them on his own account; {312} fell asleep in the forest coming home
from Durham with some bottles; was led in a vision by St. John the
Baptist to the top of a hill, and shown by him wonders unspeakable;
saw, on another occasion, a daemon in St. Godric's cell, hung all
over with bottles of different liquors, offering them to the saint,
who bade the lad drive him out of the little chapel, with a holy
water sprinkle, but not go outside it himself. But the lad, in the
fury of successful pursuit, overstepped the threshold; whereon the
daemon, turning in self-defence, threw a single drop of one of his
liquors into the lad's mouth, and vanished with a laugh of scorn.
The boy's face and throat swelled horribly for three days; and he
took care thenceforth to obey the holy man more strictly: a story
which I have repeated, like the one before it, only to show the real
worth of the evidence on which Reginald has composed his book.
Ailred, Abbot of Rievaux (for Reginald's book, though dedicated to
Hugh Pudsey, his bishop, was prompted by Ailred) was capable (as his
horrible story of the nun of Watton proves) of believing anything
and everything which fell in with his fanatical, though pious and
gentle, temper.

And here a few words must be said to persons with whose difficulties
I deeply sympathise, but from whose conclusions I differ utterly:
those, namely, who say that if we reject the miracles of these
saints' lives, we must reject also the miracles of the New
Testament. The answer is, as I believe, that the Apostles and
Evangelists were sane men: men in their right minds, wise, calm;
conducting themselves (save in the matter of committing sins) like
other human beings, as befitted the disciples of that Son of Man who
came eating and drinking, and was therefore called by the ascetics
of his time a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber: whereas these