“Nay! rise up, my son, it is thine: _Deus benedicat et custodiat te, in omnibus viis tuis_. Thinkest thou, my son, thy name has been forgotten in my poor prayers? God made thee His instrument, but thou wast a very very willing one; and now, my son, wherein can I serve thee? Thou hast but to speak.”
Thus encouraged, Alfred told all his tale, and Dunstan listened with much emotion.
“Yet two days and I will be with you at Æscendune. Go back and comfort thy brother; he shall indeed have my forgiveness, and happy shall I be as an ambassador of Christ to fulfil the blessed office of restoring the lost sheep to the fold, the prodigal to his Heavenly Father.”
When Alfred returned to Æscendune he found Elfric eagerly awaiting him; he had not been so well in the absence of his brother, and every one saw symptoms of the coming end.
Still he seemed so happy when Alfred delivered his message that every one remarked it, and that evening he sat up later than usual, listening as Father Cuthbert read for the hundredth time his favourite story from King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels, the parable of the prodigal son, which had filled his mind on the night after the battle; then he spoke to his mother about past days, before a cloud came between him and his home; and talked of his father, and of the little incidents of early youth. Always loving, he was more so than usual that night, as if he felt time was short in which to show a son’s love.
That night his mother came, as she always came, when he was asleep, to his chamber to gaze upon him, when she was struck by the difficulty of his breathing; she felt alarmed when she saw the struggles he seemed to make for breath, and saw the damp sweat upon his brow, so she called Alfred.
Alfred saw at once that his brother was seriously worse, and summoned Father Cuthbert, who no sooner gazed upon him than he exclaimed that the end was near.
During all that night he breathed heavily and with difficulty, as if each breath would be the last. Towards morning, however, he rallied, and immediate danger seemed gone, although only for a short time.
He sat up for the last time that day. It was a lovely day in May, and in the heat of the day he seemed to drink in the sweet atmosphere, as it came gently through the open window, laden with the scents of a hundred flowers. Often his lips moved as if in prayer, and sometimes he spoke to his brother, and asked when Dunstan would come; but he was not equal to prolonged conversation.