Like a flock of startled pigeons the monks rose, their appetites
quite gone, and flocked tumultuously towards the church. They were too
late. William was gone. But in his short visit he had left them a most
unwelcome legacy by marking out the site of a castle within the
precincts of the monastery, and giving orders for its immediate building
by forced labor.
Abbot Thurston finally purchased peace from the king at a high rate,
paying him three hundred marks of silver for his one mark of gold. Nor
was this the end. The silver marks proved to be light in weight. To
appease the king's anger at this, another three hundred silver marks
were offered, and King William graciously suffered them to say their
prayers thenceforward in peace. Their treachery to Hereward had not
proved profitable to the traitors.
If now we return to the story of Hereward the Wake, we must once more
leave the realm of history for that of legend, for what further is told
of him, though doubtless based on fact, is strictly legendary in
structure. Landing on the coast of Lincolnshire, the fugitives abandoned
their light ships for the widespreading forests of that region, and long
lived the life of outlaws in the dense woodland adjoining Hereward's
ancestral home of Bourne.
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