Well, to return. We at once set to work, and erected a church of timber, for the service of God; and I said mass in it the first Sunday after our arrival there. It may be supposed it is not a very grand church; but God looks at the living stones, and reads the heart.
We all had enough to do for the first few days; but within a week one might suppose we had been living there an age. Log huts were erected for the whole population; the old farm house, which is large and strongly built, taking the place of the hall. One must dispense with some comfort now.
My brother sent a portion of his men to rejoin the army, but feels himself justified in entering at once on his winter quarters with the remainder; in fact, since my arrival at Abingdon, the troops have all been dismissed for the winter, and the Danes have, as I said, retired to the Wight.
Then, leaving Father Adhelm in charge of the woodland settlement, I determined to visit my brethren here, where I have been received with all Christian love and hospitality by the abbot and his brethren. Three days my journey lasted. I travelled with only two attendants, serfs of our house; a poor prior burnt out from house and home.
Nov. 21st, 1006.--
This evening I heard heavy steps on the stairs, and methought their tread seemed familiar, as well it might, for no sooner had the door opened than my son Alfgar, for whom we had mourned as dead, or at least dead to us, fell upon my neck and wept.
It was a long time before either of us was composed enough to say much, but when we had a little recovered, the abbot who had brought them to my rooms introduced a tall young man in gleeman's garb, as Edmund the Etheling.
At length we all sat down to supper, but talked so much we could eat little, and I soon learned all the news Alfgar had to tell. His tale is wonderful; he has been indeed delivered from the mouth of the lion, nay, from the jaws of the fierce lion; but I must set down all things in order.
The one thing which delights me most is the way in which his faith has stood the hard hard test to which it has been put.
But my dear nephew Bertric, Saint Bertric we must assuredly call him, oh how it will lighten the grief of his parents and sister to know how gloriously he died for Christ! One could envy him his crown.