Title: The Valley of Vision : A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales
Author: Van Dyke, Henry
Language: English
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THE VALLEY OF VISION

A Book Of Romance

And Some Half-Told Tales


By Henry Van Dyke


   _“Your old men shall dream dreams,
    Your young men shall see visions.”_



TO MY CHILDREN

AND CHILDREN’S CHILDREN

WHO MAY REMEMBER THESE TROUBLOUS TIMES WHEN WE ARE GONE ON NEW ADVENTURE



PREFACE


“Why do you choose such a title as _The Valley of Vision_ for
your book,” said my friend; “do you mean that one can see farther
from the valley than from the mountain-top?”

This question set me thinking, as every honest question ought to
do. Here is the result of my thoughts, which you will take for what
it is worth, if you care to read the book.

The mountain-top is the place of outlook over the earth and the sea.
But it is in the valley of suffering, endurance, and self-sacrifice
that the deepest visions of the meaning of life come to us.

I take the outcome of this Twentieth Century War as a victory over
the mad illusion of  world-dominion which the Germans saw from
the peak of their military power in 1914. The united force of the
Allies has grown, through valley-visions of right and justice and
human kindness, into an irresistible might before which the German
“will to power” has gone down in ruin.

There are some Half-Told Tales in the volume--fables, fantasies--mere
sketches, grave and gay, on the margin of the book of life,


    “Where more is meant than meets the ear.”


Dreams have a part in most of the longer stories.  That is because
I believe dreams have a part in real life. Some of them we remember
as vividly as any actual experience. These belong to the imperfect
sleep. But others we do not remember, because they are given to
us in that perfect sleep in which the soul is liberated, and goes
visiting. Yet sometimes we get a trace of them, by a happy chance,
and often their influence remains with us in that spiritual refreshment
with which we awake from profound slumber. This is the meaning of
that verse in the old psalm: “He giveth to His beloved in sleep.”

The final story in the book was written before the War of 1914
began, and it has to do with the Light of the World, leading us
through conflict and suffering towards Peace.

AVALON, November 24, 1918.



CONTENTS

     A Remembered Dream
     Antwerp Road
     A City of Refuge
     A Sanctuary of Trees
     The King’s High Way
     HALF-TOLD TALES
         The Traitor in the House
         Justice of the Elements
         Ashes of Vengeance
     The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France
     The Hearing Ear
     Sketches of Quebec
     A Classic Instance
     HALF-TOLD TALES
         The New Era and Carry On
         The Primitive and His Sandals
         Diana and the Lions
     The Hero and Tin Soldiers
     Salvage Point
     The Boy of Nazareth Dreams



ILLUSTRATIONS

The sails and smoke-stacks of great shift were visible, all passing
out to sea

The cathedral spire... was swaying and rocking in the air like the
mast of a ship at sea

All were fugitives, anxious to be gone... and making no more speed
than a creeping snail’s pace of unutterable fatigue

“I will ask you to choose between your old home and your new home
now”

“I’m going to carry you in, ‘spite of hell”

“I was a lumberjack”

“I am going to become a virtuous peasant, a son of the soil, a
primitive”

The Finding of Christ in the Temple



A REMEMBERED DREAM


This is the story of a dream that came to me some five-and-twenty
years ago. It is as vivid in memory as anything that I have ever
seen in the outward world, as distinct as any experience through
which I have ever passed. Not all dreams are thus remembered. But
some are. In the records of the mind, where the inner chronicle of
life is written, they are intensely clear and veridical. I shall
try to tell the story of this dream with an absolute faithfulness,
adding nothing and leaving nothing out, but writing the narrative
just as if the thing were real.

Perhaps it was. Who can say?

In the course of a journey, of the beginning and end of which
I know nothing, I had come to a great city, whose name, if it was
ever told me, I cannot recall.

It was evidently a very ancient place. The dwelling-houses and
larger buildings were gray and beautiful with age, and the streets
wound in and out among them wonderfully, like a maze.

This city lay beside a river or estuary--though that was something
that I did not find out until later, as you will see--and the newer
part of the town extended mainly on a wide, bare street running
along a kind of low cliff or embankment, where the basements of
the small houses on the water-side  went down, below the level of
the street, to the shore. But the older part of the town was closely
and intricately built, with gabled roofs and heavy carved facades
hanging over the narrow stone-paved  ways, which here and there
led out suddenly into open squares.

It was in what appeared to be the largest and most important of
these squares that I was standing,  a little before midnight. I
had left my wife and our little girl in the lodging which we had
found, and walked out alone to visit the sleeping town.

The night sky was clear, save for a few filmy clouds, which floated
over the face of the full moon, obscuring it for an instant, but
never completely hiding it--like veils in a shadow dance. The spire
of the great cathedral was silver filigree on the moonlit side, and
on the other side, black lace.  The square was empty. But on the
broad, shallow steps in front of the main entrance of the cathedral
two heroic figures were seated. At first I thought they were statues.
Then I perceived they were alive, and talking earnestly together.

They were like Greek gods, very strong and beautiful, and naked
but for some slight drapery that fell snow-white around them. They
glistened in the moonlight. I could not hear what they were saying;
yet I could see that they were in a dispute which went to the very
roots of life.

They resembled each other strangely in form and feature--like twin
brothers. But the face of one was noble, lofty, calm, full of a vast
regret and compassion. The face of the other was proud, resentful,
drawn with passion. He appeared to be accusing and renouncing his
companion, breaking away from an ancient friendship in a swift,
implacable  hatred. But the companion seemed to plead with him,
and lean toward him, and try to draw him closer.

A strange fear and sorrow shook my heart. I felt that this
mysterious contest was something of immense importance; a secret,
ominous strife; a menace to the world.

Then the two figures stood up, marvellously alike in strength and
beauty, yet absolutely different in  expression and bearing, the
one serene and benignant,  the other fierce and threatening. The
quiet one was still pleading, with a hand laid upon the other’s
shoulder. But he shook it off, and thrust his companion away with
a proud, impatient gesture.

At last I heard him speak.

“I have done with you,” he cried. “I do not believe in you. I have
no more need of you. I renounce  you. I will live without you. Away
forever  out of my life!”

At this a look of ineffable sorrow and pity came upon the great
companion’s face.

“You are free,” he answered. “I have only besought  you, never
constrained you. Since you will have it so, I must leave you, now,
to yourself.”

He rose into the air, still looking downward with wise eyes full
of grief and warning, until he vanished  in silence beyond the thin
clouds.

The other did not look up, but lifting his head with a defiant
laugh, shook his shoulders as if they were free of a burden. He
strode swiftly around the corner of the cathedral and disappeared
among the deep shadows.

A sense of intolerable calamity fell upon me. I said to myself:

“That was Man! And the other was God!  And they have parted!”

Then the multitude of bells hidden in the lace-work of the high
tower began to sound. It was not the aerial fluttering music of
the carillon that I remembered hearing long ago from the belfries
of the Low Countries. This was a confused and strident  ringing,
jangled and broken, full of sudden tumults and discords, as if the
tower were shaken and the bells gave out their notes at hazard, in
surprise  and trepidation.

It stopped as suddenly as it began. The great bell of the hours
struck twelve. The windows of the cathedral glowed faintly with a
light from within.

“It is New Year’s Eve,” I thought--although I knew perfectly well
that the time was late summer. I had seen that though the leaves
on the trees of the square were no longer fresh, they had not yet
fallen.

