Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune Part 16

The procession had not long entered the church, when the party of pilgrims we have described, closely followed by our friends from Aescendune, entered the quadrangle, and crossed it to the great porch of the church. It was with the greatest difficulty they could enter, for the whole floor of the huge building was crowded with kneeling worshippers. The portion of Scripture appointed for the epistle was being chanted, and the words struck Alfred's ears as he entered--"He pleased G.o.d, and was beloved of Him, so that, living among sinners, he was translated."

The words seemed to come upon him with special application to the danger the great abbot was in, and the thought that the martyr's day might be stained by a deed of blood, or, as some might say, hallowed by another martyrdom, added to his agitation.

And now he had gained a position where the high altar was in full view, illuminated by its countless tapers, and fragrant with aromatic odours.

There, in the centre of the altar, his face turned to the people as the sequence was ended, and the chanting of the gospel from the rood loft began, stood the celebrant, and Alfred gazed for the first time upon the face of Dunstan, brought out in strong relief by the glare of the artificial light.

He strove earnestly to concentrate his thoughts upon the sacred words.

They were from the sixteenth of St. Matthew, beginning at the words:

"Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

"For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for My sake, shall find it."

He could not but feel the strange coincidence that words such as these should come to strengthen him, when he felt he had most need to shelter himself under the shadow of the Cross. The service proceeded, the creed, sanctus, and other choral portions being sung by the whole monastic body in sonorous strains; and for a time Alfred was able to make a virtue of necessity, and to give himself wholly to the solemnity; but when it was over and the procession left the church, he sought an immediate interview with the abbot, in company with Father Cuthbert.

Dunstan had removed his sacerdotal garments, and had returned to his own cell, which only differed in size from the cells of his brethren. The furniture was studiously plain: hard wooden chairs; an unvarnished table; a wooden bedstead, with no bed, and only a loose coverlet of sackcloth; the walls uncovered by tapestry; the floor unfurnished with rushes;--such was the chamber of the man who had ruled England, and still exercised the most unbounded spiritual influence in the land.

There was no ostentation in this; every monk in the monastery lived in similar simplicity. Precious books and ma.n.u.scripts, deeply laden with gold and colours, were deposited on coa.r.s.e wooden shelves, while the Benedictine Breviary lay on the table, written by some learned and painstaking scribe, skilful in illumination.

The appearance of the abbot was little changed since we last beheld him; perhaps care had traced a few more lines in his countenance, and his general manner was more prompt and decided, now that danger menaced him, for menace him he knew it did, although he hardly knew from what quarter the bolt would fall.

A lay brother brought him some slight refreshment, the first he had taken during the day.

The humility inculcated by each precept of the order forbade the brother in question to speak until his superior gave him leave to do so; but Dunstan read at once the desire of his subordinate, and said:

"What hast thou to tell me, Brother Osgood?"

"Many people are without, seeking speech of thee."

"This is the case each day; are there any whose business appears pressing?"

"A company has arrived from Aescendune, or some such place in Mercia, and two of the party--a priest and a young layman--seek an immediate interview, saying their business is of life and death."

"Aescendune!--admit them first."

The brother left the cell at once, and soon returned, ushering in Father Cuthbert and Alfred, who saluted the great churchman with all due humility, and waited for him to speak, not without much evident uneasiness; perhaps some little impatience was also manifest.

"Are you of the house of Aescendune, my son?" enquired Dunstan of Alfred. "Methinks I know you by your likeness to your brother Elfric."

"I am the son of Ella, father; we have been sent on pressing business, which is notified by this parchment" (presenting the formal request on the part of the brethren of Aescendune, which was the original cause of their journey) "but we have yet a more pressing matter to bring before you: wicked men seek your life, my father."

"I am well aware of that; surely you do not dream, my son, that my eyes are closed to a fact known throughout unhappy England."

"But, my father, I speak of immediate danger, which G.o.d in His great mercy enabled me to discover but last night; this very night the abbey will be attacked, and your life or liberty in danger."

"This night!" said Dunstan, in surprise; "and how have you discovered this? Do not hesitate, my son tell me all."

