But I was not going to quarrel with the manner of a gift from Elfrida, and so I went on with it in my hand, and as I turned the corner into a fresh path I also ran into the abbot of the new minster, who was on his way to speak with Owen before he set out.

He had been a great friend of Bishop Aldhelm's, and I had known him well since the old days of Malmesbury.
"So Oswald," he cried, "I have been looking for you, that I might wish you all good in your thaneship.

Why, some of us are proud of you.

And I, having known you since you were a child, feel as if I had some sort of a share in your honours.

But what is amiss?
One would look to see you the gayest of the gay, and it seems as if the world had gone awry with you." Now, the abbot was just the friend to whom I could tell my present trouble without fear of being mocked, for he was wont to stand to us boys of the court as the good friend who would help us out of a scrape if he could, and make us feel ashamed thereof in private afterward, in all kindliness.