Other wassails followed fast one upon the other. They were all to the healths of those who had stood out manfully against the invader, or had preferred exile in the fens, and poverty in the Camp of Refuge to submission to the conqueror. “Not less than a brimming cup can we drink to the last arrived of our guests, our brother the Lord Abbat of Crowland, and our brother the prior of Spalding,” said Thurstan, filling his own silver cup with his own hand until the Rhenish ran over upon the thirsty rushes at his feet. “Might I be allowed,” said Father Adhelm at a later part of the feast, “might my Lord Abbat vouchsafe me leave to call a wassail for an humble and unconsecrated member of the Saxon church—who is nevertheless a child of Saint Etheldreda, and a vassal of my Lord Abbat, being native to this place—I would just drink one quarter of a cup, or it might be one half, to Elfric the Novice, for he travelled for our poor succursal cell when we were in the greatest perils; he carried my missives and my messages through fire and water; he forewarned us of our last danger and extremity; and, albeit he had not our order for the deed, and is thereby liable to a penance for disobedience—he slew with his arrow Ivo Taille-Bois’ man-at-arms that had savagely slain good Wybert our wheel-wright.” “Aye,” said Thurstan, “and he came hither across the fens as merry as David dancing before the ark; and he brought with him the heads of two Norman thieves who, with their fellows, had been murdering our serfs, and trying to find an opening that should lead them to the Camp of Refuge! Father Adhelm, I would have named thy youth in time; but as thou hast named him, let us drink his name and health even now! And let the draught be one half cup at least;—‘Elfric the novice of Spalding!’” “This is unbecoming our dignity and the dignity of our house: next we shall waste our wine in drinking wassail to our loaf-eaters and swineherds,” muttered the cellarer to the prior.