"
"And destroying their own cover?"
"True: therefore they will only do it in despair."
"Then to despair will I drive them, and try their worst. So these monks
are as stout rebels as the earls?"
"I only say what I saw. At the hall-table there dined each day maybe some
fifty belted knights, with every one a monk next to him; and at the high
table the abbot, and the three earls, and Hereward and his lady, and
Thurkill Barn. And behind each knight, and each monk likewise, hung
against the wall lance and shield, helmet and hauberk, sword and axe."
"To monk as well as knight?"
"As I am a knight myself; and were as well used, too, for aught I saw. The
monks took turns with the knights as sentries, and as foragers, too; and
the knights themselves told me openly, the monks were as good men as
they."
"As wicked, you mean," groaned the chaplain. "O, accursed and bloodthirsty
race, why does not the earth open and swallow you, with Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram?"
"They would not mind," quoth Dade. "They are born and bred in the
bottomless pit already. They would jump over, or flounder out, as they do
to their own bogs every day."
"You speak irreverently, my friend," quoth William.
"Ask those who are in camp, and not me. As for whither they went, or how,
the English were not likely to tell me.
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