's mind, for they began to mock
him (possibly he nearly went over the donkey's head), and went about to
hurt him.

'But,' says the chronicler, 'the power of the Lord held them back.'

Then he went on, right thankful at having escaped with his life, up and
down, round and round, exploring and surveying--for what purpose we shall
see hereafter. And at last he lost himself in the place which is called
Aihen-loh, 'the glade of oaks;' and at night-fall he heard the plash of
water, and knew not whether man or wild beast made it. And not daring to
call out, he tapped a tree-trunk with his axe (some backwoodsman's sign
of those days, we may presume), and he was answered. And a forester came
to him, leading his lord's horse; a man from the Wetterau, who knew the
woods far and wide, and told him all that he wanted to know. And they
slept side by side that night; and in the morning they blest each other,
and each went his way.

Yes, there were not merely kings and wars, popes and councils, in those
old days;--there were real human beings, just such as we might meet by
the wayside any hour, with human hearts and histories within them. And
we will be thankful if but one of them, now and then, starts up out of
the darkness of twelve hundred years, like that good forester, and looks
at us with human eyes, and goes his way again, blessing, and not unblest.

And now Sturmi knew all that he needed to know; and after awhile,
following the counsel of the forester, he came to 'the blessed place,
long ago prepared of the Lord. And when he saw it, he was filled with
immense joy, and went on exulting; for he felt that by the merits and
prayers of the holy Bishop Boniface that place had been revealed to him.
And he went about it, and about it, half the day; and the more he looked
on it the more he gave God thanks;' and those who know Fulda say, that
Sturmi had reason to give God thanks, and must have had a keen eye,
moreover, for that which man needs for wealth and prosperity, in soil and
water, meadow and wood. So he blessed the place, and signed it with the
sign of the Cross (in token that it belonged thenceforth neither to
devils nor fairies, but to his rightful Lord and Maker), and went back to
his cell, and thence a weary journey to St. Boniface, to tell him of the
fair place which he had found at last.

And St. Boniface went his weary way, either to Paris or to Aix, to Pepin
and Carloman, kings of the Franks; and begged of them