brought here, as ever, good out of evil.

And among the lay brothers were good soldiers, who could man the Castle.
And once, in bygone days, they say a whole company of knights (all
resting now in Abraham's bosom, and their bodies in the Vale churchyard)
came together, and sought to be made quit of the world and its strife in
our peaceful cloister. These, though they left the world behind, were
able to teach for safety's sake something of warlike matters to the
brethren; and thus it chanced that our brothers were ready to be men of
war when peace was impossible, and men said of them, in rhyming
fashion--

"White cowl and white cloak,
Chain-mail and hard stroke."

Now, about this Castle of late men had been more than ever busy. Sundry
instruments of besieged men of a new and deadly fashion lay in the
armoury, and were at times by Brother Hugo brought out and practised by
the brethren that formed, as he said, his _corps d'armes_. Then were
they soldiers indeed, not monks at all, as, cassock and cowl thrown
aside, they drew the bows, or aimed with their great engines the balls
of stone and iron.

Now, it was in those days that the abbot sent me on matters more heavy
than I knew to that archbishop of whom I have already made mention, who,
his state laid aside, lay in exile as a poor humble man, though Duke
William's uncle, in a small moat-house, by name Blanchelande, with
little land attached beyond the forest of St. Pierre, and hard by the
bay of the Saints of God.