Chapter 12

THE FLIGHT OF DUNSTAN.

It was the day of St. Alban, the protomartyr of England, and the saint was greatly honoured at Glastonbury, where, as we have seen, Dunstan was in residence, and, as a natural consequence, every department of the monastic life was quickened by his presence. The abbey was full of monks who had professed the Benedictine rule, and having but recently been rebuilt, it possessed many improvements hardly yet introduced into English architecture in general. The greater part of the building was of stone, and it was not, in its general features, unlike some of the older colleges at Oxford or Cambridge, although the order of the architecture was, of course, exclusively that of the Saxon period, characterised by the heavy and massive, yet imposing, circular arch.

But upon the church or abbey chapel all the skill of the architect had been concentrated, and it seemed worthy alike of its founder and of its object. Seen upon the morning in question, when the bright summer sun filled every corner with gladsome light, just as the long procession of white-robed priests, and monks in their sombre garb, with their hoods thrown back, were entering for high mass, and the choral psalm arose, it was peculiarly imposing.

The procession had not long entered the church, when the party of pilgrims we have described, closely followed by our friends from Æscendune, 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 God, 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 manuscripts, deeply laden with gold and colours, were deposited on coarse 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 Æscendune, 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.”

“Æscendune!—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 Æscendune, 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 Æscendune, 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 God 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, God 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 assemble, 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 passed 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?”

“God forbid! by the Hand of God, 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 Glastonbury 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 God, 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 Æscendune 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.

All being completely ordered and arranged, the chapter broke up, and within an hour the monks were leaving as rapidly as boys leave school when breaking-up day comes, but not quite so joyously. They strove to attract as little attention as possible, and, in most cases, travelled in the ordinary dress of the country.

Father Cuthbert and the Benedictines who were to accompany him on his return—- so much more speedy than had been anticipated —were already prepared to start, when, to their surprise, Alfred could not be found.

Alfred was at that moment in the cell of Dunstan, with whom he had obtained, not without great trouble, another brief interview.

“God bless you, my son,” said Dunstan, “and render unto you according to all you have done for His glory this day, and restore you your brother safe in body and soul!”

But it was not merely for a blessing that Alfred had sought the abbot.

“Father,” he said, “if I have happily been of service to you, I ask but one favour in return; one brother has sought your life, let the other remain with you as a bodyguard.”

“But your father?”

“I am satisfied that I am but speaking as he would have me speak.”

“But you will become an exile.”

“Gladly, if I can but serve you, father.”

“But, my child, I have no means of support for you abroad; as monks we shall find hospitality in every Benedictine house, but you are only a layman.”

“Then, father, I but ask you to allow me to accompany you to the coast.”

“I grant it, my son, for I believe God inspires the wish. Be it as you desire, but one of your serfs must accompany you; it would not be safe to travel home alone.”

So Father Cuthbert and the Benedictines started back to Æscendune without Alfred, bearing Dunstan’s explanation of the matter to the half-bereaved father whose faith, they feared, would be sorely tried, and leaving Oswy to be his companion.

It was now drawing near nightfall, and the abbey was almost deserted; all the pilgrims had left with the monks, although many of them would willingly have put their trust in the arm of flesh and remained to fight for Dunstan against his temporal foes, even as he—so they piously believed—routed their spiritual enemies. In that vast abbey there were now but six persons—Dunstan, Guthlac, Alfred, the lay brother Osgood, Oswy, and a guide who knew all the bypaths of the country.

Desolate and solitary indeed seemed the huge pile of untenanted buildings as the evening breeze swept through them. The last straggler had gone; Dunstan was still in his cell arranging or destroying certain papers, the guide and lay brothers held six strong and serviceable horses in the courtyard below, near the open gate, impatient to start, and blaming secretly the dilatoriness of their great chieftain. They watched the sun as he sank lower and lower in the western sky, and thought of the woods and forests they must traverse, frequented by wolves, and sometimes by outlaws whom they dreaded far more. Still Dunstan did not appear.

Alfred and Guthlac, on a watchtower above, gazed on the plain stretched before them. Mile after mile it extended towards that forest where the enemy was now known to lurk, and they watched each road, nay, each copse and field, with jealous eye, lest it should conceal an enemy. Ofttimes the shadow of some passing cloud, as it swept over moor or mere, was taken for an armed host; ofttimes the wind, as it sighed amongst the trees and blew the dried leaves hither and thither, seemed to carry the warning “An enemy is near.”

At length danger seemed to show itself plainly: just as the sun set, a dark shadow moved from a distant angle of the forest on the plain beneath, and the words “The enemy!” escaped simultaneously from Alfred and Guthlac as the setting sun seemed reflected upon spear and sword, flashing in a hundred points as they caught the reflection of the departing luminary.

Alfred, at the prior’s desire, hurried to the chamber of Dunstan.

“Father,” he said, “the enemy are near. They have left the forest.”

“That is four miles in distance: there will be time for me to finish this letter to my brother of Abingdon.”

“But, father, their horses may be fleeter than ours.”

“We are under God’s protection: I am sure we shall not be overtaken: be at peace, my son.”

Poor Alfred felt as if his faith were very sorely tried indeed, but he strove to acquiesce.

It was now quite dark, and the ears of the would-be fugitives were strained to catch the sounds which should warn them of approaching danger.

At length they fancied they heard sounds arise from the plain before them: suppressed noises, such as must unavoidably be made by a force on its passage; and Alfred again sought the cell of Dunstan, yet dared not enter, urgent though the emergency seemed.

At this moment he was startled by a demoniacal burst of laughter, which seemed to fill the corridor in which he waited with exultant joy.

What could it be? he felt as if he had never heard such laughter before—so terrible, yet so boisterous.

A moment of dread silence, and then it began again, and filled each corridor and chamber.

At that moment Dunstan came forth, and saw the pale face of Alfred.

“It is only the devil,” he said “we are not ignorant of his devices.

“O Satan! thou that wert once an angel in heaven, art thou reduced to bray like a jackass?” xxii

Again the exultant peal resounded.

“Be at peace,” said the abbot; “thou rejoicest at my departure; I shall soon return to defy thee and thy allies.”

And the laughter ceased.

“We must lose no time,” he said; “the moment is at hand.”

Locking each door behind him, he reached the party in the courtyard, and each person mounted in a moment; then they passed under the great archway. Oswy had remained behind one moment to lock the great gates, and then they all rode forth boldly into the darkness.

They passed rapidly in a direction at right angles to that in which their pursuers were approaching, and at the distance of a mile they halted for one moment to ascertain the cause of a great uproar which suddenly arose.

It was not difficult to divine its cause: it was the beating of axes and hammers on the great outer door of the monastery.

“It will occupy them nearly an hour,” said Dunstan, “and we shall be far far away before they have succeeded in effecting an entrance.”

So they rode on rapidly into the night. Before them lay the Foss Way, the road was good and well known to them, the moon was shining brightly, and their spirits rose with the excitement and the exertion. Onward! Onward!