When the Lord of Brunn moored his little fleet of barks, and raised his standard on the shores of the Wash, many more good fen-men came trooping to him, as he had expected. Many came from Hoiland.[161] And how did they come? They came marching through the mires and waters upon high stilts, looking all legs, or, at a distance, like herons of some giant breed. Voyagers have related that in that sandy country which lies along the Biscayan gulf, and between Bordeaux and Spain, men and women and children all walk upon high stalking poles or stilts, as the only means of getting across their soft, deep sands; and here, in the most marshy part of the fens, men, women, and children were trained to use the same long wooden legs, not to get over dry loose sand, but to get over water and quagmire, and broad and deep ditches. These stilted men of Hoiland, who were all minded to go help in the Camp of Refuge, threw their stilts[162] into Lord Hereward’s bark; which was as if men of another country should throw away their legs, for without these stilts, we ween, there was no walking or wayfaring in Hoiland: but the thing was done to show that they were devoted to the good cause and put an entire trust in the victorious Lord of Brunn, and that they would go with him, legs, arms, and hearts, wherever he might choose to lead them. At Lynn, on the other side of the Wash, still more Saxons joined Lord Hereward’s army, some of them coming in boats, and some marching by land. Ha! had there been but five Herewards in England, England would have been saved! It was on the eve of the most solemn, yet most joyous festival of Pasche, or on the 24th day of the month Aprilis, in the year of grace one thousand and seventy-one, that the Lord of Brunn, arrived with his host at the great house of Ely, to the inconceivable joy of every true Saxon heart that was there. Pass we the welcome and the feast, and come we to the councils and deliberations in the Aula Magna of the house. On the third day after the paschal Sunday all the Saxon lords and chiefs, prelates and cloister-monks, met early in the morning, or immediately after prime, and ceased not their deliberations until the dinner hour. On one great point there was no difference of opinion—the victorious Lord of Brunn was to hold supreme command over all the troops and bands, of whatsoever description, collected in the Camp of Refuge, and have the entire management of the war wherever it should be carried. On other heads of debate opinions were very various, but the greatest divergency of all was upon the question whether the Danes should or should not be invited again to the assistance of the Saxons. When all had spoken on the one side or the other, and with much vehemence of speech, the Lord of Brunn, who had been forced to correct his taciturn habits, and to speak on many occasions at greater length than he had ever fancied he should speak, rose and said—