“Whatever he hath brought,” quoth Father Kynric, “the Normans will get it all! the prior and the sub-prior, and all the rest of the officials speak in riddles, but none of us can be so dull as not to see that Duke William will be here to-night or to-morrow morning, and that the prior went to invite him hither. The mischief is now done, and the prior is too strong to be resisted; but if there were but three cloister-monks of my mind, I would break out of this house in spite of the sub-prior’s calls, and locks, and bars! Yea, I would break out and release the brave boy Elfric, and away with him to the Camp of Refuge, to put my Lord Hereward and our other noble friends, and the whole Saxon host upon their guard. Everlasting infamy will rest upon the monks of Ely, if they be taken and massacred in their sleep.” “If,” said the monk from Swaffham, “the supplies which the Lord Hereward hath brought be abundant, I would rather go and pass this autumn and coming winter in the fens, than stay here under the usurped rule of the prior, who beareth a mortal hatred against all of us that ever opposed him. Nay, I would rather continue to eat meat and fish without bread (provided only there was a little wine), than abide here to witness so foul a treason as thou talkest of. But prithee, brother Kynric, how much corn and wine may a man reasonably expect to have been brought down, and where is it?” Kynric responded, that he only knew that the Ely folk had cried, that there was good store of corn, meal, and wine, and that Elfric had shouted within the gate that there was much corn and wine. Father Elsin said that he had heard the cellarer say to the sub-sacrist, that the good store of provision would be at Turbutsey, inasmuch as Hereward had promised to land it there; and that at a very early hour in the morning it should all be sent for and brought into the abbey. “In that case,” quoth the upland monk, “If a few of us could sally out before midnight, the corn and wine might be ours.” “Of a surety,” said Father Kynric, “and we might carry it with us into the fens, which will not be conquered though the Camp of Refuge should fall; and we might share it with Lord Hereward and his true Saxons, and look to time and chance, and the bounty of the saints, for fresh supplies.” “Then by all the saints that lie entombed in Ely,” said Kenulph of Swaffham, “I will break out and quit this dishonoured and dishallowed community! The porter at the great gate came like me from Swaffham; Tom of Tottington, the lay-brother that waits upon the sub-prior, the holder of the keys, was brought into this house by me: there be other lay brothers and servientes that would do my will or thy will, oh Kynric, or thine, Elsin, or thine, Celred, sooner than the will of the prior, and the rather since they have heard of the corn and wine! Assuredly they will unbar doors and break out with us when they are told that the store is so near at hand as at Turbutsey!”