“It likes me not to call a priest a liar, but this is false!” said the Lord of Brunn; “thou and thy French faction have driven away those honest men; and here be some of them to speak for themselves, and to tell thee, oh prior, how busy thou hast been ever since the death of my good uncle (peace to his soul!) in preparing to make terms with the French—in preparing to welcome the shaven cut-throat that is now a-coming to rule over this house!” The men stood forward, and the loyal part of the monks (alas! that they were so few) stood forward also, and told the traitors to their faces all that they had been doing. The prior and the chamberlain, the refectorarius and the rest of the officials, then began to excuse themselves on the plea of their weakness, and on the plea of the great danger in which they stood. “You confess, then,” said Hereward, “that you cannot of yourselves defend this house and its shrines?” “Of a surety we confess it,” said the prior; “nor is this house to be held against the Normans even with a garrison of armed men. Peterborough is not Ely, good my lord! _There_ Saxon monks may hold their own; but _here_ it cannot be done.” “So ho!” quoth Hereward, “this is where I would have thee! and therefore, oh prior, since thou canst not keep thy gilded crosses and silver vessels, thy chalices and pateras, thy drapery and rich church hangings, and as all these things and all other the property of this house will fall into the hands of the Norman thieves if they are not removed, I will and must carry them all off to Ely, where thou allowest they will be in safe Saxon keeping.” “Wouldst thou despoil the temple of the Lord? Wouldst thou rob the shrines of Saxon saints?” said the sacrist. “My Lord of Brunn, thou darest not do the deed,” said the prior. “It is not for thee, false monk! to set the limits to my daring, when my conscience sanctions that which I am doing, and when the cause of my country urges it to be done,” said Hereward. “I will excommunicate thee as a sacrilegious robber,” said the prior. “Archbishop Stigand, the true primate of England, will excommunicate thee as a traitor to his country and traitor to his church,” quoth the Lord of Brunn. “But I have little time to waste in words. Come, my merry men, be stirring! pack up all the plate, and all the hangings, and everything that we can carry with us.” “They shall not have the keys,” said the chamberlain or treasurer of the house. “We have them already,” quoth Elfric, who had been led to the chamberlain’s cell by one of the true Saxon monks. “We have the keys already, and so have we the engraven seals of silver gilt. The sigillum of so good a man as Abbat Brand shall never be used by so bad a man as Torauld. See! here it is, my lord!” And so saying Elfric handed the good massive seal to his master, who kissed it as though it had been a relic, and then put it in his bosom.