Then I told him how I had come unexpectedly into the firelight, and that the man had fled, adding that I was nigh worn out, and so, finding a resting place, slept without heeding him; and then how little Turkil had called me "Grendel", bidding me "spit fire for him to see".
At that the old man laughed a hearty laugh, looking sidewise to see that Dudda was at work and unheeding.
"Verily," he said, "it is as I deemed, but with more reason for the collier to fly than I had thought -- for truly mail-clad men are never seen here, and thy face, my son, is of the grimmest, for all you are so young. I marvel Turkil feared you not -- but children see below the outward mask of a man's face."
Now as he said that, the old man looked kindly, but searchingly, at me, and I rebelled against it: but he was so saintly looking that I might not be angry, so tried to turn it off.
"Turkil the Valiant called me Grendel, Father. Also I think you came out to exorcise the same by name, for I heard it in the Latin. But that was a heathen fiend."
The hermit sighed a little and answered me.
"They sing the song of Beowulf and love it, heathen though it be, better than aught else, and will till one rises up who will turn Holy Writ into their mother tongue, as Caedmon did for Northumbria. Howbeit, doubtless those who were fiends in the days of the false gods are fiends yet, and if Grendel then, so also Grendel now, though he may have many other names. And knowing that name from their songs, small wonder that the terror that came from the marsh must needs be he. And, no doubt," went on the good priest, though with a little twinkle in his eye, "he knew well enough whom I came to exorcise, even if the name were wrong, had he indeed been visibly here."
So he spoke: but my mind was wandering away to my own trouble; and when I spoke of Sherborne just now, the thought of Bishop Ealhstan and his words had come to me, and I wondered if I would tell my troubles to this old man as he bade me. But, though to think of it showed that I was again more myself, something of yesterday's bitterness rose up again as the scene at the Moot came back, and I would not.
The priest was silent for a while, and must have watched my face as these thoughts hardened it again.
"Be not wroth with an old man, my son," he said, very gently; "but there is some trouble on your mind, as one who has watched the faces of men as long as I may well see. And it is bitter trouble, I fear. Sometimes these troubles pass a little, by being told."