There were two parties in Peterborough minster: a smaller faction of
stout-hearted English, a larger one who favored William and the French
customs, with Prior Herluin at their head. Herluin wanted not for
foresight, and he knew that evil was coming on him. He knew that the Danes
were in the fen. He knew that Hereward was with them. He knew that they
had come to Crowland. Hereward could never mean to let them sack it.
Peterborough must be their point. And Herluin set his teeth, like a bold
man determined to abide the worst, and barred and barricaded every gate
and door.
That night a hapless churchwarden, Ywar was his name, might have been seen
galloping through Milton and Castor Hanglands, and on by Barnack quarries
over Southorpe heath, with saddlebags of huge size stuffed with "gospels,
mass-robes, cassocks, and other garments, and such other small things as
he could carry away." And he came before day to Stamford, where Abbot
Thorold lay at his ease in his inn with his _hommes d'armes_ asleep
in the hall.
And the churchwarden knocked them up, and drew Abbot Thorold's curtains
with a face such as his who
"drew Priam's curtains in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burned";
and told Abbot Thorold that the monks of Peterborough had sent him; and
that unless he saddled and rode his best that night, with his meinie of
men-at-arms, his Golden Borough would be even as Troy town by morning
light.
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