I was certain that I must go into the cathedral.  The western
entrance was shut. I hurried to the south side. The dark, low door
of the transept was open. I went in. The building was dimly lighted
by huge candles which flickered and smoked like torches. I noticed
that one of them, fastened against a pillar, was burning crooked,
and the tallow  ran down its side in thick white tears.

The nave of the church was packed with a vast throng of people,
all standing, closely crowded together,  like the undergrowth in
a forest. The rood-screen  was open, or broken down, I could not
tell which. The choir was bare, like a clearing in the woods, and
filled with blazing light.

On the high steps, with his back to the altar, stood Man, his face
gleaming with pride.

“I am the Lord!” he cried. “There is none above me! No law, no God!
Man is power.  Man is the highest of all!”

A tremor of wonder and dismay, of excitement and division, shivered
through the crowd. Some  covered their faces. Others stretched
out their hands. Others shook their fists in the air. A tumult  of
voices broke from the multitude--voices  of exultation, and anger,
and horror, and strife.

The floor of the cathedral was moved and lifted by a mysterious
ground-swell. The pillars trembled and wavered. The candles flared
and went out.  The crowd, stricken dumb with a panic fear, rushed
to the doors, burst open the main entrance, and struggling in furious
silence poured out of the building.  I was swept along with them,
striving to keep on my feet.

One thought possessed me. I must get to my wife and child, save
them, bring them out of this accursed city.

As I hurried across the square I looked up at the cathedral spire.
It was swaying and rocking in the air like the mast of a ship
at sea. The lace-work fell from it in blocks of stone. The people
rushed screaming through the rain of death. Many were struck down,
and lay where they fell.

I ran as fast as I could. But it was impossible to run far. Every
street and alley vomited men--all struggling together, fighting,
shouting, or shrieking,  striking one another down, trampling over
the fallen--a hideous melee. There was an incessant rattling noise
in the air, and heavier peals as of thunder shook the houses. Here
a wide rent yawned in a wall--there a roof caved in--the windows
fell into the street in showers of broken glass.

How I got through this inferno I do not know.  Buffeted and blinded,
stumbling and scrambling to my feet again, turning this way or
that way to avoid the thickest centres of the strife, oppressed and
paralyzed by a feeling of impotence that put an iron band around
my heart, driven always by the intense longing to reach my wife and
child, somehow I had a sense of struggling on. Then I came into a
quieter quarter of the town, and ran until I reached the lodging
where I had left them.

They were waiting just inside the door, anxious and trembling. But
I was amazed to find them so little panic-stricken. The little girl
had her doll in her arms.

[Illustration with caption: The cathedral spire... was swaying and
rocking in the air like the mast of a ship at sea.]   “What is it?”
 asked my wife. “What must we do?”

“Come,” I cried. “Something frightful has happened  here. I can’t
explain now. We must get away at once. Come, quickly.”

Then I took a hand of each and we hastened through the streets,
vaguely steering away from the centre of the city.

Presently we came into that wide new street of mean houses, of
which I have already spoken.  There were a few people in it, but
they moved heavily  and feebly, as if some mortal illness lay upon
them. Their faces were pale and haggard with a helpless anxiety to
escape more quickly. The houses seemed half deserted. The shades
were drawn, the doors closed.

But since it was all so quiet, I thought that we might find some
temporary shelter there. So I knocked at the door of a house where
there was a dim light behind the drawn shade in one of the windows.

After a while the door was opened by a woman who held the end of
her shawl across her mouth.  All that I could see was the black
sorrow of her eyes.

“Go away,” she said slowly; “the plague is here.  My children are
dying of it. You must not come in! Go away.”

So we hurried on through that plague-smitten street, burdened
with a new fear. Soon we saw a house on the riverside which looked
absolutely empty. The shades were up, the windows open, the door
stood ajar. I hesitated; plucked up courage;  resolved that we
must get to the waterside in some way in order to escape from the
net of death which encircled us.

“Come,” I said, “let us try to go down through this house. But
cover your mouths.”

We groped through the empty passageway, and down the basement-stair.
The thick cobwebs swept my face. I noted them with joy, for I thought
they proved that the house had been deserted for some time, and so
perhaps it might not be infected.

We descended into a room which seemed to have been the kitchen.
There was a stove dimly visible at one side, and an old broken
kettle on the floor, over which we stumbled. The back door was
locked.  But it swung outward as I broke it open. We stood upon a
narrow, dingy beach, where the small waves were lapping.

By this time the “little day” had begun to whiten the eastern sky;
a pallid light was diffused; I could see westward down to the main
harbor, beside the heart of the city. The sails and smoke-stacks
of great ships were visible, all passing out to sea. I wished that
we were there.

Here in front of us the water seemed shallower.  It was probably only
a tributary or backwater of the main stream. But it was sprinkled
with smaller vessels--sloops, and yawls, and luggers--all filled
with people and slowly creeping seaward.

There was one little boat, quite near to us, which seemed to be
waiting for some one. There were some people on it, but it was not
crowded.

“Come,” I said, “this is for us. We must wade out to it.”

So I took my wife by the hand, and the child in the other arm,
and we went into the water.  Soon it came up to our knees, to our
waists.

“Hurry,” shouted the old man at the tiller.  “No time to spare!”

“Just a minute more,” I answered, “only one minute!”

That minute seemed like a year. The sail of the boat was shaking
in the wind. When it filled she must move away. We waded on, and
at last I grasped the gunwale of the boat. I lifted the child in
and helped my wife to climb over the side.  They clung to me. The
little vessel began to move gently away.

“Get in,” cried the old man sharply; “get in quick.”

But I felt that I could not, I dared not. I let go of the boat. I
cried “Good-by,” and turned to wade ashore.

I was compelled to go back to the doomed city.  I must know what
would come of the parting of Man from God!

The tide was running out more swiftly. The water swirled around my
knees. I awoke.

But the dream remained with me, just as I have told it to you.



ANTWERP ROAD


[OCTOBER, 1914]

Along the straight, glistening road, through a dim arcade of drooping
trees, a tunnel of faded green and gold, dripping with the misty
rain of a late October afternoon, a human tide was flowing, not
swiftly, but slowly, with the patient, pathetic slowness of weary
feet, and numb brains, and heavy hearts.

Yet they were in haste, all of these old men and women, fathers
and mothers, and little children; they were flying as fast as
they could; either away from something that they feared, or toward
something  that they desired.

That was the strange thing--the tide on the road flowed in two
directions.

Some fled away from ruined homes to escape the perils of war. Some
fled back to ruined homes to escape the desolation of exile. But
all were fugitives,  anxious to be gone, striving along the road
one way or the other, and making no more speed than a creeping
snail’s pace of unutterable fatigue.  I saw many separate things
in the tide, and  remembered them without noting.

A boy straining to push a wheelbarrow with his pale mother in it,
and his two little sisters trudging at his side. A peasant with his
two girls driving their lean, dejected cows back to some unknown
pasture. A bony horse tugging at a wagon heaped high with bedding
and household gear, on top of which sat the wrinkled grandmother
with the tiniest  baby in her arms, while the rest of the family
stumbled alongside--and the cat was curled up on the softest coverlet
in the wagon. Two panting dogs, with red tongues hanging out, and
splayed feet clawing the road, tugging a heavy-laden cart while the
master pushed behind and the woman pulled in the shafts. Strange,
antique vehicles crammed with passengers. Couples and groups and
sometimes larger companies of foot-travellers.  Now and then a
solitary man or woman, old and shabby, bundle on back, eyes on the
road, plodding through the mud and the mist, under the high archway
of yellowing leaves.

[Illustration: All were fugitives, anxious to be gone, ... and
making no more speed than a creeping snail’s pace of unutterable
fatigue.]

