Besides all that, he interests himself in the affairs of his fellow-townsmen. Augustin is a personage at Thagaste. The good folk of the free-town are well aware that he is eloquent, that he has a far-reaching acquaintance, and that he has great influence in high quarters. They ask for his protection and his interference. It is even possible that they obliged him to defend them in the courts. They were proud of their Augustin. And as they were afraid that some neighbouring town might steal away their great man, they kept a guard round his house. They prevented him from shewing himself too much in the neighbourhood. Augustin himself agreed with this, and lived retired as far as he could, for he was afraid they would make him a bishop or priest in spite of himself. In those days that was a danger incurred by all Christians who were rich or had talent. The rich gave their goods to the poor when they took orders. The men of talent defended the interests of the community, or attracted opulent benefactors. And because of all these reasons, the needy or badly managed churches stalked as a prey the celebrated Augustin. In spite of this supervision, this unremitting rush of business, the work of all kinds which he undertook, he experienced at Thagaste a peace which he was never to find again. One might say that he pauses and gathers together all his strength before the great exhausting labour of his apostolate. In this Numidian country, so verdant and cool, where a thousand memories of childhood encompassed him, where he was not able to take a step without encountering the ever-living image of his mother, he soared towards God with more confidence. He who sought in the things of sense ladder-rungs whereby to mount to spiritual realities, still turned kindly eyes on the natural scene. From the windows of his room he saw the forest pines rounding their heads, like little crystal goblets with stems slim and thin. His scarred chest breathed in deliriously the resinous breath of the fine trees. He listened like a musician to the orchestra of birds. The changing scenes of country life always attracted him. It is now that he wrote: "Tell me, does not the nightingale seem to you to modulate her voice delightfully? Is not her song, so harmonious, so suave, so well attuned to the season, the very voice of the spring?..." IV AUGUSTIN A PRIEST This halt did not last long. Soon was going to begin for Augustin the time of tribulation, that of his struggles and apostolic journeys.