“Nothing but sorrow and anxiety, sun and climate,” replied Elfric. “In the country of the south where he was born there be no blue eyes or flaxen heads of hair; and the Normans drove him from his home and seized his house and lands, even as they are now doing with Englishmen; and he hath known long captivity and cruel torture, and hath wandered in the far climates of the East where the hand of the Arab is lifted against every man.” “Well,” said Hob the carpenter, “two things are clear—the Normans are gone from Crowland, and we have gotten their wine butts. And, therefore, I submit to this good company that we should leave off talking and be jolly. Goodman Hodge, pass me down the cup.” CHAPTER XI. THE LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE. The restored Lord of Brunn, having done so much in a few days, made full report thereof unto the good Lord Abbat and the great prelates and Saxon thanes that had made the isle of Ely and the Camp of Refuge their homes. Right joyous was the news; and prudent and unanimous were the counsels which followed it. The Abbat of Crowland and the Prior of Spalding, and such of their monks as had gone with them or followed them to Ely to escape from the oppression of Ivo Taille-Bois, now, without loss of time, returned to the banks of the Welland. The abbat and the prior were soon comfortably re-established in their several houses; the rest of the expelled monks came flocking back to their cells, and the good Saxon fen-men began to renew their pilgrimages to the shrines. Many pilgrims too came from the countries bordering on the fens; and while some of these men remained to fight under the Lord of Brunn, others going back to their homes carried with them the glad intelligence that the Camp of Refuge was more unassailable than it had ever been, and that a most powerful Saxon league was forming for the total expulsion of the Normans from England.