the Israelities? And was not all the money gotten from the Jews gonelong ago, and was not the treasury empty, the granary empty, the cellarempty,--was there not an universal void and emptiness in all the abbey,and throughout the patrimony of St. Etheldreda? [The monks groanedagain.] In concluding his long discourse the prior raised his unmanlyvoice as high as it could be raised without cracking, and said--"Uponall and several the indubitable facts I have recited, I accuse thisGirolamo of Salerno of magic and necromancy; and I charge Thurstan,abbat of this house, and Elfric, whilom novice in the succursal cell ofSpalding, of being defensors, fautors, and abettors of the necromancer.And what saith the sixteenth of the canons enacted under the pious KingEdgar? And how doth it apply to our abbat? The canon saith this--'Andwe enjoin, that every priest zealously promote Christianity, andtotally extinguish every heathenism; and fordid necromancies anddivinations and enchantments, and the practices which are carried onwith various spells, and with frith-splots and with elders, and alsowith various other trees, and with stones, and with many variousdelusions, with which men do much of what they should not.' I havedone."[219]

  For a while there was silence, the monks sitting and gazing at eachother in astonishment and horror. At length, seeing that the abbat wasalmost choked, and could not speak at all, Girolamo said, "my lord, mayI begin?"

  Thurstan nodded a yea.

  Hereupon the Salernitan went over the whole history of his past life,with all its sorrows, studies, and wanderings; and bade the monksreflect whether such a life was not fitted to make a man moody and sadand unlike other men. He acknowledged that, as compared with Saxons,and more especially with the Saxon monks of Ely, he ate and drank verylittle; but
this was because his appetite was not good, and his habitof life very different from theirs. He allowed that he was fond ofwandering about in lonely places, more especially by moonlight, butthis was because eating little he required the less sleep, and becausethe sadness of his heart was soothed by solitude and the quiet aspectof the moon and stars. All this, and a great deal more, the Salernitansaid in a passably composed and quiet voice; but when he came to denyand refute the charges which the prior had made, his voice pealedthrough that hall like thunder, and his eyes flashed like lightning. Inconcluding he said--"I was ever a faithful son of Mother Church. Theblessed Pope at Rome--Pope Alexander it was--hath put his hand uponthis unworthy head and given me his benediction. The pious abbat of theancient Benedictine house of La Cava that stands in the chasm of themountain between Salerno and the city of Neapolis held me at thebaptismal font; cloister-monks were my early instructors, and learneddoctors of the church were my teachers in youth and manhood. I havebeen a witch-seeker and a witch-finder in mine own country. Ye haveknown me, here, burn, or help to burn, a witch almost under your owneyes. Jews have I ever abhorred,[220] even as much as witches,necromancers, and devils! Saracens and Moors, and all that followMahound, have I ever hated as Jews, and as much as good Christiansought to hate them! Oh prior, that makest thyself my accuser, thou hastbeen a home-staying man, and hast not been called upon to testify tothy faith in the lands where heathens rule and reign, and Mahound isheld to be the prophet of God, and superior to God's own Son. But Itell thee, prior, that I have testified to my faith in such places, andopenly on the threshold of Mahound's temples, braving death and seekinga happy martyrdom which, alas! I could not find. Saxons! in a town inPalestine wherein, save a guard of Saracens, there were none but Jews,I took the chief rabbi by the beard at the gate of his synagogue.Saxons! to show my faith I have eaten swine's flesh at Jerusalem, inthe midst of Saracens and Jews. Saxons! in the Christian countries ofEurope I never met an Israelite without kicking him and loading himwith reproaches. Bethink ye then, after all this, whether I, Girolamoof Salerno, be a Jew, or Mahounder, or necromancer! If ye are weary ofme let me be gone to the country from which I came. I brought littlewith me, and shall take still less away. If ye would repay with tortureand death the good I have done ye, seize me now, throw me into yourprison, load me with chains, put me to the rack, do with me what yewill, but call me not Jew and wizard!"

