hazardous fowling and fishing, and in toiling over measureless waters and quagmires. Fenners must be bold and expert men, or they must starve. Moreover the folk of Crowland town were very devout and constant in their worship of the Saxon saints and had a laudable affection for their dispossessed Saxon monks and Lord Abbat: although in the time of King Edward, of happy memory, when they knew not what real sorrow or trouble was, they would at times murmur to my Lord Abbat’s chamberlain about the money they were called upon to pay, and at times they would even quarrel lustily with the purveyors of the house about eels and wild-ducks, pikes and herons, and such like trivialities. But the usurping abbat from France had already nearly doubled their rents and dues, and for every fish or fowl that the Saxon purveyors had claimed, the Norman purveyors laid their hands upon a dozen. Ye may judge, therefore, whether the good folk of Crowland town did not abhor the Norman monks and wish them gone. In turning away the good Lord Abbat and all his obedientiarii or officials, and all his superior monks, the intruders had left in the house a few inferior monks, and about half a score of servientes and lay-brothers to hew their wood and draw their water. And they had so overwrought these Saxon laics, and had so taunted and vilipended them, that the poor hinds, one and all, wished them in the bottomless pit. On the night after Lord Hereward’s feast at Brunn and the fifth night from the festival of the Nativity, Alain of Beauvais, the intrusive abbat, was feasting in the hall with his Norman friars, who had never passed through a noviciate, and with his Norman men-at-arms, who were neither more nor less godly than his monks. One or two of the English laics were waiting upon these their lords and masters; the other lay-brothers were supposed to be gone to their straw beds. Alain the pseudo-abbat, being warm with wine, was talking in the manner of all Frenchmen about dames and demoiselles, and was telling his company what a sweet lady it was that broke her heart when he first left Beauvais to seek his fortune with Duke William. Just at this juncture of time there came into the hall an invisible devil in the essence of a stink. It was such a stench as mortal nose had never smelt before—it was so intense, so foul and diabolical, that no mortal man could bear it long! Alain the pseudo-abbat, putting both his hands to his nose, said, “Notre Dame de la misericordi! what smell is this?” They all put their hands to their nostrils, and roared “What stink is this?”