back to Aescendune
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."