  Sundry of the monks said that the words of the stranger sounded verylike truth and honesty, and that of a surety the good Lord Herewardwould not have brought a wizard with him into England, or have lived solong in friendship with a necromancer. Others of the cloister-monks,but they were few in number, said that Girolamo had disproved nothing,and that it could be but too well proved that woe and want had fallenupon the good house of Ely--that the treasury, granary, wine-cellarwere all empty. The Lord Abbat now spoke, but his anger had cooled, andhis speech was neither loud nor long. He declared that every man, beingin his senses and not moved by private malice, must be convinced thatthe Salernitan was a good believer and no wizard; and that, whatever hehad done, however strange some things might appear, had been done bymeans not unlawful. This being the case there could be no sin or blamein his having made himself the defensor of the stranger, and no sin inElfric's having associated with him, and assisted in his works. "But,"said the abbat, "though the prior hath not been bold enough to namethat name, ye must all know and feel that, if this man were anecromancer, charges would lie far more against Hereward, our greatcaptain, than against me or that poor young man, Elfric. Would yeaccuse the Lord of Brunn of sorcery and witchcraft? I see ye dare not,nay, I see ye would not!"

  As to the daring, Thurstan was right: but as to the will, he was wrong;for the prior and the chamberlain, and some others, would have accusedHereward if they had only had courage enough so to do.

  The abbat next told the prior and all the members of the house thatwere present, that he had taken no important step without the adviceand vote of the chapter; that of late, in many cases, the vote inchapter had been in direct opposition to his own wishes and declaredfeelings; and that whether it were the taking of the shrine-money, orthe bargaining with the Israelites, or the calling back of the Danes(that source of so much woe), or the giving up of the Peterboroughtreasure, he had been out-voted by the majority, at the head of whichhad always stood the prior and the chamberlain. If honest-heartedThurstan had called for a vote of the brotherhood at this moment itwould have gone for him, and the prior and his coadjutors would havebeen confounded; if he had ceased speaking altogether, and haddismissed the assembly, some mischief might have been avoided ordelayed; but unluckily he went on to speak about the obligation thehouse lay under of feeding and supporting the Saxon lords and warriorsin the Camp of Refuge, about his general administration of the revenuesof the abbey, and about other matters which had nothing to do with theSalernitan or the foul charges brought against him; and, saying thatthese were things to be discussed in a chapter of the whole house, andthat if it could be proved that in any of these things he had wilfullydone amiss or acted upon a selfish motive, he would readily resignmitre and crozier and return to the lowliest condition of acloister-monk, he quitted the hall, beckoning Girolamo to follow him,and leaving the monks together to be wrought upon by the craft andmalice and treachery of the prior and the chamberlain, who had soldtheir souls not to one devil but to two--the demon of lucre and thedemon of ambition and pride. As soon as he was out of the hall, theprior put his evil face under the cowl of the chamberlain, andwhispered, "Brother, 't was our good fortune that put the word in hismouth! We will soon call a chapter and depose him from his authority.Our task will then be easy; but as long as he is abbat many timid mindswill fear him."

  "But," whispered the chamberlain in return, "we must first of all shakethe faith which too many here present have put in his words, and in theprotestations of Girolamo."

  "The logic of hunger will aid us," said the prior, "and so will thepromptings of fear: there is not a measure of wheat in Ely, and thereport hath been well spread that the Normans intend to begin theirattack very soon, and to put every monk to the sword that shall nothave previously submitted. To-morrow Hereward goes upon some desperateexpedition to try to get us corn and wine: he cannot, and will notsucceed; and, while he is absent, we can report of him and hisexpedition as we list."

  "'Tis well imagined," said the chamberlain in another whisper; "but wemust undo the effect of that devil Girolamo's speech, and prepare theminds of the monks for the work we would have them do."

