kings.

Edmund was eighteen years of age when he took his place on the
honorable Saxon throne of Alfred the Great. He was a high-spirited
young man, warm-hearted and brave. He conquered Cumberland from the
Ancient Britons, and protected his kingdom against the fierce
sea-kings of the North. Like his great ancestor, King Alfred, he was
fond of learning and art. He improved and adorned public places and
buildings. He made a very elegant appearance, and held a showy
court, and they called him the Magnificent.

But Edmund was fond of convivial suppers, and used himself to drink
deeply of wine. He lived fast, and his friends lived fast, though
they appeared to live very happily and merrily.

But young men given to festive suppers and to wine are not apt to
make a long history; and the history of Edmund the Magnificent, the
first boy king, was a short one.

Edmund was succeeded in the year 946 by Edred, his brother, a
well-meaning youth, who was the second of the six boy kings of
England.

Dunstan had become abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, the church where he
performed the miracle when he was sick of the fever. He was very
ambitious to meddle in affairs of state, but his bad name had
weakened his influence with Edmund, and it seemed likely to do the
same with well-intentioned Edred. He desired to create a public
impression again that he was a saint.

He retired to a cell and there spent his time working very hard as a
smith, and--so the report went--in devotion.

[Illustration: ST. DUNSTAN AND THE DEVIL.]

Then the people said: "How humble and penitent Dunstan is! He has
the back-ache all day, and the leg-ache all night, and he suffers
all for the cause of purity and truth."

Then Dunstan told the people that the Devil came to tempt him,
which, with his aches for the good cause, made his situation very
trying.

The Devil, he said, wanted him to lead a life of selfish
gratification, but he would not be tempted to do a thing like that;
he never thought of himself,--oh, no, good soul, not he.

The people said that Dunstan must have become a very holy man, or
the Devil would not appear to him bodily.

One day a great noise was heard issuing from the retreat of this
man, and filling all the air for miles, the like of which was never
known before. The people were much astonished. Some of them went to
Dunstan to inquire the cause. He tol