All these distinct pictures I saw, yet it was all one vision--a
vision of humanity with its dumb companions in flight--infinitely
slow, painful,  pitiful flight!

I saw no tears, I heard no cries of complaint.  But beneath the
numb and patient haste on all those dazed faces I saw a question.

_“What have we done? Why has this thing come upon us and our
children?”_

Somewhere I heard a trumpet blown. The brazen spikes on the helmets
of a little troop of German soldiers flashed for an instant, far
down the sloppy road. Through the humid dusk came the dull, distant
booming of the unseen guns of conquest in Flanders.

That was the only answer.



A CITY OF REFUGE


In the dark autumn of 1914 the City sprang up almost in a night,
as if by enchantment.

It was white magic that called it into being--the deep, quiet,
strong impulse of compassion and  protection that moved the motherly
heart of Holland when she saw the hundreds of thousands of Belgian
fugitives pouring out of their bleeding, ravaged land, and running,
stumbling, creeping on hands and knees, blindly, instinctively
turning to her for safety and help.

“Come to me,” she said, like a good woman who holds out her arms and
spreads her knees to make a lap for tired and frightened children,
“come to me.  I will take care of you. You shall be safe with me.”

All doors were open. The little brick farmhouses  and cottages with
their gayly painted window-shutters;  the long rows of city houses
with their steep gables; the prim and placid country mansions set
among their high trees and formal flower-gardens--all kinds of
dwellings, from the poorest to the richest, welcomed these guests
of sorrow and distress. Many a humble family drained its savings-bank
reservoir to keep the stream of its hospitality flowing. Unused
factories were turned into barracks. Deserted summer hotels were
filled up. Even empty greenhouses were adapted to the need of human
horticulture. All Holland was enrolled, formally or informally, in
a big _Comite voor Belgische Slachtoffers._

But soon it was evident that the impromptu methods of generosity
could not meet the demands of the case. Private resources were
exhausted.  Poor people could no longer feed and clothe their
poorer guests. Families were unhappily divided.  In the huge flock
of exiles driven out by the cruel German Terror there were goats as
well as sheep, and some of them bewildered and shocked the orderly
Dutch homes where they were sheltered, by their nocturnal habits
and negligible morals.  Something had to be done to bring order and
system into the chaos of brotherly love. Otherwise the neat Dutch
mind which is so close to the Dutch heart could not rest in its bed.
This vast trouble which the evil of German militarism had thrust
upon a helpless folk must be helped out by a wise touch of military
organization, which is a good thing even for the most peaceful
people.

So it was that the City of Refuge (and others like it) grew up
swiftly in the wilderness.

It stands in the heathland that slopes and rolls from the wooded
hills of Gelderland to the southern shore of the Zuider Zee--a sandy
country overgrown with scrub-oaks and pines and heather--yet very
healthy and well drained, and not unfertile under cultivation. You
may see that in the little  neighbor-village, where the trees arch
over the streets, and the kitchen-gardens prosper, and the shrubs
and flowers bloom abundantly.

The small houses and hotels of this tiny summer resort are of brick.
It has an old, well-established look; a place of relaxation with
restraint, not of ungirdled frivolity. The plain Dutch people love
their holidays, but they take them serenely and by rule: long walks
and bicycle-rides, placid and nourishing picnics in the woods or
by the sea, afternoon tea-parties in sheltered arbors. One of their
favorite names for a country-place is _Wel Teweden,_ “perfectly
contented.”

The commandant of the City of Refuge lives in one of the little
brick houses of the village. He is a portly, rosy old bachelor,
with a curly brown beard and a military bearing; a man of fine
education and wide experience, seasoned in colonial diplomacy.
The ruling idea in his mind is discipline, authority. His official
speech is abrupt and final, the manner of a martinet covering a
heart full of kindness and generous impulses.

“Come,” he says, after a good breakfast, “I want you to see my
camp. It is not as fine and fancy as the later ones. But we built
it in a hurry and we had it ready on time.”

A short ride over a sandy road brings you to the city gate--an
opening in the wire enclosure of perhaps two or three square miles
among the dwarf pines and oaks. The guard-house is kept by a squad
of Dutch soldiers. But it is in no sense a prison-camp, for people
are coming and going freely all the time, and the only rules within
are those of decency and good order.

“Capacity, ten thousand,” says the commandant, sweeping his hand
around the open circle, “quite a city, _niet waar?_ I will
show you the  various arrangements.”

All the buildings are of wood, a mushroom city, but constructed with
intelligence to meet the needs of the sudden, helpless population.
You visit the big kitchen with its ever-simmering kettles; the
dining-halls with their long tables and benches; the schoolhouses
full of lively, irrepressible children; the wash-house where always
talkative and jocose laundresses are scrubbing and wringing the
clothes; the sewing-rooms where hundreds of women and girls are
busy with garments and gossip; the chapel where religious services
are held by the devoted pastors; the recreation-room which is the
social centre of the city; the clothing storerooms where you find
several American girls working for love.

Then you go through the long family barracks where each family has
a separate cubicle, more or less neat and comfortable, sometimes
prettily decorated, according to the family taste and habit; the
barracks for the single men; the barracks for the single women;
the two hospitals, one general, the other for infectious diseases;
and last of all, the house where the half-dozen disorderly women are
confined, surrounded by a double fence of barbed wire and guarded
by a sentry.

Poor, wretched creatures! You are sorry for them. Why not put the
disorderly men into a house of confinement, too?

“Ah,” says the commandant bluntly, “we find it easier and better
to send the disorderly men to jail or hospital in some near town.
We are easier with the women. I pity them. But they are full of
poison. We can’t let them go loose in the camp for fear of infection.”

How many of the roots of human nature are uncovered in a place like
this! The branches and the foliage and the blossoms, too, are seen
more clearly in this air where all things are necessarily open and
in common.

The men are generally less industrious than the women. But they
work willingly at the grading of roads and paths, the laying out
and planting of flower-beds, the construction of ornamental designs,
of doubtful taste but unquestionable sincerity.

You read the names which they have given to the different streets
and barracks, and the passageways between the cubicles, and you
understand the strong, instinctive love which binds them to their
native Belgium. “Antwerp Avenue,” “Louvain Avenue,” “Malines Street,”
 “Liege Street,” and streets bearing the names of many ruined towns
and villages of which you have never heard, but which are forever
dear to the hearts of these exiles.  The names of the hero-king,
Albert, and of his brave consort, Queen Elizabeth, are honored by
inscriptions, and their pictures, cut from, newspapers,  decorate
the schoolrooms and the little family cubicles.

The brutal power which reigns at Berlin may drive the Belgians out
of Belgium by terror and oppression. But it cannot drive Belgium
out of the hearts of the Belgians. While they live their country
lives, and Albert is still their King.

But think of the unnatural conditions into which these thousands
of human beings--yes, and hundreds  of thousands like them, torn
from their homes, uprooted, dispersed, impoverished--are forced by
this bitter, cruel war. Think of the cold and ruined hearthstones,
the scattered families, the shelterless children, the desolate and
broken hearts. This is what Germany has inflicted upon mankind in
order to  realize her robber-dream!

Yet the City of Refuge, being human, has its bright spots and its
bits of compensation. Here is one, out of many.

The chief nurse, a young Dutch lady of charming face  and manners,
serving as a volunteer under the sacred  sign of the Red Cross,
comes in, one morning, to make her report to the commandant.

“Well,” he says, disguising in his big voice of command the warm
admiration which he feels for the lady, “what is the trouble to-day?
Speak up.”

