“Son of the fire everlasting,” cried Adhelm, “it is for me to ask what meanest thou by thy transgressions, past and present? Why hast thou from thy first coming among us never ceased from troubling me and these other servants of the saints, the brothers of this poor cell? Why hast thou seized upon and emptied our granaries and our cellars (more the possessions of the saints and of the poor than our possessions)? Why hast thou carried off the best of our cattle? Why hast thou and thy people lamed our horses and our oxen, and killed our sheep and poultry? Why hast thou caused to be assailed on the roads, and beaten with staves and swords, the lay-brothers and servants of this house? Why didst thou come at the dead of night like a chief of robbers with thy men-at-arms and cut-throats to break in upon us and to wound and slay the servants of the Lord, who have gotten thy king’s peace, and letters of protection from the Archbishop Lanfranc?[42] Oh, Ivo Taille-Bois! tell me why thou shouldst not be overtaken by the vengeance of man’s law in this world, and by eternal perdition in the next?” Ivo was not naturally a man of many words; and thinking it best to cut the discussion short, he grinned a grim grin, and said in a calm and business-like tone of voice, “Saxon! we did not conquer thy country to leave Saxons possessed of its best fruits. This house and these wide domains are much too good for thee and thine: I want them, and long have wanted them, to bestow upon others. Wot ye not that I have beyond the sea one brother and three cousins that have shaved their crowns and taken to thy calling—that in Normandie, Anjou, and Maine there are many of my kindred and friends who wear hoods and look to me for provision and establishment in this land of ignorance and heresy, where none of your home-dwelling Saxon monks know how to make the tonsure[43] in the right shape?”