She replied that she had laughed unthinkingly, as the linnet sings, from
pure joy of heart at the glad tidings that their holy archbishop had
been translated to paradise. For if he had done so much for England when
burdened with the flesh, how much more would he be able to do now from
the seat or throne to which he would be exalted in heaven in virtue of
the position his blessed mother now occupied in that place.
The bishop, angered at her mocking words, turned his back on her, and
the others, following his example, averted their faces, but not one word
did they utter.
They remembered that Dunstan in former years, when striving to make
himself all powerful in the kingdom, had made free use of a supernatural
machinery; that when he wanted something done and it could not be done
in any other way, he received a command from heaven, brought to him by
some saint or angel, to have it done, and the command had then to be
obeyed. They also remembered that when Dunstan, as he informed them, had
been snatched up into the seventh heaven, he did not on his return to
earth modestly, like St. Paul, that it was not lawful for him to speak
of the things which he had heard and seen, but he proclaimed them to an
astonished world in his loudest trumpet voice.
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