“Sir,” he said, very courteously but without any servility, “I see you are a stranger, and you meet me on a strange errand.  I am the priest whom they call the hermit, Leofwine—­should I name you thane?”

I was going to answer him as I would have replied but yesterday morning —­so hesitated a little, and then answered shortly.

“No thane, Father, but the next thing to it—­a masterless man.”

“As you will, sir,” he replied, thinking that I doubtless had my own reason for withholding whatever rank I had.  “We meet few strangers in this wild.”

“I lost my way, Father,” I said, “and wandered here in the night, and, being sorely weary, slept in this empty hut till two hours ago, waking to find yon child here.”

Now little Turkil, seeing that I looked towards him, got free from his mother and ran to me, saying that he must go home, and that I must speak for him, as his mother was wroth with him for playing truant.

The woman, who seemed to be the wife of some well-to-do freeman, followed him, and I spoke to her, begging her to forgive the boy, as he had been a pleasant comrade to me, and that, indeed, I had kept him, as he said some folk were coming from the village.

Whereon she thanked me for tending him, saying that she had feared the foul fiend whom the collier had seen would surely have devoured him.  So I pleased her by saying that a boy who would face such a monster now would surely grow up a valiant man.  Then Turkil must kiss me in going, bidding me come and see him again, and I knew not how to escape promising that, though it was a poor promise that could not be kept, seeing that I must fly the kingdom of Wessex as soon as I might.  Then his mother took him away, he looking back often at me.  With them went the most of the people, some wondering, but the greater part laughing at Dudda Collier’s fright.

I asked the old priest where the village might be, and he told me that it lay in a clearing full two miles off, and that the father of Turkil was the chief franklin there, though of little account elsewhere.  He had not yet come back from the great Moot at Brent, and that was good hearing for me, for though he must return next day, I should be far by that time.

While we talked, the collier and two or three men came to us, telling excitedly how that the kiln was raked out, and that the cauldron was empty—­doubtless the work of the fiend.

“Saw you aught of any fiend, good sir?” asked the priest of me.

Now I remembered the roe deer in time, and answered, “I saw nought worse than myself”—­but I think that, had the collier known my thoughts, he would have fled me as he fled that he took me for.  But that he was sore terrified I have no doubt, for it seemed that he neither recognized me, nor remembered what he was doing at the kiln when I came.  Maybe, as often happens, he had told some wild story to so many that he believed it himself.