At the outer gate of the convent Lord Hereward was met and embraced and welcomed by the high-hearted abbat of the house, by the Archbishop Stigand, the Abbat of Crowland, and by all the prelates and high churchmen; and next by all the cloistered monks of Ely; and next by the lay lords and the Saxon warriors of all parts: and all this right reverend and right noble company shouted, “Welcome to our chief and our deliverer! Honour and welcome to the young Lord of Brunn!” As Thurstan led the Saxon hero by the hand towards his own Aula Magna, he said, “But for the solemn season, which brooks not much noise,” (the town folk, and the hinds that had come in from the fens, and the novices and lay-brothers, were continuing to shout and make noise enough to wake the dead that were sleeping in the cloisters), “we would have received you, my lord, with a great clattering of bells and show of flags and banners! Nevertheless thou comest at a most suitable moment and on the very verge of the most joyous of all seasons; ’tis the vigil of the Nativity. On this Christmas eve, like all well-regulated religious houses and all good Christians, we fast upon a banquet of eels and fish. At midnight we have the midnight mass, chanted in our best manner; and to-morrow we feast indeed, and give up all our souls to joy. To-morrow, then, our bells shall be struck upon so that the Norman knights and men-at-arms shall hear them in Cam-Bridge Castle, and shall tremble while they hear! And our Saxon flags, and the banners of our saints, yea, the great banner of Saint Etheldreda itself, shall be hung out on our walls! And when the other duties of the day are over, we will sing a _Te Deum laudamus_ for thy coming. My Lord Hereward, I have not known such joy, or half so much hope, since the day on which our good Edward (_Rex venerandus_) put this ring upon my finger and confirmed my election as abbat of this house! My hope then was that I should be enabled to be a good ruler of this ancient brotherhood, and good lord to all the Saxon folk that dwell on the land of Saint Etheldreda. Now my higher hope is that thou wilt be enabled, oh Hereward, to free all England from this cruel bondage!” The young Saxon noble, being wholly a man of action, and gifted with much modesty, made but a very short reply to this and to other very long speeches; he simply said that he had come back to get back his own, and to help his good countrymen to get back their own; that the Norman yoke was all too grievous to be borne; that it was very strange and very sorrowful that brave King Harold came not back to his faithful people of East-Anglia; and that, until King Harold should come,[117] he, Hereward, would do his best for his friends and for himself.