nt, and looked more closely.
Then some stray gleam of light from the broken sky overhead came
into the door, and it shone round the tall and gracious figure--and
it was that of Ethelbert himself.

I saw him, and there he bided while he turned his face to us,
smiling at us. And so he set his hand on the font, and smiled
again, and was gone.

"Brother," said the seated priest, "did you see?"

"I saw, and I think it is but the first of many wonders which we
may see here."

Now we stayed there still and hardly daring to move, looking yet
for the king to be yonder again, but we saw no more. Then at last
the priest begged me to go to the archbishop and bring him, telling
him what had happened. I went, and when Ealdwulf came there was no
more delay, but where the form of Ethelbert had stood there stood
Erling, and was baptized by the archbishop, I and the old priest
standing for him. And thereafter he knelt at the steps of the
sanctuary, and on him the hands of the archbishop were laid in his
confirmation.

That was the most wonderful baptism I have ever seen, and it bides
in my mind ever as I see another, even if it be but of a little
babe of thrall or forester, so that for a time I seem to stand in
the church at Fernlea once more, and hear the voice of Erling as he
made his answers firmly and truly. Betimes it seems to me that it
was but longing and the work of minds in many ways overwrought
which showed us the form of the dead king there by the font--and I
cannot tell. Yet the watching priest saw, besides us three who had
searched for him.

Presently, on the morrow, and again in days later, when the body of
the king lay for the people to pass and see, and when it was taken
with all pomp to its resting in the great new cathedral which men
call that of Hereford, there were many healings and the like, as
they tell me. And at Marden, where Offa built at once the little
church which should mark where Ethelbert was hidden, that water
which welled from the place whence we took him healed many.

Now we went forth from the church for a little while, and presently
I went back alone and placed the little gift which Etheldrida had
given me on the breast of the king, hiding it next his heart in his
robes. I had learned that they would not be moved again. Ealdwulf
knew that I had done it, and when I came back to him, where he
talked yet with Erling in the reeve's chamber, he asked me if I
knew what the little case held. I did