With that I calling my friend, who is an
honest woman, and nigh as strong in the arms as I am, ask her to clap her
back against the door, and pull out my axe."
"'Now,' said I, 'I must know a little more about this letter Tell me,
knave, who gave it thee, or I'll split thy skull.'
"The young man cries and blubbers; and says that it is the Countess
Alftruda, who is staying in the monastery, and that he is her serving man,
and that it is as much as my life is worth to touch a hair of his head,
and so forth,--so far so good.
"Then I asked him again, who told him I was my master's man?--and he
confessed that it was Herluin the prior,--he that was Lady Godiva's
chaplain of old, whom my master robbed of his money when he had the cell
of Bourne years agone. Very well, quoth I to myself, that's one more count
on our score against Master Herluin. Then I asked him how Herluin and the
Lady Alftruda came to know aught of each other? and he said that she had
been questioning all about the monastery without Abbot Thorold's
knowledge, for one that knew Hereward and favored him well. That was all I
could get from the knave, he cried so for fright. So I took his money and
his letter, warning him that if be betrayed me, there were those would
roast him alive before he was done with me.
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