It was a notable day in the annals of the little town of Soham when the Ramsey barge, propelled by ten rowers, five a side, clad in the abbey uniform of bare arms and legs and a loose gown of green falding, was sighted on the far side of Soham mere. Quite a considerable throng of the principal inhabitants watched it from the wooden jetty, to which were moored the cobbles of the Soham fishermen. The reeve, in a murrey coat and blue hood, was an important figure in the group, and was accompanied by a select party of the leading sokemen. The local clergy were in attendance with a hastily improvised band of thurifers and choristers. These, with some of the better class of artificers, smiled with conscious importance, as specially nominated guests at the feast which the Ramsey monks brought with them for their entertainment in the parish gild-hall. The rest of the crowd, consisting of mariners and farm churls, were curious rather than enthusiastic, and more suspicious than curious: for Ramsey is far from Soham, and ancient adage told them that _fýnd synt feorbúend_--far-dwellers are enemies. At the first landing of the venerable passengers a temporary disturbance was caused by Grim, the fisherman of Ely monastery, who provocatively bit his thumb at the starboard bow oar of the abbat’s crew. When this difference had been adjusted by the intervention of the district hundred-man the procession was started for the church. At the tail of it, behind the boat-carls, stalked a black-avised monk of Ely, Peter by name, who pointedly withdrew from an official part in the ceremonies. The banquet in the gild-hall was altogether a splendid affair. In the whole of their official experience the reeve, the hundred-man, and the local clergy had never received so warm a welcome or participated in such royal cheer. No thin English vintage this that was passed to them in the loving cup, fresh from dignified and consecrated lips, but rich old wine, warmed by Greek suns and cooled in the caverns of Ramsey cellars. The cottars who were admitted at the lower board had never known what it was to have so much ale, and so good, as the monastic vats supplied. Brother Peter of Ely looked on from the door, but took no part in the entertainment. He remarked that the Ramsey dignitaries were modest drinkers, and that the boat-carls looked at their blisters and passed the can to their Soham neighbours with the merest pretence of absorption.