But even his hammer, his only possession, I dared not keep. Even should I tell the monks I had found it, or bought it from sailors--they would not have left it with me, for strong heathen victory runes were engraved on the haft.
So I laid then the hammer also close to the right hand of the dead. "Guard it for me, dear father," I said, "till I need it again. Then will I fetch it."
But from that hour there came a great change over my disposition.
That which had most delighted me, to fight for my sheep with wolves, bears, and birds of prey--that attracted me no more.
Rather the question which had driven my dear father even to madness, if there be a God, or Gods? And how it could be that such fearful things should come to pass as are here set down in this history, from the vow upon the Bragi cup, on to this great horror, that the son had slain his own father. These questionings seized upon me, and would not let me rest, any more than my dear father.
And as my dear father of yore looked up to the stars, and implored the heathen Gods for enlightenment, so also did I look up to the stars for illumination, praying to Christ and the saints.
Then I said to myself--"Here on the sheep pastures, and from the roar of the sea, and from the light of the stars, wilt thou find no answer all thy life long, any more than thy dear father.
"But in the books of the monks, the Latin ones and those others, with the crinkled runic flourishes, lie hidden all holy and worldly wisdom.
"And when thou can'st read them, all will be clear to thee in heaven and upon earth."
And so I took leave of my dear father, gathered my sheep together, and drove them to the monastery.
"Art thou gone mad, Irenæus?" asked the porter, as he opened the door for me and my bleating charge, "that thou drivest home before shearing time. They will scourge thee again."
"I was mad," I replied, "but now I will become a scholar. Now another may scare the wolves. I will learn Greek."
And thus I also said to the good Abbot Aelfrik, before whom I was at once led for chastisement.
"Lay the scourge aside. Perchance the boy, who has always been a heathenish worldly Saul, has become suddenly a Paul, through the grace of the holy Columban. He shall have his wish. If he holds to it--then it is a work of the saints. If his zeal flags, then it is a wile of Satan, and he shall go out again to his sheep."