And unless Ivo clears the wood of
his men by nightfall, I will hang every one of them up for the crows
before morning."
Ivo got the message, and having had enough fighting for the day, drew off,
says the chronicler, for the sake of the Abbot and his fellow-captives.
Two hours after the Abbot and the other prisoners were sitting, unbound,
but unarmed, in the forest encampment, waiting for a right good meal, with
Torfrida bustling about them, after binding up the very few wounded among
their own men.
Every courtesy was shown them; and their hearts were lifted up, as they
beheld approaching among the trees great caldrons of good soup; forest
salads; red deer and roe roasted on the wood embers; spits of pheasants
and partridges, larks and buntings, thrust off one by one by fair hands
into the burdock leaves which served as platters; and last, but not least,
jacks of ale and wine, appearing mysteriously from a cool old stone
quarry. Abbot Thorold ate to his heart's content, complimented every one,
vowed he would forswear all Norman cooks and take to the greenwood
himself, and was as gracious and courtly as if he had been at the new
palace at Winchester.
And all the more for this reason,--that he had intended to overawe the
English barbarians by his polished Norman manners.
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