“Nothing, sir,” she answers calmly. “Everything  is going on pretty
well. No new cases of measles--those in hospital improving. The
only thing that bothers me is the continual complaint about that
Mrs. Van Orley--you remember her, a thin, dark little person. She
is melancholy and morose, quarrels all the time, says some one has
stolen her children. The people near her in the barracks complain
that she disturbs them at night, moans and talks aloud in her sleep,
jumps up and runs down the corridor laughing or crying: ‘Here they
are!’ They don’t believe she ever had any children. They think
she is crazy and want her put out. But I don’t agree with that. I
think she has had children, and now she has dreams.”

“Send her away,” growls the commandant; “send her to a sanatorium!
This camp is not a lunatic asylum.”

“But,” interposes the nurse in her most discreet  voice, “she is
really a very nice woman. If you would allow me to take her on as
a housemaid in the general hospital, I think I could make  something
out of her; at least I should like to try.”

“Have your own way,” says the commandant, relenting; “you always
do. Now tell me the next trouble. You have something more up your
sleeve, I’m sure.”

“Babies,” she replies demurely; “two babies from Amsterdam. Lost,
somehow or other, in the flight. No trace of their people. A family
in Zaandam has been taking care of them, but can’t afford it any
longer. So the Amsterdam committee has sent them here.”

The commandant has listened, his cheeks growing  redder and redder,
his eyes rounder and more prominent. He springs up and paces the
floor  in wrath.

“Babies!” he cries stormily. “By all the gods, da--those Amsterdammers!
Excuse me, but this is too much. Do they think this is a foundling
asylum? or a nursing home? Babies! What in Heaven’s name am I to
do with them? Babies!  Where are those babies?”

“Just outside, and very nice babies indeed,” says the nurse, opening
the hall door and giving a soft call.

Enter a slim black-haired boy of about three and a half years and
a plump golden-haired girl about a year younger. They toddle to
the nurse and snuggle against her blue dress and white apron.

Smiling she guides them toward the commandant and  says: “Here they
are, sir. How do you like them?”

That terrific personage has been suddenly  transformed from haircloth
into silk. He beams, and pulling out his fat gold watch, coos like
a hoarse dove: “Look here, _kinderen_, come and hear the bells
in my tick-tock!”

Presently he has one of them leaning against the inside of each
knee, listening ardently to the watch.

“What do you think of that!” he says. “What is your name, youngster?”

“Hendrik,” answers the boy, looking up.

“Hendrik _what?_ You have another name, haven’t you?”

The boy shakes his head and looks puzzled, as if the thought of
two names were too much for him.  _“Hendrik,”_ he repeats more
clearly and firmly.

“And what is her name?” asks the commandant, patting the little
girl.

_“Sooss,”_ answers the boy. “Mama say _‘ickle angel.’_
Hendrik say _Sooss.”_

All effort to get any more information from the children was fruitless.
They were too small to  remember much, and what they did remember
was of their own size--only very little things, of no  importance
except to themselves. The commandant looks at the nurse quizzically.

“Now, miss, you have unloaded these vague babies on me. What do
you propose that I should do with them? Adopt them?”

“Not yet, anyhow,” she answers, smiling broadly.  “Let us take them
up to the camp. I’ll bet we can find some one there to look after
them. What do you say, sir?”

“Well, well,” he sighs, “have your own way as usual! Just ring that
bell for the automobile,  _als’t-Ublieft.”_

In the busy sewing-room the two children are standing up on one
of the tables. The commandant has an arm around each of them, for
they are a little frightened by so much noise and so many eyes
looking at them. The chatter dies down, as he speaks in his gruff
authoritative voice, but with a twinkle in his eyes, rather like
a middle-aged  Santa Claus.

“Look here! I’ve got two fine babies.”

A titter runs through the room.

_“Ja, Men’eer,”_ says one of the women, “congratulations!
They are _lievelingen_--darlings!”

“Silence!” growls the commandant amiably.  “None of your impudence,
you women. Look here!  These two children--I want somebody to adopt
them, or at least to take care of them. I will pay for them. Their
names are Hendrik and--”

A commotion at the lower end of the room. A thin, dark little
woman is standing up, waving her piece of sewing like a flag, her
big eyes flaming  with excitement.

“Stop!” she cries, hurrying and stumbling forward  through the
crowd of women and girls. “Oh, stop a minute! They are mine--I lost
them--mine, I tell you--lost--mine!”

She reaches the head of the table and flings her arms around the
boy, crying: “My Hendrik!”

The boy hesitates a second, startled by the sudden  wildness of
her caress. Then he presses his hot little face in her neck.

_“Lieve moeder!”_ he murmurs. “Where was you? I looked.”

But the thin, dark little woman has fainted  dead away.

The rest we will leave, as the wise commandant does, to the chief
nurse.



A SANCTUARY OF TREES


The Baron d’Azan was old--older even than his seventy years. His
age showed by contrast as he walked among his trees. They were
fresh and  flourishing, full of sap and vigor, though many of them
had been born long before him.

The tracts of forest which still belonged to his diminished estate
were crowded with the growths native to the foot-hills of the
Ardennes. In the park around the small chateau, built in a Belgian
version of the First Empire style, trees from many lands had been
assembled by his father and grandfather: drooping spruces from
Norway, dark-pillared  cypresses from Italy, spreading cedars from
Lebanon, trees of heaven from China, fern-leaved gingkos from Japan,
lofty tulip-trees and liquidambars  from America, and fantastic
sylvan forms from islands of the Southern Ocean. But the royal
avenue of beeches! Well, I must tell you more about that, else you
can never feel the meaning of this story.

The love of trees was hereditary in the family and antedated their
other nobility. The founder of the house had begun life as the son
of a forester in Luxemburg. His name was Pol Staar. His fortune  and
title were the fruit of contracts for horses and provisions which
he made with the commissariat  of Napoleon I. in the days when the
Netherlands  were a French province. But though Pol Staar’s hands
were callous and his manners plain, his tastes were aristocratic.
They had been formed young in the company of great trees.

Therefore when he bought his estate of Azan (and took his title
from it) he built his chateau in a style which he considered
complimentary to his imperial patron, but he was careful also to
include within his domain large woodlands in which he could renew
the allegiance of his youth. These woodlands he cherished and
improved, cutting with discretion, planting with liberality, and
rejoicing in the thought that trees like those which had  befriended
his boyhood would give their friendly  protection to his heirs.
These are traits of an  aristocrat--attachment to the past, and
careful provision for posterity. It was in this spirit that Pol
Staar, first Baron d’Azan, planted in 1809 the broad avenue of
beeches, leading from the chateau straight across the park to the
highroad. But he never saw their glory,  for he died when they were
only twenty years old.

His son and successor was of a different timber and grain; less
aristocratic, more bourgeois--a rover, a gambler, a man of fashion.
He migrated from the gaming-tables at Spa to the Bourse at Paris,
perching at many clubs between and beyond, and making seasonal
nests in several places. This left him little time for the Chdteau
d’Azan. But he came there every spring and autumn, and showed the
family fondness for trees in his own fashion.  He loved the forests
so much that he ate them. He cut with liberality and planted without
discretion.  But for the great avenue of beeches he had a saving
admiration. Not even to support the gaming-table would he have
allowed them to be felled.

When he turned the corner of his thirty-first year he had a sharp
illness, a temporary reformation,  and brought home as his wife a
very young lovely actress from the ducal theatre at Saxe-Meiningen.
She was a good girl, deeply in love with her handsome husband, to
whom she bore a son and heir in the first year of their marriage.
Not many moons thereafter the pleased but restless father slid back
into his old rounds again. The forest waned and the debts waxed.
Rumors of wild doings came from Spa and Aix, from Homburg  and
Baden, from Trouville and Ostend. After four years of this the young
mother died, of no namable disease, unless you call it heart-failure,
and the boy was left to his grandmother’s care and company among
the trees.

