But the monastic profession was then little more than a vow of celibacy and his devotion took no ascetic turn.  His nature in fact was sunny, versatile, artistic; full of strong affections, and capable of inspiring others with affections as strong.  Quick-witted, of tenacious memory, a ready and fluent speaker, gay and genial in address, an artist, a musician, he was at the same time an indefatigable worker alike at books or handicraft.  As his sphere began to widen we see him followed by a train of pupils, busy with literature, writing, harping, painting, designing.  One morning a lady summons him to her house to design a robe which she is embroidering, and as he bends with her maidens over their toil his harp hung upon the wall sounds without mortal touch tones which the excited ears around frame into a joyous antiphon.

[Sidenote:  Conquest of the Danelaw]

From this scholar-life Dunstan was called to a wider sphere of activity towards the close of Eadmund’s reign.  But the old jealousies revived at his reappearance at court, and counting the game lost Dunstan prepared again to withdraw.  The king had spent the day in the chase; the red deer which he was pursuing dashed over Cheddar cliffs, and his horse only checked itself on the brink of the ravine at the moment when Eadmund in the bitterness of death was repenting of his injustice to Dunstan.  He was at once summoned on the king’s return.  “Saddle your horse,” said Eadmund, “and ride with me.”  The royal train swept over the marshes to his home; and the king, bestowing on him the kiss of peace, seated him in the abbot’s chair as Abbot of Glastonbury.  Dunstan became one of Eadmund’s councillors, and his hand was seen in the settlement of the north.  It was the hostility of the states around it to the West-Saxon rule which had roused so often revolt in the Danelaw; but from the time of Brunanburh we hear nothing more of the hostility of Bernicia, while Cumbria was conquered by Eadmund and turned adroitly to account in winning over the Scots to his cause.  The greater part of it was granted to their king Malcolm on terms that he should be Eadmund’s “fellow-worker by sea and land.”  The league of Scot and Briton was thus finally broken up, and the fidelity of the Scots secured by their need of help in holding down their former ally.  The settlement was soon troubled by the young king’s death.  As he feasted at Pucklechurch in the May of 946, Leofa, a robber whom Eadmund had banished from the land, entered the hall, seated himself at the royal board, and drew sword on the cup-bearer when he bade him retire.  The king sprang in wrath to his thegn’s aid, and seizing Leofa by the hair, flung him to the ground; but in the struggle the robber drove his dagger to Eadmund’s heart.  His death at once stirred fresh troubles in the north; the Danelaw rose against his brother and successor, Eadred, and some years of hard fighting were needed before it was again driven to own the English supremacy.  But with its submission