Had I thought that he had seen your face, I would have cleft his skull with no more hesitation than I send an arrow into the brain of a stag in the forest." As they journeyed along Cuthbert informed Cnut of what the abbess had told him; and the latter agreed that a watch must be placed on the convent, and that a force must be kept as near as possible at hand so as to defeat any attempt which might be made.
The next day one of the forest men who had been a peaceable citizen, but who had been charged with using false weights and had been condemned to lose his ears, repaired to Worcester.

His person was unknown there, as he had before lived at Gloucester.

He hired a house in the square in which the convent was situated, giving out that he desired to open a house of business for the sale of silks, and for articles from the Low Countries.

As he paid down earnest-money for the rent no suspicion whatever was excited.

He at once took up his abode there, having with him two stout serving-men, and a 'prentice boy; and from that time two sets of watchers observed without ceasing what passed at the Convent of St.Anne.
At a distance of half a mile from the road leading between Worcester and Evesham stood a grange, which had for some time been disused, the ground belonging to it having been sequestrated and given to the lord of an adjoining estate, who did not care to have the grange occupied.