And how the two, my foster parents, told me all that they knew about my father, and mother, up to the time of the burning of the Mead hall.
And how the two were never weary of lauding to me my father's glory in battle and song.
And how the monks of Saint Columban, as I grew, would have me taught to read and write; but I loved far better to go out with the hunters and shepherds of the monastery, and liked to draw targets on the parchment leaves for my little cross-bow.
And how, at length, they declared me unfit for books, when with my small bolt I had pierced through and through a costly picture which on the gold ground of a thumb broad margin represented the whole of the Passion, and promoted me with a sound thrashing to be herd boy of the monastery.
And how for many years, since my foster parents were dead, I had kept the sheep of the monastery; and my sole pleasure therein had been in fighting with the bears, the wolves, and the eagles, that attacked the lambs.
Or in playing upon my shepherd's pipe, or in listening to the roar of the sea and the forest.
And Halfred laid my head upon his broad breast, and folded both his arms around it, and laid his hand upon it, and was still and silent for a long time.
And I brought him water to drink from the fountain, and milk from my flock; and would have drawn the stone from the wound, but he said--
"Leave it, my dear son--the end draws near.
"But I feel the band taken away from my brain, which for many many years has pressed upon it.