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Guthlac's shoulders; and when men marvelled thereat, he, the holy man, replied: "Know that they who live the holy life draw nearer to the birds of the air, even as they do to the angels in heaven." And Lady Godiva called for old Abbot Ulfketyl, the good and brave, and fell upon his neck, and told him all her tale; and Ulfketyl wept upon her neck, for they were old and faithful friends.
"She must have been an awful sinner," said he to the monks when he got safe out of the room; "comparable only to the witch of Endor, or the woman Jezebel, of whom St. John writes in the Revelations." "I do not know how you Frenchmen measure folks, when you see them; but to our mind she is, for goodness, humility, and patience comparable only to an angel of God," said Abbot Ulfketyl.
The girl, when she heard her mother's command, wept, shrieked, and went. At least she was going to her father. And from wholesome fear of that same saying-knife, the priest left her in peace all the way to Winchester. After which, Abbot Ulfketyl went into his lodgings, and burst, like a noble old nobleman as he was, into bitter tears of rage and shame.
"Preach me no sermons, man! Let me in to seek my wife." "Over my body," said Ulfketyl, and laid himself down across the threshold. Hereward recoiled. If he had dared to step over that sacred body, there was not a blood-stained ruffian in his crew who dared to follow him. "Rise, rise! for God's sake, Lord Abbot," said he. "Whatever I am, I need not that you should disgrace me thus.
Not being versed in the terms of English venery, he asked Abbot Ulfketyl what brittling of a deer might mean; and being informed that it was that operation on the carcass of a stag which his countrymen called eventrer, and Highland gillies now "gralloching," he subsided, and thought it best to go and consult the young lady's mother. She, to his astonishment, submitted at once and utterly.
The result was as he might have expected. They took the money, laughing at his simplicity, and three weeks afterwards pillaged Thetford, and burnt it. Then Ulfketyl, who was a brave man, got an East Anglian army together, and fought the Danes, giving them the uncommon chastisement of a defeat, so that they escaped with difficulty to their ships.
There, by his side, when the tents were pitched the evening before the battle, stood many a brave ealdorman, Godwin of Lindsey; Ulfketyl, the hero of the East Angles; Ethelweard, the son of the pious Ethelwine, whom men called the "Friend of God."
For, as I was going to say, he sent word to me 'that the monks of Crowland were as the apple of his eye, and Abbot Ulfketyl to him as more than a father; and that if I dared to lay a finger on them or their property, he would cut my head off." "He has promised to cut my head off likewise," said Ascelin.
And the best of them believed likewise that Waltheof's murder was the reason that William, her uncle, prospered no more in life. "Ah, saucy sir," said Alftruda to Ulfketyl, as she went out, "there is one waiting at Peterborough now who will teach thee manners, Ingulf of Fontenelle, Abbot, in thy room." "Does Hereward know that?" asked Ulfketyl, looking keenly at her.
So Leofric was received back, in full chapter, by abbot and prior and all the monks. But when he asked them to lay a penance upon him, Ulfketyl arose from his high chair and spoke. "Shall we, who have sat here at ease, lay a penance on this man, who has shed his blood in fifty valiant fights for us, and for St. Guthlac, and for this English land? Look at yon scars upon his head and arms.
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