and I used to ride to Bosham, the little seacoast village beyond
Chichester town, to speak with Dicul, the good old Irish priest,
who yet bided there rather than in the new monastery which Wilfrith
built at Selsea, until we were taught all that was needful, and the
time came when we should be baptized.

That my father would have done here at Eastdean, that all his
people, who were Christians before him, should see and rejoice. Yet
it was not an easy matter for him as it had been for them, for now
he would stand alone among his fellows, the heathen thanes; and
most of all Erpwald the priest would be wroth with him for leaving
that which he had held so long. He must meet these men often
enough, and he knew that they would have biting words to hurl at
him, but that thought did not stay him for a moment. It was more
than likely that one or two more would follow him when once the old
circle was broken.

So on a certain day Dicul rode over from Bosham on his mule, and
early on the next morning he set up a little wooden cross by the
spring above the hall, and there my father and I and Stuf, the head
man of the house-carles, who had bided in the old faith for love of
my father, were baptized, Owen and one of the village freemen
standing sponsors for us, and that was a wondrous day to us all, as
I think. For when all was done my father gave their freedom to all
our thralls, for the sake of the freedom that had been given him,
and he promised that here, where he and they had been freed, a
church should be built of good forest oak, after the woodcutting of
the winter to come.

Then Dicul went his way homewards, with one of our men to lead his