Livermere, Nachentune, Bedenestede, and Gerboldesham, to the end that, being possessed of them, Guthmund might hold rank with the prime nobility and renew his love-suit with a certainty of success.[235] Wot ye well this pernicious brother of the abbat went away not with the sad face he had brought to the abbey, but with a very joyous countenance, for he took with him from our cartularies, the title-deeds of those broad lands which had been given to the abbey by sundry pious lords. Yes! Guthmund went his way, and was soon happy with his bride and the miserable pleasures of the flesh, and the pomps and vanities of the world. But the abbat, his brother, was never happy again, for his conscience reproached him, and the secret of the foul thing which he had done was soon discovered. The brotherhood assembled in chapter, even as it is now assembled, denounced the robbery, the spoliation, and sacrilege, and asked whether it were fit that such an abbat should continue to hold rule over the house? Wilfric, not hardened in sin, but full of remorse, felt that he could no longer be, or act as Lord Abbat, and therefore went he away voluntarily from the abbey, renouncing all authority. Yea, he went his way unto Acholt, where, from much sorrow and perturbation of mind, he soon fell sick and died: and, as he died very penitent, we brought back his body for sepulture in the abbey church; and then proposed that our brother Thurstan should be our Abbat and ruler.” “Saint Etheldreda give me patience!” said Thurstan, “Oh prior, what have I to do with this tale? Why revive the memory of the sins of a brother, and once superior and father, who died of grief for that which he had done, and which an excess of brotherly love had urged him to do? How doth this tale apply to me? what have I had to do in it or with it, save only to recover for this house the lands which my unhappy predecessor conveyed away? I have brought ye hides of land, but have given none to any of my kindred. That which hath been spent since the black day of Hastings, hath been spent for the defence of the patrimony of Saint Etheldreda, and for the service of the country. Have I not brought Guthmund to compound with me, and to agree to hold from, and under the abbey, and during his lifetime only, and with payment of dues and services to the abbey, all the lands which his brother, the Abbat Wilfric,—may his soul find pardon and rest!—alienated by that wicked conveyance? and hath not the same Guthmund given us the dues and services; and will not the lands of Acholt, Mereham, Livermere, Nachentune, Bedenestede, and Gerboldesham revert to the house so soon as he dies? Oh prior, that hast the venom of the serpent without the serpent’s cunning, if ye bring in the son of the harlot of Falaise, and if some pauper of a Norman knight get hold of these lands, the abbey will never get them back again!” [And as Thurstan said, so it happened. The demesnes were given to one Hugo de Montfort, and the church was