“Nay,” said the youth, “I saw, as plainly as I now see the faces of this good company, their lances glinting in the setting sun, and their bright steel caps and their grey mail, and....” “Fen-grass and willows,”[24] cried the superior, who seemed determined not to give credit to the evil tidings, “what thou tookest for spears were bulrushes waving in the breeze, and thy steel-caps and grey mails were but the silvery sides of the willow-leaves turned upwards by the wind! Boy, fasting weakens the sight and makes it dim!” “Would it were so,” quoth Elfric; “but so was it not! I heard the trumpet give challenge from the battlements—I heard the other trumpet give response—I heard the tramping of many hoofs along the hard solid causeway; and, creeping nearer to the road, I saw lances and horses and men—and they were even forty!” “It cannot be,” said one of the monks, “for, when he made his last paction with us, Ivo Taille-Bois swore, not only by three Saxon saints but eke by six saints of Normandie, that he would do us and our house no further wrong.” “The senses are deceptions,” said another of the brotherhood. “The foul fiend, who often lurks in these wildernesses and plays fiery pranks in our fens, may have put it into this youth’s head to mar our peace with false alarms;” quoth another monk. “Say _warning_, and not false alarm,” rejoined Elfric rather petulantly. “If you will not be warned, you will be surprised in your sleep or at your meals. These forty men-at-arms cannot come hither for other purpose than that of finishing our ruin and driving us hence. As sure as the sun riseth they will be here to-morrow morning.” “The boy chafes, and loses respect for his elders,” said the monk who had last spoken. “Let him sup with the cats!” cried the superior. At this moment a bell was struck below; and at the signal the novices and lay-brothers ran from the door at which they had been listening, and the superior, followed by the monks, and at a respectful distance by the reproved and vexed novice, hobbled down stairs to the refectory.