Whereupon he grinned, and said that Brother Guthlac tended the abbot's mule, and had taught him much when he came to the stables daily.

He also showed me a bruised arm and broken head in token of hard play with the ash plant between them.
"Here is the said Guthlac," said Wulfhere; and there was the reader of Beowulf coming, with frock and sleeves tucked up, from out the stables.
So I called him, and asked him to try a bout with the collier, telling him why.
At first he denied all knowledge of carnal warfare, but I reminded him of his reading of Beowulf, saying that, if he knew naught of fighting, the verses would have had none of that fire in them.

So, in the end, they went to it, and I saw that Guthlac was well used to sword play, and was satisfied also with his pupil.
Then I asked Guthlac whence he got his skill in arms, and why he was shut up thus inside four walls.
"Laziness, Thane," he answered, telling me nothing of the first matter at all.

Nor would he.

But I found afterwards that he had been lamed once, and tended by the monks, and so had bided in the abbey, liking the life, though he had been a stout housecarle to some thane or other.
Then Wislac must ask him if there were any more of his sort in the abbey, and seeing that we meant no harm, and looking on me as an ally in that matter of the reading, he said there were five more, "whom Heregar the Thane knew, if he would remember, reading certain Scriptures at supper time." And I found that these six kindred spirits had managed to get themselves told off to amuse me while I waited that day, so that they might hear of the fighting.
So we laughed and rode out, and I thought no more of Guthlac and his brethren till the time came when I remembered them gladly.
All day long during that week came pouring in the Dorset levies in answer to the bishop's summons.