He also showed me a bruised
arm and broken head in token of hard play with the ash plant between
them.
"Here is the said Guthlac," said Wulfhere; and there was the reader of
Beowulf coming, with frock and sleeves tucked up, from out the stables.
So I called him, and asked him to try a bout with the collier, telling
him why.
At first he denied all knowledge of carnal warfare, but I reminded him
of his reading of Beowulf, saying that, if he knew naught of fighting,
the verses would have had none of that fire in them. So, in the end,
they went to it, and I saw that Guthlac was well used to sword play, and
was satisfied also with his pupil.
Then I asked Guthlac whence he got his skill in arms, and why he was
shut up thus inside four walls.
"Laziness, Thane," he answered, telling me nothing of the first matter
at all. Nor would he. But I found afterwards that he had been lamed
once, and tended by the monks, and so had bided in the abbey, liking the
life, though he had been a stout housecarle to some thane or other.
Then Wislac must ask him if there were any more of his sort in the
abbey, and seeing that we meant no harm, and looking on me as an ally in
that matter of the reading, he said there were five more, "whom Heregar
the Thane knew, if he would remember, reading certain Scriptures at
supper time.
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