Every day when it was fair the old lady and the little lad took
their afternoon walk together in the beech-tree avenue, where the
tips of the branches now reached the road. At other times he roamed
the outlying woods and learned to know the birds and the little
wild animals. When he was twelve his grandmother died. After that
he was left mainly to the housekeeper, his tutors, and the few
friends he could make among the children of the neighborhood.

When he had finished his third year at the University  of Louvain
and attained his majority, his father returned express-haste from
somewhere in Bohemia, to attend the coronation of Leopold II,
that remarkable King of Belgium and the Bourse.  But by this time
the gay Baron d’Azan had become stout, the pillar of his neck seemed
shorter because it was thicker, and the rose in his bold cheek had
the purplish tint of a crimson rambler. So he died of an apoplexy
during the festivities, and his son brought him back to the Chateau
d’Azan, and buried him there with due honor, and mourned for him
as was fitting. Thus Albert, third Baron d’Azan, entered  upon his
inheritance.

It seemed, at first, to consist mainly of debts.  These were paid by
the sale of the deforested lands and of certain detached woodlands.
By the same method, much as he disliked it, he made a modest
provision of money for continuing his education and beginning his
travels. He knew that he had much to learn of the world, and he
was especially desirous of pursuing his favorite study of botany,
which a wise old priest at Louvain had taught him to love. So he
engaged an intelligent and faithful forester to care for the trees
and the estate, closed the house, and set forth on his journeys.

They led him far and wide. In the course of them no doubt he
studied other things than botany.  It may be that he sowed some of
the wild oats with which youth is endowed; but not in the gardens
of others; nor with that cold self-indulgence which transforms
passionate impulse into sensual habit.  He had a permanent and
regulative devotion to botanical research; and that is a study which
seems to promote modesty, tranquillity, and steadiness of mind in
its devotees, of whom the great Linnaeus is the shining exemplar.
Young Albert d’Azan sat at the feet of the best masters in Europe
and America. He crossed the western continent to observe the oldest
of living things, the giant Sequoias of California. He went to
Australasia and the Dutch East Indies and South America in search
of new ferns and orchids. He investigated the effect of ocean
currents and of tribal migrations in the distribution  of trees.
His botanical monographs brought him renown among those who know,
and he was elected a corresponding member of many scientific
societies. After twenty years of voyaging he  returned to port at
Azan, richly laden with observation  and learning, and settled down
among his trees to pursue his studies and write his books.

The estate, under the forester’s care, had improved  a little and
promised a modest income. The house, though somewhat dilapidated,
was easily made livable. But the one thing that was full of glory
and splendor, triumphantly prosperous, was the great avenue of
beeches. Their long, low aisle of broad arches was complete. They
shimmered with a pearly mist of buds in early spring and later
with luminous green of tender leafage. In mid-summer they formed a
wide, still stream of dark, unruffled verdure; in autumn they were
transmuted  through glowing yellow into russet gold; in winter
their massy trunks were pillars of gray marble and the fan-tracery
of their rounded branches was delicately etched against the sky.

“Look at them,” the baron would say to the guests whom the fame of
his learning and the charm of his wide-ranging conversation often
brought to his house. “Those beeches were planted by my grandfather
after the battle of Wagram, when  Napoleon whipped the Austrians.
After that came the Beresina and Leipsic and Waterloo and how many
battles and wars of furious, perishable men. Yet the trees live
on peaceably, they unfold their strength in beauty, they have not
yet reached the summit of their grandeur. We are all _parvenus_
beside them.”

“If you had to choose,” asked the great sculptor Constantin Meunier
one day, “would you have your house or one of these trees struck
by lightning?”

“The house,” answered the botanist promptly, “for I could rebuild
it in a year; but to restore the tree would take three-quarters of
a century.”

“Also,” said the sculptor, with a smile, “you might change the
style of your house with advantage,  but the style of these trees
you could never improve.”

“But tell me,” he continued, “is it true, as they say, that lightning
never strikes a beech?”

“It is not entirely true,” replied the botanist, smiling in his
turn, “yet, like many ancient beliefs, it has some truth in it.
There is something in the texture of the beech that seems to resist
electricity better than other trees. It may be the fatness of the
wood. Whatever it is, I am glad of it, for it gives my trees a
better chance.”

“Don’t be too secure,” said the sculptor, shaking his head. “There
are other tempests besides those in the clouds. When the next war
comes in western Europe Belgium will be the battle-field. Beech-wood
is very good to burn.”

“God forbid,” said the baron devoutly. “We have had peace for a
quarter of a century. Why should it not last?”

“Ask the wise men of the East,” replied the sculptor grimly.

When he was a little past fifty the baron married, with steadfast
choice and deep affection, the orphan daughter of a noble family
of Hainault.  She was about half his age; of a tranquil, cheerful
temper and a charm that depended less on feature than on expression;
a lover of music, books, and a quiet life. She brought him a small
dowry by which the chateau was restored to comfort, and bore him
two children, a boy and a girl, by whom it was  enlivened with
natural gayety. The next twenty years were the happiest that Albert
d’Azan and his wife ever saw. The grand avenue of beeches became
to them the unconscious symbol of something settled and serene,
august, protective, sacred.

On a brilliant morning of early April, 1914, they had stepped out
together to drink the air. The beeches were in misty, silver bloom
above them.  All around was peace and gladness.

“I want to tell you a dream I had last night,” he said, “a strange
dream about our beeches.”

“If it was sad,” she answered, “do not let the shadow of it fall
on the morning.”

“But it was not sad. It seemed rather to bring light and comfort.
I dreamed that I was dead  and you had buried me at the foot of
the largest  of the trees.”

“Do you call that not sad?” she interrupted reproachfully.

“It did not seem so. Wait a moment and you  shall hear the way of
it. At first I felt only a deep quietness and repose, like one who
has been in pain and is very tired and lies down in the shade to
sleep. Then I was waking again and something was drawing me gently
upward. I cannot exactly explain it, but it was as if I were passing
through the roots and the trunk and the boughs of the beech-tree
toward the upper air. There I saw the light again and heard the
birds singing and the wind rustling among the leaves. How I saw
and heard I cannot tell you, for there was no remembrance of a body
in my dream. Then suddenly my soul--I suppose it was that--stood
before God and He was asking me: ‘How did you come hither?’
I answered,  ‘By Christ’s way, by the way of a tree.’ And He said
it was well, and that my work in heaven should be the care of the
trees growing by the river of life, and that sometimes I could go
back to visit my trees on earth, if I wished. That made me very
glad, for I knew that so I should see you and our children under
the beeches. And while I was wondering  whether you would ever
know that I was there, the dream dissolved, and I saw the morning
light on the tree-tops. What do you think of my dream? Childish,
wasn’t it?”

She thought a little before she answered.

“It was natural enough, though vague. Of course we could not be
buried at the foot of the beech-tree unless Cardinal Mercier would
permit a plot of ground to be consecrated there. But come, it is
time to go in to breakfast.”

She seemed to dismiss the matter from her mind.  Yet, as women so
often do, she kept all these sayings and pondered them in her heart.

