hine
and the Danube; and Dunstan plunged into the study of sacred and profane
letters till his brain broke down in delirium. So famous became his
knowledge in the neighbourhood that news of it reached the court of
AEthelstan, but his appearance there was the signal for a burst of
ill-will among the courtiers. Again they drove him from Eadmund's train,
threw him from his horse as he passed through the marshes, and with the
wild passion of their age trampled him under foot in the mire. The
outrage ended in fever, and Dunstan rose from his sick-bed a monk. But
the monastic profession was then little more than a vow of celibacy and
his devotion took no ascetic turn. His nature in fact was sunny,
versatile, artistic; full of strong affections, and capable of inspiring
others with affections as strong. Quick-witted, of tenacious memory, a
ready and fluent speaker, gay and genial in address, an artist, a
musician, he was at the same time an indefatigable worker alike at books
or handicraft. As his sphere began to widen we see him followed by a
train of pupils, busy with literature, writing, harping, painting,
designing. One morning a lady summons him to her house to design a robe
which she is embroidering, and as he bends with her maidens over their
toil his harp hung upon the wall sounds without mortal touch tones which
the excited ears around frame into a joyous antiphon.

[Sidenote: Conquest of the Danelaw]

From this scholar-life Dunstan was called to a wider sphere of activity
towards the close of Eadmund's reign. But the old jealousies revived at
his reappearance at court, and counting the game lost Dunstan prepared
again to withdraw. The king had spent the day in the chase; the red deer
which he was pursuing dashed over Cheddar cliffs, and his horse only
checked itself on the brink of the ravine at the moment when Eadmund in
the bitterness of death was repenting of his injustice to Dunstan. He was
at once summoned on the king's return. "Saddle your horse," said Eadmund,
"and ride with me." The royal train swept over the marshes to his home;
and the king, bestowing on him the kiss of peace, seated him in the
abbot's chair as Abbot of Glastonbury. Dunstan became one of Eadmund's
councillors, and his hand was seen in the settlement of the north. It was
the hostility of the states around it to the West-Saxon rule which had
roused so often revolt in the Danelaw; but from the time of Brunanburh we
hear nothing more of the