Read "Hereward the Last of The English" by Charles Kingsley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
They of Ely were now much straitened, being shut in both by land and water; and what was to be done, either by themselves or by the king, they knew not. Would William simply starve them; or at least inflict on them so perpetual a Lent, -- for of fish there could be no lack, even if they ate or drove away all the fowl, -- as would tame down their proud spirits; which a diet of fish and vegetables, from some ludicrous theory of monastic physicians, was supposed to do? [Footnote: The Cornish -- the stoutest, tallest, and most prolific race of the South -- live on hardly anything else but fish and vegetables.] Or was he gathering vast armies, from they knew not whence, to try, once and for all, another assault on the island, -- it might be from several points at once?
They must send out a spy, and find out news from the outer world, if news were to be gotten. But who would go?