The promise of spring passed into the sultry heat of summer. The
storm-cloud of the twentieth century  blackened over Europe. The
wise men of Berlin made mad by pride, devoted the world not to
the Prince of Peace but to the lords of war. In the first week of
August the fury of the German  invasion broke on Belgium. No one had
dared to dream the terrors of that tempest. It was like a return
of the Dark Ages. Every home trembled. The  pillars of the tranquil
house of Azan were shaken.

The daughter was away at school in England, and that was an unmixed
blessing. The son was a lieutenant in the Belgian army; and that
was right and glorious, but it was also a dreadful anxiety.  The
father and mother were divided in mind, Whether to stay or take
flight with their friends.  At last the father decided the hard
question.

“It is our duty to stay. We cannot fight for our country, but we
can suffer with her. Our daughter is in safety; our son’s danger we
cannot and would not prevent. How could we really live away from
here, our home, our trees? I went to consult the cardinal. He stays,
and he advises us to do so. He says that will be the best way to
show our devotion. As Christians we must endure the evil that we
cannot prevent; but as Belgians our hearts will never consent to
it.”

That was their attitude as the tide of blood and tears drew nearer
to them, surrounded them, swept beyond them, engulfed the whole
land. The brutal massacres at Andenne and Dinant were so near that
the news arrived before the spilt blood was dry. The exceeding great
and bitter cry of anguish came to them from a score of neighboring
villages, from a hundred lonely farmhouses. The old botanist
withered and faded daily; his wife grew pale and gray. Yet they
walked their _via crucis_ together, and kept their chosen
course.

They fed the hungry and clothed the naked,  helped the fugitives and
consoled the broken-hearted.  They counselled their poor neighbors
to good order, and dissuaded the ignorant from the folly and peril
of violence. Toward the invading soldiery their conduct was beyond
reproach. With no false professions  of friendship, they fulfilled
the hard services which  were required of them. Their servants had
been helped away at the beginning of the trouble--all except the
old forester and his wife, who refused  to leave. With their aid
the house was kept open and many of the conquerors lodged there
and in the outbuildings. So good were the quarters that a departing
Saxon chalked on the gate-post the dubious inscription: _“Gute
Leute-nicht auspliin-dern.”_  Thus the captives at the Chateau
d’Azan had a good name even among their enemies. The baron received
a military pass which enabled him to move quite freely about the
district on his errands of necessity and mercy, and the chateau
became a favorite billet for high-born officers.

In the second year of the war an evil chance brought two uninvited
guests of very high standing indeed--that is to say in the social
ring of Potsdam.  Their names are well known. Let us call them
Prince Barenberg and Count Ludra. The first was a major, the second
a captain. Their value as  warriors in the field had not proved
equal to their prominence as noblemen, so they were given duty in
the rear.

They were vicious coxcombs of the first order.  Their uniforms
incased them tightly. Like wasps they bent only at the waist. Their
flat-topped caps were worn with an aggressive slant, their swords
jingled menacingly, their hay-colored mustaches spoke arrogance in
every upturned hair.  When they bowed it was a mockery; when they
smiled it was a sneer. For the comfortable quarters  of the Chateau
d’Azan they had a gross appreciation,  for the enforced hospitality
of its owners an insolent condescension. They took it as their due,
and resented the silent protest underneath it.

“Excellent wine, Herr Baron,” said the prince, who, like his comrade,
drank profusely of the best in the cellar. “Your Rudesheimer Berg
‘94 is _kolossal._ Very friendly of you to save it for us.
We Germans know good wine. What?”

“You have that reputation,” answered the baron.

“And say,” added the count, “let us have a couple of bottles more,
dear landlord. You can put it in the bill.”

“I shall do so,” said the baron gravely. “It shall be put in the
bill with other things.”

“But why,” drawled the prince, “does _la Baronne_ never favor
us with her company? Still very attractive--musical probably--here
is a piano--want good German music--console homesickness.”

“Madame is indisposed,” answered the baron quietly, “but you may
be sure she regrets your absence from home.”

The officers looked at each other with half-tipsy, half-angry eyes.
They suspected a jest at their expense, but could not quite catch
it.

“Impudence,” muttered the count, who was the sharper of the two
when sober.

“No,” said the prince, “it is only stupidity.  These Walloons have
no wit.”

“Come,” he added, turning to the baron, “we sing you a good song of
fatherland--show how _gemuthlich_ we Germans are. You Belgians
have no word for that. What?”

He sat down to the piano and pounded out _“Deutschland ueber
Alles,”_ singing the air in a raucous voice, while Ludra added
a rumbling bass.

“What do you think of that? All Germans can sing. _Gemuthlich._
What?”

“You are right,” said the baron, with downcast eyes. “We Belgians
have no word for that. It is inexpressible--except in German. I
bid you good night.”

For nearly a fortnight this condition of affairs continued. The
baron endured it as best he could, obeying scrupulously the military
regulations which necessity laid upon him, and taking his revenge
only in long thoughts and words of polite sarcasm which he knew would
not be understood. The baroness worked hard at the housekeeping,
often cooking and cleaning with her own hands, and rejoicing secretly
with her husband over the rare news that came from their daughter
in England, from their boy at the front in West Flanders. Sometimes,
when the coast was clear, husband and wife walked together under the
beech-trees and talked in low tones of the time when the ravenous
beast should no more go up on the land.

The two noble officers performed their routine duties, found such
amusement as they could in neighboring villages and towns, drank
deep at night, and taxed their ingenuity to invent small ways of
annoying their hosts, for whom they felt the  contemptuous dislike
of the injurer for the injured.  They were careful, however, to
keep their malice within certain bounds, for they knew that the
baron was in favor with the commandant of the district.

One morning the baron and his wife, looking from their window in
a wing of the house, saw with  surprise and horror a score or more
of German soldiers assembled beside the beech-avenue, with axes
and saws, preparing to begin work.

“What are they going to do there?” cried he in dismay, and hurried
down to the dining-room, where the officers sat at breakfast, giving
orders to an attentive corporal.

“A thousand pardons, Highness,” interrupted the baron; “forgive
my haste. But surely you are not going to cut down my avenue of
beeches?”

“Why not?” said the prince, swinging around in his chair. “They
are good wood.”

“But, sir,” stammered the baron, trembling with excitement, “those
trees--they are an ancient  heritage of the house--planted by my
grandfather a century ago--an old possession--spare them for their
age.”

“You exaggerate,” sneered the prince. “They are not old. I have on
my hunting estate in  Thuringia oaks five hundred years old. These
trees of yours are mere upstarts. Why shouldn’t they be cut? What?”

“But they are very dear to us,” pleaded the baron earnestly. “We
all love them, my wife and children  and I. To us they are sacred.
It would be harsh to take them from us.”

“Baron,” said the prince, with suave malice, “you miss the point.
We Germans are never harsh.  But we are practical. My soldiers need
exercise.  The camps need wood. Do you see? What?”

“Certainly,” answered the poor baron, humbling himself in his
devotion to his trees. “Your  Highness makes the point perfectly
clear--the  need of exercise and wood. But there is plenty  of good
timber in the forest and the park--much  easier to cut. Cannot your
men get their wood  and their exercise there, and spare my dearest
trees?”

Ludra laughed unpleasantly.

“You do not yet understand us, dear landlord.  We Germans are
a hard-working people, not like the lazy Belgians. The harder the
work the better we like it. The soldiers will have a fine time
chopping down your tough beeches.”

The slender old man drew himself up, his eyes flashed, he was driven
to bay.

“You shall not do this,” he cried. “It is an outrage, a sacrilege.
I shall appeal to the  commandant. He will protect my rights.”

