"Saint Etheldreda give me patience!" said Thurstan, "Oh prior, what have I to do with this tale? Why revive the memory of the sins of a brother, and once superior and father, who died of grief for that which he had done, and which an excess of brotherly love had urged him to do? How doth this tale apply to me? what have I had to do in it or with it, save only to recover for this house the lands which my unhappy predecessor conveyed away? I have brought ye hides of land, but have given none to any of my kindred. That which hath been spent since the black day of Hastings, hath been spent for the defence of the patrimony of Saint Etheldreda, and for the service of the country. Have I not brought Guthmund to compound with me, and to agree to hold from, and under the abbey, and during his lifetime only, and with payment of dues and services to the abbey, all the lands which his brother, the Abbat Wilfric,--may his soul find pardon and rest!--alienated by that wicked conveyance? and hath not the same Guthmund given us the dues and services; and will not the lands of Acholt, Mereham, Livermere, Nachentune, Bedenestede, and Gerboldesham revert to the house so soon as he dies? Oh prior, that hast the venom of the serpent without the serpent's cunning, if ye bring in the son of the harlot of Falaise, and if some pauper of a Norman knight get hold of these lands, the abbey will never get them back again!" [And as Thurstan said, so it happened. The demesnes were given to one Hugo de Montfort, and the church was never able to recover possession of them.][236]
"Brethren," said the prior, "I put it to ye, whether we be not now in greater tribulation and want than ever we were before? Abbat Wilfric gave away five manors and a part of a sixth; but the convent was still left rich."
"Aye! and the cellars full, and the granaries full," said the cellarius.
"And nothing was taken from our treasury or from the shrines of our saints," said the sub-sacrist.
"Nor was there any dealing and pledging with the accursed Israelites," said the chamberlain.
"Nor did we then bring upon ourselves the black guilt of robbing other religious houses to give the spoils to the half-converted, drunken Danes," said the sub-chamberlain.