“We know that, good chaplain,” quoth William, impatiently. He had enough of that language from Lanfranc himself; and, moreover, was thinking more of the Isle of Ely than of the celibacy of the clergy. “Well, Sir Dade?” “So they have got together all their kin; for among these monks every one is kin to a Thane, or Knight, or even an Earl. And there they are, brother by brother, cousin by cousin, knee to knee, and back to back, like a pack of wolves, and that in a hold which you will not enter yet awhile.” “Does my friend Dade doubt his Duke’s skill at last?” “Sir Duke,--Sir King I mean now, for King you are and deserve to be,--I know what you can do. I remember how we took England at one blow on Senlac field; but see you here, Sir King. How will you take an island where four kings such as you (if the world would hold four such at once) could not stop one churl from ploughing the land, or one bird-catcher from setting lime-twigs?” “And what if I cannot stop the bird-catchers? Do they expect to lime Frenchmen as easily as sparrows?” “Sparrows! It is not sparrows that I have been fattening on this last month. I tell you, Sire, I have seen wild-fowl alone in that island enough to feed them all the year round. I was there in the moulting-time, and saw them take,--one day one hundred, one two hundred; and once, as I am a belted knight, a thousand duck out of one single mere. There is a wood there, with herons sprawling about the tree-tops,--I did not think there were so many in the world,--and fish for Lent and Fridays in every puddle and leat, pike and perch, tench and eels, on every old-wife’s table; while the knights think scorn of anything worse than smelts and burbot.” “Splendeur Dex!” quoth William, who, Norman-like, did not dislike a good dinner. “I must keep Lent in Ely before I die.” “Then you had best make peace with the burbot-eating knights, my lord.” “But have they flesh-meat?” “The isle is half of it a garden,--richer land, they say, is none in these realms, and I believe it; but, besides that, there is a deer-park there with a thousand head in it, red and fallow; and plenty of swine in woods, and sheep, and cattle; and if they fail, there are plenty more to be got, they know where.” “They know where? Do you, Sir Knight?” asked William, keenly. “Out of every little Island in their fens, for forty miles on end. There are the herds fattening themselves on the richest pastures in the land, and no man needing to herd them, for they are all safe among dikes and meres.” “I will make my boats sweep their fens clear of every head--”