“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.