roused, and ran shrieking to the empty tomb in the church, and at the sound of the horn, all the people from all the hamlets and homesteads near unto the pleasant hill of Dereham came trooping in with bills and staves, not knowing what had happened, but fancying that the fiery Dane was come again. But when they saw or were told about the empty tomb, the people all shouted “Who hath done this deed? Who hath stolen the body of our saint?” Now no one could gainsay that the Abbat of Ely with his monks had done it. A serf who had gone early a-field to cut grass while the dew was on it, had met the car and the procession on the road between Dereham and Brandon; and what was of more significance, the presbyter or mass-priest of the church of Dereham, coming to the communion-table found upon it a piece of parchment whereon was written these words: “I, Abbat of Ely and Lord of Dereham, by and with the consent and approval of Edgar the King, have translated the body of Saint Withburga, to be hereafter kept in Ely Abbey with increased pomp, worship, and reverence; and this, oh presbyter of Dereham, is my receipt for the blessed body aforesaid.” Then, I wis, were heard words of much irreverence from the ignorant and rustical people of the place! Some of them stopped not in calling the right excellent abbat a thief, a midnight robber, a perturbator of the peace of saints, a violator of the tombs of the saints! Nor did they spare King Edgar more than the abbat, saying that although he might by his kingly power and without wrong grant to the house at Ely their lands and services, and even their church, he had no right to give away the body of their saint, and order it to be removed out of their church, wherein it had reposed for thrice one hundred years; and they all presently agreed to pursue the abbat and the monks, and endeavour to recover the prey. And so, arming themselves with whatsoever weapons they could most readily meet with, they all poured out of Dereham, and took the shortest way to Brandon.[224] They were brisk men these folk of the uplands, well exercised in the game of bowls, and in pitching the bar, and in running and leaping, and in wrestling on the church-green; they were light-footed men these men of Dereham; but although they ran their best it was all too late when they got to Brandon, for the monks had got a long way down the river with the saint’s body. Nevertheless the Dereham folk continued the chase; they divided themselves into two bands or parties, and while one party ran down one bank of the river, the other ran down on the opposite side. They even came abreast of the Lord Abbat’s boats, and got near enough to see the pall which covered the coffin that contained the body of their saint; but the river being here broad and deep, and they being unprovided with boats (the prudent abbat had taken care for that), they could not get at the coffin or at the monks; and so, after spending some time on the banks shaking their