The officers looked at each other. Deaf to pity, they had keen ears
for danger. A reproof, perhaps a punishment from their superior
would be most unpleasant. They hesitated to face it. But they were
too obstinate to give up their malicious design altogether with a
good grace.

“Military necessity,” growled the prince, “knows no private rights.
I advise you, baron, not to  appeal to the commandant. It will be
useless,  perhaps harmful.”

“Here, you,” he said gruffly, turning to the  corporal, “carry out
my orders. Cut the two marked beeches by the gate. Then take your
men into the park and cut the biggest trees there. Report for
further orders to-morrow morning.”

The wooden-faced giant saluted, swung on his heels, and marched
stiffly out. The baron followed him quickly.

He knew that entreaties would be wasted on the corporal. How to get
to the commandant, that was the question? He would not be allowed
to use the telephone which was in the dining-room, nor the automobile
which belonged to the officers; nor one of their horses which were
in his stable. The only other beast left there was a small and very
antique donkey which the children used to drive. In a dilapidated
go-cart, drawn by this pattering nag, the baron made such haste
as he could along twelve miles of stony road to the district
headquarters. There he told his story simply to the commandant and
begged protection for his beloved trees.

The old general was of a different type from the fire-eating dandies
who played the master at Azan.  He listened courteously and gravely.
There was a picture in his mind of the old timbered house in the
Hohe Venn, where he had spent four years in retirement before the
war called him back to the colors. He thought of the tall lindens
and the spreading chestnuts around it and imagined how he should
feel if he saw them falling under the axe.

Then he said to his petitioner:

“You have acted quite correctly, _Monsieur le Baron,_ in
bringing this matter quietly to my  attention. There is no military
necessity for the  destruction of your fine trees. I shall put a
stop  to it at once.”

He called his aide-de-camp and gave some instructions  in a low tone
of voice. When the aide came back from the telephone and reported,
the general frowned.

“It is unheard of,” he muttered, half to himself, “the  way those
titled young fools go beyond their orders.”

Then he turned to his visitor.

“I am very sorry, _Monsieur le Baron,_ but two of your beeches
have already fallen. It cannot be helped now. But there shall be no
more of it, I promise you. Those young officers are--they are--let
us call them overzealous. I will transfer them to another post
to-morrow. The German command  appreciates the correct conduct of
you and _Madame la Baronne._ Is there anything more that I
can do for you?”

“I thank your Excellency sincerely,” replied the baron. Then he
hesitated a moment, as if to weigh his words. “No, _Herr General,_
I believe there is nothing more--in which you can help me.”

The old soldier’s eyelids flickered for an instant.  “Then I bid
you a very good day,” he said, bowing.

The baron hurried home, to share the big good news with his wife.
The little bad news she knew already. Together they grieved over
the two fallen trees and rejoiced under the golden shadow of their
untouched companions. The officers had called for wine, and more
wine, and yet more wine, and were drinking deep and singing loud
in the dining-room.

In the morning came an orderly with a despatch from headquarters,
ordering the prince and the count to duty in a dirty village of
the coal region.  Their baggage was packed into the automobile,
and they mounted their horses and went away in a rage.

“You will be sorry for this, dumbhead,” growled the prince, scowling
fiercely. “Yes,” added Ludra, with a hateful grin, “we shall meet
again, dear landlord, and you will be sorry.”

Their host bowed and said nothing.

Some weeks later the princely automobile came to the door of the
chateau. The forester brought up word that the Prince Barenberg
and the Count Ludra were below with a message from headquarters;
the commandant wished the baron to come there immediately; the
automobile was sent to bring him.  He made ready to go. His wife
and his servant tried hard to dissuade him: it was late, almost
dark, and very cold--not likely the commandant had sent for him--it
might be all a trick of those officers--they were hateful men--they
would play some cruel prank for revenge. But the old man was
obstinate in his resolve; he must do what was required of him, he
must not even run the risk of slighting the commandant’s wishes;
after all, no great harm could come to him.

When he reached the steps he saw the count in the front seat, beside
the chauffeur, grinning; and the prince’s harsh voice, made soft
as possible, called from the shadowy interior of the car:

“Come in, baron. The general has sent for you in a hurry. We will
take you like lightning. How fine your beeches look against the
sky. What?”

The old man stepped into the dusky car. It rolled down the long
aisle, between the smooth gray columns, beneath the fan-tracery of
the low arches, out on to the stony highway. Thus the tree-lover
was taken from his sanctuary.

He did not return the next day, nor the day after.  His wife, tortured
by anxiety, went to the district headquarters. The commandant was
away. The aide could not enlighten her. There had been no message
sent to the baron--that was certain. Major Barenberg and Captain
Ludra had been transferred to another command. Unfortunately,
nothing could be done except to report the case.

The brave woman was not broken by her anguish, but raised to the
height of heroic devotion. She dedicated herself to the search for
her husband.  The faithful forester, convinced that his master had
been killed, was like a slow, sure bloodhound on the track of the
murderers. He got a trace of them in a neighboring village, where
their car had been seen to pass at dusk on the fatal day. The
officers were in it, but not the baron. The forester got a stronger
scent of them in a wine-house, where their chauffeur had babbled
mysteriously on the following  day. The old woodsman followed the
trail with inexhaustible patience.

“I shall bring the master’s body home,” he said to his  mistress,
“and God will use me to avenge his murder.”

A few weeks later he found his master’s corpse hidden in a hollow
on the edge of the forest, half-covered with broken branches,
rotting leaves, and melting snow. There were three bullets in the
body. They had been fired at close range.

The widow’s heart, passing from the torture of uncertainty to the
calm of settled grief, had still a sacred duty to live for. She had
not forgotten her husband’s dream. She went to the cardinal-archbishop
to beg the consecration of a little burial-plot at the foot of the
greatest of the beeches of Azan.  That wise and brave prince of
the church consented with words of tender consolation, and promised
his aid in the pursuit of the criminals.

“Eminence,” she said, weeping, “you are very good to me. God will
reward you. He is just.  He will repay. But my heart’s desire is
to follow my husband’s dream.”

So the body of the old botanist was brought back to the shadow of
the great beech-trees, and was buried there, like the bones of a
martyr, within  the sanctuary.

Is this the end of the story?

Who can say?

It is written also, among the records of Belgium, that the faithful
forester disappeared mysteriously a few weeks later. His body was
found in the forest and laid near his master.

Another record tells of the trial of Prince Barenberg  and Count
Ludra before a court martial, The count was sentenced to ten years
of labor _on his own estate._ The death-sentence of the prince
was  commuted to imprisonment _in some unnamed place._ So far
the story of German justice.

But of the other kind of justice--the poetic, the Divine--the record
is not yet complete.

I know only that there is a fatherless girl working and praying in
a hospital in England, and a fatherless  boy fighting and praying
in the muddy trenches near Ypres, and a lonely woman walking and
praying  under certain great beech-trees at the Chateau d’Azan. The
burden of their prayer is the same.  Night and day it rises to Him
who will judge the world in righteousness and before whose eyes
the wicked shall not stand.

September, 1918.



THE KING’S HIGH WAY


In the last remnant of Belgium, a corner yet  unconquered by
the German horde, I saw a tall young man walking among the dunes,
between the sodden lowland and the tumbling sea.

The hills where he trod were of sand heaped high by the western winds;
and the growth over them was wire-grass and thistles, bayberry and
golden broom and stunted pine, with many humble wild flowers--things
of no use, yet beautiful.

