Many were the bold essays which the Lord of Brunn made to break up this blockade. Twice, descending the Ouse, or the Welland, with the barks he had stationed at Ely, and near to Spalding, he defeated and drove away the enemy’s ships, and burned some of them with that unquenchable fire which the Salernitan knew how to make; but after these actions the Normans and their shipmen became more watchful and cautious, keeping outside of the mouths of the rivers, and continuing to increase their force; for other ships and barques, both great and small, came over from Normandie, and others were hired for this service among the sea-dwelling Netherlanders, who seemed evermore disposed to serve whatever faction could pay them best. And alas! the Normans had now their hands in the great and ever-filling treasury of broad England, and the true sons of England, whether at Ely or in the Camp, had no longer any gold or silver! or any means of sending forth that which can bring back money or the money’s worth. Horned cattle had they still in some abundance, nor was there, as yet, any scarcity in sheep, or in wool, or in hides; but of corn to make the bread, which is the staff of life, and of wine, which maketh glad the heart of man, was there little or none left in this part of the land; forasmuch as that the Fen-country did not grow much corn at any season, and the last season had been one of dearth, and only a few butts of wine had been brought over since the departure of the Danes, owing to the lack of money above mentioned. Those sea-rovers, having drunk almost the last drop of wine as well as carried off the last treasures of the house, had greatly disheartened and troubled many of the monks of Ely, and murmurs, and censures, and base thoughts now began to rise among several of the cloister-monks who, down to this evil time, had been the steadiest friends of the Lord Abbat, Thurstan. Truly, truly, their trial was hard, and difficult for true Saxon stomachs to bear! The octaves of Saint John had come and passed without anything that could be called a feast: on the day of Saint Joseph of Arimathea they had no wine to drink, and on the day of that high Saxon saint, Osevald, king and martyr, they had no bread to eat with their roast meats. These were sad things to a brotherhood that had been wont to fare so well, and whose feasts, it hath been said by our old poet (a monk of the house), were as superior to the feasts of all the other monasteries of England as day is superior to night:— Prævisis aliis, Eliensia festa videre Est, quasi prævisâ nocte, videre diem.