But the prior and the sacrist and divers others continued to make a great outcry about their goods, their holy-books, their altar vases, their beds and their bed-clothes; and as this moved Lord Hereward’s ire, he said to his merry men that they must turn them out; and the merry men all did turn them out by pulling them before and kicking them behind: and in this manner the unlettered and unholy crew that Ivo Taille-Bois had thrust into the succursal cell of Spalding were lugged and driven on shipboard, and there they were made fast under the hatches. As soon as they were all cleared out of the convent, Lord Hereward bade his Saxons put more fuel on the fire, and bring up more wine, and likewise see what might be in the buttery. The brother of Wybert the wright knew the way well both to cellar and buttery; and finding both well filled, he soon re-appeared with wine and viands enough. And so Hereward and his men warmed themselves by the blazing fire, and ate and drank most merrily and abundantly: and when all had their fill, and all had drunk a deep health to Hereward the liberator, they went into the monk’s snug cells, and so fast to sleep. On the morrow morning they rose betimes. So featly had the thing been done over night, that none knew it but those who had been present. The good folk that yet remained in Spalding town, though so close at hand, had heard nothing of the matter. Hereward now summoned them to the house; but having his reasons for wishing not to be known at this present, he deputed one of his men to hold a conference with them, and to tell the few good men of Spalding that the hour of deliverance was at hand, that their false monks had been driven away, and that Father Adhelm and their true monks would soon return: whereat the Spalding folk heartily rejoiced. In the present state of the road, or rather of the waters, there was no fear of any Norman force approaching the succursal cell. Therefore Lord Hereward ordered that much of his munition of war should be landed and deposited in the convent: and leaving therein all his armed men with Girolamo of Salerno, he embarked alone in the lightest of his barks, and went up the river as far as the point that was nearest to Brunn. There, leaving the bark and all the sailors, and taking with him nought but his sword and his fen-staff, and covering himself with an old and tattered seaman’s coat, he landed and struck across the fens, and walked, waded, leaped, and swam, until he came within sight of his own old manor-house and the little township of Brunn.[124] It was eventide, and the blue smoke was rising from the manor-house and from the town, as peacefully as in the most peaceful days. Hereward stopped and looked upon the tranquil scene, as he had done so many times before at the same hour in the days of his youth, when returning homeward from some visit, or from some fowling in the fens; and as he looked, all that had since passed became as a dream;