CHAPTER 25: How as bishop elect he cured the ailing servant of one of the king’s bodyguards with holy water
CHAPTER 25
How as bishop elect he cured the ailing servant of one of the king’s bodyguards with holy water
AFTER his election the man of God returned to his island and went on fighting the good fight in secret with unabated zeal. Then his holy bishop, Eata, called him to Melrose to converse with him. On the way back one of King Ecgfrith’s bodyguards came to meet him and asked him to turn aside on an urgent matter, namely to confer a blessing on his house and homestead. Cuthbert arrived at the house and was most hospitably treated. One of the servants was ill.
‘Thanks be to God, holy father,’ said the man, ‘for your kindness in coming to visit us and enter our home. Your coming will, I feel sure, be a great boon to us. Our servant is tormented with some foul disease and is in such pain today that he seems more like a dying than a sick man. His extremities look dead already and he is only just breathing.’
Cuthbert blessed some water and gave it to Baldhelm, another servant, ordering him to give it to the sick man to drink. The third time it was poured down his throat he fell into a deep sleep – a complete contrast to his previous condition. This happened in the evening. He passed a quiet night and the following morning his master found him restored to full health. Baldhelm is still alive and now a priest of the church at Lindisfarne, an office which he adorns with every virtue. It is sweeter than honey to him to recount Cuthbert’s miracles to any who care to know them; he told me this one himself.