Whether the mule was the better for this lesson I
doubt.
When we went back to the abbey Eanulf had come, and with him many
thanes. And I feared to meet these somewhat, for they might have been
among the Moot, and would know me. Yet Ealhstan had foreseen this, and
one was posted at the door to meet me, bidding me aside privately, since
the bishop needed me.
Wulfhere and Wislac went into the hall and left me, therefore, and I was
taken to a chamber where were six or seven lay brethren, who asked me
many things about the fight, and specially at last about the saint who
had appeared. And that was likely to be a troublesome question for me,
as I could not claim to have been the one so mistaken; but another
struck in, saying that there were many strange portents about, for that
a fiend had appeared bodily from the marsh and had devoured a child, in
Sedgemoor. Now it seems that fiends are rarer than saints among these
holy men, and they forgot the first wonder and ran on about the second,
not thinking that I could have told them of that also. And at last one
fetched a great book, as I thought in some secrecy, and made thereout
nothing more nor less than parts of the song of Beowulf itself, and all
about Grendel, which pleased us all well, and so we were quiet enough,
listening.
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