“But” said Hereward, “in proposing to leave you this strange man from Italie, I thought of taking from you, for yet another while, that Saxon wight Elfric, seeing that he knoweth all this fen country better than any man in my train; and that, while I am going round by the river and the Wash, I would fain despatch, by way of the fens, a skilled and trustful messenger in the direction of Ey....” “To salute the Ladie Alftrude, and to tell her that thou art come,” said the Abbat of Crowland. “Even so,” quoth Hereward; “and to tell her moreover to look well to her manor-house, and to let her people know that I am come, and that they ought to come and join me at the proper time.” “It is clear,” said the Prior of Spalding, “that none can do this mission an it be not Elfric, who knoweth the goings and comings about the house at Ey....” “Aye, and the maid-servant that dwelleth within the gates,” quoth the Abbat of Crowland. The Prior of Spalding laughed, and eke my Lord Abbat of Ely; and when he had done his laugh, Thurstan said “This is well said, and well minded; and as we seem to be all agreed that, upon various considerations, it would be better to unfrock the young man at once, let us call up Elfric, and release him from his slight obligations, and give him to Lord Hereward to do with him what he list. What say ye my brothers?” The two dignified monks said “yea;” and Elfric being summoned was told that henceforth he was Lord Hereward’s man, and that he might doff his cucullis,[121] and let his brown locks grow on his tonsure as fast as they could grow. The monk that sleeps in his horse-hair camise,[122] and that has nothing to put on when he rises but his hose and his cloak, is not long a-dressing; yet in less time than ever monk attired himself, Elfric put on the soldier garb that he had worn while abroad. And then, having received from Hereward a signet-ring and other tokens, and a long message for the Ladie Alftrude, together with instructions how he was to proceed after he had seen her; and having bidden a dutiful farewell and given his thanks to the Prior of Spalding and to the two abbats, and having gotten the blessing of all three, Elfric girded a good sword to his loins, took his fen-staff in his hand, and went down to the water-gate to get a light skerry, for the country was now like one great lake, and the journey to Ey must be mostly made by boat. It was now nigh upon day-dawn. The Lord Abbat and a few others accompanied the Lord of Brunn to the pier, and saw him on board: then the mariners let go their last mooring, and the bark began to glide down the river. Before the light of this winter day ended, Hereward was well up the Welland, and the whole of his flotilla was anchored in that river not far from Spalding, behind a thick wood of willows and alders, which sufficed even in the leafless season to screen the barks from the view of the Norman monks in the succursal cell.