Thus adjured, Alfred repeated the whole story of his discovery of the concealed expedition.

"You saw the leaders closely then?" said Dunstan, when he had finished; "describe the elder one to me."

"A tall dark man, like a foreign soldier, in plain but rich apparel, a scar on the right cheek."

"Stay, my son, I know him; his name is Redwald, and he is the captain of the king's bodyguard. Now describe the other with whom he held converse."

"Father, I cannot."

"My son--" but Dunstan paused, for he saw that poor Alfred had covered his face with his hands, and he at once divined the truth, with full conviction, at the same time, of the truth and earnestness of Alfred's statement.

"My son, G.o.d can dispose and turn the hearts of all men as seemeth best to His wisdom; and I doubt not, in answer to our fervent prayers, He will turn the heart of your poor brother. Meanwhile, we ourselves will take such precautions as shall spare him the guilt of sacrilege.

"Brother Osgood, summon the prior to my presence, and cause the brethren to a.s.semble, one and all, in the chapter house: we have need of instant deliberation."

The lay brother departed, and Dunstan, whose cheerfulness did not desert him for one moment, chatted familiarly with Father Cuthbert, or perused the parchment the good father had just presented through Alfred.

"It is a great and pleasing thing," he said, "to behold how our Order is spreading through this benighted land, and how spiritual children arise everywhere to our holy father Benedict; surely the time is near at hand when the wilderness shall blossom as the rose."

The prior, Father Guthlac, entered at this moment, and Dunstan talked apart with him for some moments with extreme earnestness, but only the last words which pa.s.sed between them were audible.

"Yes, my brother, you have the words of Scripture," said Dunstan, "to support your proposal: 'When they persecute you in one city, flee ye unto another.'"

"Yet it is hard to leave a spot one has reared with such tender care."

"There was One Who left more for us; and I do not think they will destroy the place, or even attempt to destroy it: they will fill it with those 'slow bellies, those evil beasts,' the secular clergy, with their wives."

"Fitter it should be a stye for hogs." [xxi]

"Nay, they are men after all; yet there is some reason to fear that, like hogs, they wallow in the mire of sensuality; but their day will be but a short one."

"My father!"

"But a short one; it hath been foreshown me in visions of the night that the Evil One will triumph indeed, but that his triumph will be very short; and, alas a green tree which standeth in the pride of its youth and might must, ere the close of that triumph, be hewn down."

"By our hands, father?"

"G.o.d forbid! by the Hand of G.o.d, I speak but as it has been revealed to me."

It was a well-known fact that Dunstan either was subject to marvellous hallucinations, and was a monomaniac on that one point, while so wise in all other matters, or that he was the object of special revelations, and was favoured with spiritual visions, as well as temptations, which do not ordinarily fall within the observation or experience of men.

So Father Guthlac and the rest of the company listened with the greatest reverence to his declaration, as to the words of an inspired oracle.

"But let us go to our brethren; they await us," said Dunstan, speaking to the prior. "Brother Osgood, take these our guests to the refectorarius, and ask him to see that they and all their company taste our bounty at least this day; tomorrow we may have nought to offer them."

In the famous chapter of the whole house of Glas...o...b..ry which followed, and which became historical, prompt resolution was taken on Dunstan's report, which did honour to the brotherhood, as evincing both their resignation and their trust in G.o.d, Who they believed would, to use the touching phrase of the Psalmist, "turn their captivity as the rivers in the south;" so that they "who went forth weeping, bearing good seed, should come again with joy, and bring their sheaves with them."

So it was at once agreed that the whole community should break up immediately; that within the next hour all the monks should depart for the various monasteries of the Benedictine order; and that Dunstan himself, with but two companions, should take refuge across the sea, sailing from the nearest port on the Somersetshire coast.

A dozen of the brethren were to return with Father Cuthbert and Alfred to Aescendune at once, and to bear with them all the necessary powers for the accomplishment of the good thane's wishes in regard to the monastery of St. Wilfred, while Father Cuthbert was then and there admitted by Dunstan to the order of St. Benedict--the necessity of the case justifying some departure from the customary formalities.