"Now must you get hence, Heregar, my son, and go your way to the king with all haste, so shall you be back the sooner. Give him a scarf to bind that wound, Alswythe; so shall it seem an honour and not a scar."
So there was a little leave taking, but not much, though enough, and I went from the nunnery with Alswythe's white and red and gold scarf over my shoulder; gay enough to look at, but no gayer than the heart beneath it.
And there, waiting for me in the street, was my tail, armed and drawn up in line of fours to see me back to the abbey. So I went there at the head of them, with more shouting of people.
There was Wulfhere sitting on the doorsteps of the great door, having a bag in his hand, and when I got up to him, he thrust it out to me, saying "largess", and that I was glad enough to understand.
So I put my hand into the bag, and crying, "Here is withal to drink to Somerset and Dorset shoulder to shoulder," scattered the silver pennies among them, and so left them without any order among them at all, though shoulder to shoulder certainly.
"Ho, master!" said Wulfhere, "you looked mighty angry when you were carried aloft an hour ago."
"Aye," said I, "'tis pity a thane cannot walk abroad quietly on his own business."
"Well, well, they thought that you were their business, doubtless."
"Whence came all those pennies?" I asked, for we had no store at all to cast away.
"From Eanulf and Ealhstan," said Wulfhere, laughing. "They came to me, and saying that they were sore jealous, and minded to have good cause therefor, gave me this that you might carry off all well to the end."