Wulf," it began, "from my steward, Egbert, that you are applying
yourself so heartily to your work. I have also good accounts of you
from the Prior of Bramber, who sometimes writes to me. He is a good
and wise man, as well as a learned one, and I am right glad to hear
that you are spending your time so well. I told you that you should
hear if there was any alteration in your affair. Some change was
made as soon as you had left; for, two days later, meeting William
of London in the presence of the king, I told him that I had inquired
further into the matter, and had found that you were by no means
the aggressor in the quarrel with young Fitz-Urse, for that he had
fingered his dagger, and would doubtless have drawn it had there
not been many bystanders. I also said that, with all respect to
the bishop, it would have been better had he not inclined his ears
solely to the tale of his page, and that under the circumstances
it was scarcely wonderful that, being but a boy, you had defended
yourself when you were, as you deemed, unjustly accused.

"The prelate sent at once for his page, who stoutly denied that he
had touched the hilt of his dagger, but I too had sent off for
Ulred, the armourer, and he brought with him a gossip who had also
been present. I asked the king's permission to introduce them, and
they entirely confirmed your story. Fitz-Urse exclaimed that it was
a Saxon plot to do him harm, and I could see that the bishop was
of the same opinion; but the king, who is ever anxious to do justice,
declared at once that he was sure that the two craftsmen were but
speaking the truth. He sternly rebuked Fitz-Urse as a liar, and
signified to the bishop that he would do well to punish him severely
by sending him back to Normandy, for that he would not tolerate his
presence at court--an order which the bishop obeyed with very bad
grace. But at any rate the lad was sent away by a ship a week later.