As the liquor in the wassail bowls ebbed a gradual silence crept on the festal party. One after other, official and reverend heads declined upon the board: rustic bodies dropped from their benches on the floor, and stertorous slumber filled the hall. Only the abbat and prior sat erect and looked about them with ferret eyes, and the boat-carls spat on their hands and inspected their blisters. Brother Peter withdrew to the mere-strand, and by the lapping waters mused on the weakness of human heads and the shocking aspect of intemperance in which one has not participated. What is this spectacle which presents itself to Brother Peter, meditative on the muddy margin of Soham mere, at the grey hour when country cocks do crow and bells do toll? A procession, silent but solid, actual not ghostly, of ten men bearing a coffer strung upon poles. Two dignified figures, their heads wrapt from the raw air in their hoods, bring up the rear. So our friends are making an early and unannounced departure! This is no time to ask the wherefore. Brother Peter tucks up his frock and runs his fleetest to the church. When he looks back from the porch he sees a vessel launched on the shimmering lake, with a broadening track of broken water in its wake. The abbat and his men are two miles away over the mere when a strange clamour reaches their ears. Horns are blown; a church bell clangs; cries of “Haro” echo over the water; lights flash upon the strand. The boat-carls rest upon their oars; the abbat smiles; the prior chuckles. “Two miles: impossible!” says he; “and, as lay-brother Oswald was so prudent as to hide the oars of the Ely boat in the church tower, they won’t get started in a hurry.” The prior sits in the sternage and directs the vessel’s course. Between him and the abbat Saint Felix reposes in his box. As they quit the mere and enter the narrow channel which connects it with the Ouse the abbat suggests a psalm and raises _Jubilate Deo_. The bow oars respond with a three-man glee in the fen-men’s fashion.