Thereafter as Moling was wending his way he saw before him a hideous misshapen leper. ‘Whence comest thou, O cleric?’ says the leper. ‘I come out of the wood,’ replies the cleric. ‘For God's sake, take me with thee to the church.’ ‘I am willing,’ says Moling: ‘come on then,’ says he. ‘In what manner?’ asked the leper. ‘As thou camest hither,’ says Moling. ‘I cannot travel,’ says the leper, ‘till I get myself carried comfortably.’ ‘Come on my back then,’ said Moling. ‘I will not go,’ says the leper, ‘lest there be some of thy raiment between me and thee, for the raiment41 will leave none of my skin upon me.’ ‘I will do (what thou desirest),’ says Moling, so he doffs his clothes and lifts the leper on his back. ‘Blow my nose,’ says the leper. Moling gives his hand to him to blow it. ‘Nay!’ says the leper, ‘for thy fingers will strip my skin off: put thy mouth round it.’ The cleric puts his mouth round the nose and sucks it to him,42 and spits that mucus into his left hand.
When he looked a look past him43 he knew not whether the leper had gone into heaven or into earth. ‘This is right,’ says Moling, ‘if my Lord came to deceive me. I will neither sleep nor eat until my Lord comes to me clearly and evidently.’ He then remained in that place till midnight. Then the angel came to him and said: ‘In what form wouldst thou prefer thy Lord to come and hold speech with thee?’ ‘In the guise of a boy of seven years,’ says Moling, ‘so that I may make transports of fondness around Him.’ He noticed nothing at the end of a time afterwards till Christ sat on his lap in the shape of