In a week they begin to spread their
lies,--that Waltheof was innocent; that Archbishop Lanfranc himself said
so."
"That was the only act of human weakness which I have ever known the
venerable prelate commit," said Thorold.
"That these Normans at Winchester were so in the traitor's favor, that the
king had to have him out and cut off his head in the gray of the morning,
ere folks were up and about; that the fellow was so holy that he past all
his time in prison in weeping and praying, and said over the whole Psalter
every day, because his mother had taught it him,--I wish she had taught
him to be an honest man;--and that when his head was on the block he said
all the Paternoster, as far as 'Lead us not into temptation,' and then off
went his head; whereon, his head being off, finished the prayer with--you
know best what comes next, Abbot?"
"Deliver us from evil, Amen! What a manifest lie! The traitor was not
permitted, it is plain, to ask for that which could never be granted to
him; but his soul, unworthy to be delivered from evil, entered instead
into evil, and howls forever in the pit."
"But all the rest may be true," said Oger; "and yet that be no reason why
these monks should say it."
"So I told them, and threatened them too; for, not content with making him
a martyr, they are making him a saint.
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