"I am he, father," I said.
"Then I have a message to you from Ailwin, your priest, whose place I am sent to take for a time."
"This is his house, father," I answered. "Let us come in and hear what he would tell me."
So we sat down inside the one room on the bench across the wall, and I wondered what I should hear.
"I will give my message first," the priest said, "and afterwards you shall tell me Ailwin's ways with your people, and I will try to be as himself with them."
I laughed a little, though I was pleased, and answered:
"You cannot do that, father--for he has christened everyone in the parish that is thirty years younger than he.
"Aye, I forgot that," the priest said gravely. "They will miss him sorely. Therefore I will say that he will return ere long, but that my ways must be borne with until he comes."
"Now I think that if you steer between those two sayings of yours you will do well," I answered.
"Ailwin's ways wrought in my manner, therefore. I thank you, thane," the priest said. "I am cloister bred, and know nought much of secular work. Now, that is enough about myself. This morning, very early, came Ailwin and asked for one to take his place, and I am a Dane of the old settlement, and so I came, as running less risk if Cnut returns, as they say he will. Then Ailwin bade me seek you and say this. That because of the wandering Danes he would take his charges into some more quiet place for a time at least. Truly, he bade me tell you, they have a last refuge where none would find them, but it is ill fitted for a long stay, and it is likely that once there it might now be months before they could leave it. So he and Gunnhild think best to go far off. They will return with peace, and then he bids me tell you that, if the Lord will, all shall be well."