A few of the cloister-monks started to their feet at these daring words, and recited the rules of the Order of Saint Benedict, and called upon the chamberlain and upon all present to remember their vows of obedience, and the respect due to every lord abbat that had been canonically elected and appointed; but alas! the number of these remonstrants was very small—much smaller than it would have been only the day before, for the faction had travailed hard during the night, and had powerfully worked upon the fears of the monks, more especially by telling them that neither bread nor wine could anywhere be had, and that a new legate was coming into England from the pope to excommunicate every Saxon priest and monk that did not submit to the Conqueror. Now when Thurstan saw how few there were in chapter that seemed to be steady to their duty, and true to their vows and to the rules of the order (promulgated by Saint Benedict and confirmed by so many pontiffs of Rome, and so many heads of the Benedictine Order, dwelling in the house on Mons Casinium, by the river Liris, where Saint Benedict himself dwelt, and fasted and prayed, when he was in the flesh), his heart, bold and stout as it was, sank within him, and he fell back in his carved seat and muttered to himself, “My pastoral crook is broken! My flock are turned into wolves!” But, among the true-hearted Saxon monks, there was one that had the courage to defy the prior and his faction, and to stand forward and to speak roundly in defence of the oppressed Lord Abbat; and when he had spoken others found heart to do the same; and thereupon the weak and unsteady part of the chapter, who had no malice against Thurstan, and who had only taken counsel of their fears and craving stomachs, began to fall away from the line where the factious would have kept them, and even to reprove the chamberlain and the prior. This change of wind refreshed both the body and the soul of Thurstan, who knew as little of fear as any man that lived; and who had been borne down for a moment by the weight and agony of the thought that all his friends were either arrayed against him, or were too cowardly to defend him. Speaking again as one having authority and the power to enforce it, he commanded the prior and chamberlain to sit silent in their seats. And the two rebel monks sate silent while Thurstan, in a very long and earnest discourse, but more free from the passion of wrath than it had been, went once more over the history of his life and doings, from the day of his election down to the present troublous day; and spoke hopefully of the return of King Harold, and confidently of the ability of the Saxons to defend the Fen-country if they only remained true to themselves and to the Lord Hereward, without plots or machinations or cowardly and treacherous compacts with the enemy. The Lord Abbat’s discourse lasted so long that it was now near the hour of dinner; and, as much speaking