  While the prior and the chamberlain were thus whispering together,divers of the old monks, who loved not their faction and who had grownweary of this long sitting, quitted the hall without leaving the mantleof their wisdom and experience behind them; and after their departurethe prior and his faction so perplexed the dull wits of the honesterpart of the community, that they again began to believe that theSalernitan was a necromancer and the abbat his fautor, that there wasno hope of getting corn or wine unless they submitted to Duke William,and that if they did not submit they would all be murthered by theNormans.

  They also spoke, and at great length, of the privations they hadundergone ever since the beginning of the war.

  "Yea! how long and how manifold have been our sufferings," said thesub-sacrist. "When this accursed Camp first began to be formed, was notour house entirely filled with guests? Did they not seize upon ourhall, nay, even upon our kitchen? And were not we of the conventobliged to take our meals in the dormitory, as well on flesh days as onfish-days? Were not all open spaces in the monastery crowded, so thatthe abbey looked more like a fair than a house of religion? Was not thegrass-plot of the cloisters so trampled down by the feet of profanefighting-men that no vestige of green was to be seen upon it? Andthough most of these guests be now gone into the Camp, because there islittle left here for them to devour, do not the cellars, thestore-houses, the kitchen, and every part of the house speak of theirhaving been here, and of the poverty and disorder in whi
ch they haveleft us?"

  "Aye," said the refectorarius, "wonderful hath been the waste! Therevenue of the abbat, the common property of the house, and theincomings allotted to the several officials to enable them to bear thecharges and do the duties of their offices, have all been anticipatedand consumed! And let our improvident Abbat tell me how I am to findthat which I am bound to provide for the whole convent to wit, pots,noggins, cups, table-cloths, mats, basons, double-cloths, candlesticks,towels, plates, saltcellars, silver plates wherewith to mend the cupsthat be broken, and the like; besides furnishing three times in theyear, to wit, at All Saints, Christmas, and Easter, five burthens ofstraw to put under the feet of the monks in the refectory, and fiveburthens of rushes and hay wherewith to strew the hall?"

  "And I," quoth the cellarius, "how am I to be father unto the wholeconvent inasmuch as meat and drink be concerned, when I have not apenny left to spend in township or market? By the rules of the Order,_Statutis Ordinis_, when any monk at table asks me for bread or forbeer, in reason, I am to give it him; but how am I to give without thewherewithal?"

  "And I," said the chamberlain, "how am I to find, for both monks andnovices, gowns and garters, half socks and whole socks, and bed andbedding, and linsey-woolsey for sheets and shirts, and knives, andrazors, and combs, in order that the convent go clean and cleanlyshaved? Aye, tell me how I am to change the straw of the beds, providebaths for the refreshment of the bodies of the monks, to find shoes forthe horses and spurs for the monks when they are sent travelling, tokeep and entertain two bathers and four tailors, when Abbat Thurstanhath taken mine all or hath forced me to give it to laymen andstrangers and Norwich Jews? Let our universal poverty say whether thishath been a misgoverned house! Brothers, judge for yourselves whetherThurstan, who hath brought down all this ruin upon us, ought to beallowed to rule over us!"

  The crafty prior said in a quieter tone of voice, "For my part, I willnot now dwell upon these temporal evils, albeit they are hard for menin the flesh to bear; but I would bid the convent take heed lest oneand all they incur the sentence of excommunication by the pope himself.It is now quite clear that Pope Gregory wills that William the Normanshall be King of England, and that the English church, with all Englishhouses of religion, shall submit to him, and take their instructionsfrom Archbishop Lanfranc."

  When the meeting in the hall broke up, the chamberlain said to theprior, "We shall yet have the pleasure of burning Girolamo as anecromancer!"

  "An he be not the Jew that cannot die," quoth the prior.

  When the Salernitan reached the Camp that evening he said to the Lordof Brunn, "Certes the monks of Ely will no longer say I am a wizard;but there be traitors among them, and much do I fear that theirrebellious stomachs will make traitors of them all!"

  "Against that must we provide," quoth the Lord Hereward; "to-morrow wemust go get them corn and wine from the Normans. Our stratagem is welllaid, but we must die rather than fail. So good night, Girolamo, and toour tents and sheepskins."