What might not Eadmund the Saint, who slew Swein to save his shrine from heathen hands, be able to do for me?
I would tell Ailwin presently, and ask him what vow I should make in return for this remembrance.
But Ailwin came not, and I grew impatient, and went to the cottage where he dwelt as the leech, at the head of the little street towards our hall.

Maybe he would be there.
The door was open, and the little black cat that had been the leech's in the old days, and would not leave its house, sat in the sun on the step.

I went inside and called, but there was no man.
And then a footstep came from the road and in at the wicket, and a strange priest, younger than Ailwin, and frocked and cowled came in.
He saluted me gravely, and I bowed to him, and then he asked me where Redwald the thane might be found.
"I am he, father," I said.
"Then I have a message to you from Ailwin, your priest, whose place I am sent to take for a time." "This is his house, father," I answered.

"Let us come in and hear what he would tell me." So we sat down inside the one room on the bench across the wall, and I wondered what I should hear.
"I will give my message first," the priest said, "and afterwards you shall tell me Ailwin's ways with your people, and I will try to be as himself with them." I laughed a little, though I was pleased, and answered: "You cannot do that, father--for he has christened everyone in the parish that is thirty years younger than he.
"Aye, I forgot that," the priest said gravely.

"They will miss him sorely.