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.

"Then, my sons," said the hermit, "the fiend finding Dudda no prey of
his, departed straightway, and he need fear no more."