And in order that it might be done the more easily, Ivo Taille-Bois superadded one hundred and forty men to those that the fighting abbat brought with him, thus making Torauld’s whole force consist of one hundred and sixty well-armed Frenchmen. At the head of this little army, with sword girded round his middle and with battle-axe tied to his saddle-bow, the monk of Fescamp began his march from Stamford Town. As soon as the disloyal monks heard that he was coming, they drove away by main force the very few Saxon soldiers that remained about the house, and began to prepare sackcloth and ashes for themselves, and a sumptuous feast for the Abbat Torauld, hoping thereby to conciliate him, and make him forget the bold doings of my Lord Abbat Brand. But before that uncanonical abbat and his men-at-arms could get half way to Peterborough,[175] the Lord Hereward, who had been duly apprised of all these late proceedings and intentions, arrived at the abbey with Elfric his sword-bearer, and about three-score fighting men; and before the monks could make fast their gates he was within the house. There be some who do say that the entrance was not got without a fight, and that some of my Lord Hereward’s people set fire to a part of the monastery; but I ween there was no fighting or beating of monks until Torauld, that very stern man, got possession of the house, and that there was no fire until a time long after the visit of the Saxons, when the monks of Peterborough, being disorderly and drunken, set fire to the house themselves by accident. The Lord of Brunn made straight for the house which King Etheldred of happy memory had built for the Lord Abbats. A building it was very large and stately; all the rooms of common habitation were built above-stairs, and underneath were very fair vaults, and goodly cellars for sundry uses; and the great hall above was a magnificent room, having at the upper end, in the wall, very high above the floor, three stately thrones, whereon were seated the effigies of the three royal founders, carved curiously in wood, and painted and gilt.[176] In this hall stood Hereward and his merry men. Little did the monks wot of this visit. They thought the Lord of Brunn was many a league off, fighting in the fens; and when he came among them like one dropped from the clouds, and they saw in his honest, plain-speaking face that he was angered, the traitors began to blush, and some of them to turn pale; and when this first perturbation was over, they began to welcome him in the very words of a speech they had prepared for the welcoming of Torauld. But Hereward soon cut their speech short, and asked the prior of the house what was become of the twenty men he had left there for the protection of the house. The prior said that the men had behaved in a riotous manner, eating and drinking all the day long, and had deserted and run away because they had been reproved.