The sky above was gray; the northern sea was gray; the southern
fields were hazy gray over green; the smoke of shells bursting
in the air was gray.  Gray was the skeleton of the ruined city in
the  distance; gray were the shattered spires and walls of a dozen
hamlets on the horizon; gray, the eyes of the young man who walked
in faded blue uniform, in the remnant of Belgium. But there was an
indomitable  light in his eyes, by which I knew that he was a King.

“Sir,” I said, “I am sure that you are his Majesty, the King of
Belgium.”

He bowed, and a pleasant smile relaxed his  tired face.

“Pardon, monsieur,” he answered, “but you make the usual mistake in
my title. If I were only ‘the King of Belgium,’ you see, I should
have but a poor kingdom now--only this narrow strip of earth, perhaps
four hundred square miles of debris, just a _‘pou sto,’_ a
place to stand, enough to fight on, and if need be to die in.”

His hand swept around the half-circle of dull landscape visible
southward from the top of the loftiest dune, the _Hooge Blikker._
It was a land of slow-winding streams and straight canals and flat
fields, with here and there a clump of woods or a slight rise of
ground, but for the most part level and monotonous, a checker-board
landscape--stretching away until the eyes rested on the low hills
beyond Ypres. Now all the placid charm of Flemish fertility as gone
from the land--it was scarred and marred and pitted. The shells
and mines had torn holes in it; the trenches and barbed-wire
entanglements spread over it like a network of scars and welts; the
trees were smashed into kindling-wood; the farmhouses were heaps
of charred bricks; the shattered villages were like mouths full
of broken teeth. As the King looked round at all this, his face
darkened and the slight droop of his shoulders grew more marked.

“But, no,” he said, turning to me again, “that is not my kingdom.
My real title, monsieur, is _King of the Belgians._ It was for
their honor, for their liberty, that I was willing to lose my land
and risk my crown. While they live and hold true, I stand fast.”

Then ran swiftly through me the thought, of how the little Belgian
army had fought, how the Belgian  people had suffered, rather than
surrender the independence of their country to the barbarians.  The
German cannonade was roaring along the Yser a few miles away; the
air trembled with the overload  of sound; but between the peals of
thunder I could hear the brave song of the skylark climbing his
silver stairway of music, undismayed, hopeful, unconquerable. I
remembered how the word of this quiet man beside whom I stood had
been the inspiration and encouragement of his people through the
fierce conflict, the long agony: _“I have faith in our destiny;
a nation which defends itself does not perish; God will be with us
in that just cause.”_

“Sir,” I said, “you have a glorious kingdom which shall never be
taken away. But as for your land, the fates have been against you.
How will you ever get back to it? The Germans are strong as iron
and they bar the way. Will you make a peace with them and take what
they have so often offered you?”

“Never,” he answered calmly; “that is not the way home, it is the
way to dishonor. When God brings me back, my army and my Queen are
going with me to liberate our people. There is only one way that
leads there--the King’s high way. Look, _monsieur,_ you can
see the beginning of it down there. I hope you wish me well on that
road, for I shall never take another.”

So he bade me good afternoon very courteously and walked away among
the dunes to his little  cottage at La Panne.

Looking down through the light haze of evening I saw a strip of
the straight white road leading  eastward across the level land. At
the beginning of it there was a broken bridge; in places it seemed
torn up by shells; it disappeared in the violet dusk.  But as I
looked a vision came.

The bridge is restored, the road mended and built up, and on that
highway rides the King in his faded uniform with the Queen in white
beside him.  At their approach ruined villages rejoice aloud and
ancient towns break forth into singing.

In Bruges the royal comrades stand beside the  gigantic monument
in the centre of the Great Market, and above the shouting of the
multitude the music of the old belfry floats unheard. Ghent and
Antwerp have put on their glad raiment, and in their crooked streets
and crowded squares joy flows like a river surging as it goes. Into
Brussels I see this man and woman ride through a welcome that rises
around them like the voice of many waters--the welcome of those
who have waited and suffered, the welcome of those to whom liberty
and honor were more dear than life. In the _Grande Place,_
the antique, carven, gabled houses are gay with fluttering banners;
the  people delivered from the cruel invader sing lustily  the
_Marseillaise_ and the old songs of Belgium.

In the midst, Albert and Elizabeth sit quietly upon their horses.
They have come home. Not by the low road of cowardly surrender; not
by the crooked road of compromise and falsehood; not by the soft
road of ease and self-indulgence; but by the straight road of faith
and courage and self-sacrifice--the King’s High Way.



HALF-TOLD TALES



THE TRAITOR IN THE HOUSE


The Guest, who came from beyond the lake, had lived in the house
for years and had the freedom of it, so that he had become quite
like a member of the family. He was friendly treated and well lodged.
Indeed, some thought he had the best room of all, for though it
was in the wing, it was spacious and well warmed, and had a side
door, so that he could go in and out freely by day or night.

It must be said that he had earned his living on the place, being
industrious and useful, a very handy man about the house; and the
children had a liking for him because he sang merry songs and told
beautiful fairy-tales.

So he was all the more surprised and aggrieved when the Master of
the house said to him one night, as they sat late by the fire:

“I suspect you.”

“But of what?” cried the Guest.

“Of caring more for the house that you came from than for the house
that you live in.”

“But you know I was at home there once,” said the Guest, “would
you have me forget that? Surely you will not deny me the freedom
of my thoughts and memories and fond feelings. Would you make me
less than a man?”

“No,” said the Master, “but I will ask you to choose between your
old home and your new home now. The house in which you lived formerly
is become our enemy--a nest of brigands and bloody men. They have
killed a child of ours on the  highway. They threaten us to-night
with an attack in force. Tell me plainly where you stand.”

The Guest looked down his nose toward the smouldering  embers of the
fire. He knocked out the dottle of his  pipe on one of the andirons.
Two fat tears rolled down  his cheeks; he was very sentimental.

“I am with you,” he said.

“Good,” said the Master, “now let us make the house fast!”
 [Illustration with caption: ‘I will ask you to choose between your
old home and your new home now.’]

So they closed and barred the shutters and locked and bolted the
front door.

Then they lighted their bedroom candles and bade each other good
night.

But as the Guest went along his dim corridor, the Master turned
and followed him very softly on tiptoe, watching.

Outside the house, in the darkness, there was a sound of many
shuffling feet and whispering voices.

When the Guest came to the side door he tried the latch, to see
that it was working freely. He moved the bolt, not forward into
its socket, but backward so that it should be no hindrance. In
the window beside the doorway he set his candle.  So the house was
ready for late-comers.

Then the Guest sighed a little. “They are my old friends,” he
murmured, “my dear old friends!  I could not leave them out in the
cold. I am not responsible for what they do. Only I must my old
affection prove.” So he sighed again and turned softly to his bed.

But as he turned the Master stood before him and took him by the
throat.

“Traitor!” he cried. “You would betray the innocent. Already your
soul is stained with my sleeping children’s blood.” And with his
hands he choked the false Guest to death.

Then he shot the bolt of the side door, and barred the window, and
called the servants, and made ready to defend the house.

Great was the fighting that night. In the morning,  when the robbers
were driven off, the false Guest  was buried, outside the garden,
in an unmarked grave.

February 2, 1918.



JUSTICE OF THE ELEMENTS


So the Criminal with a Crown came to the end of his resources. He
had told his last lie, but not even his servants would believe it.
He had made his last threat, but no living soul feared it. He had
put forth his last stroke of violence and cruelty, but it fell
short.

When he saw his own image reflected in the eyes of men, and knew
what he had done to the world and what had come of his evil design,
he was afraid, and cried, “Let the Earth swallow me!” And the Earth
opened, and swallowed him.

But so great was the harm that he had wrought upon the Earth, and
so deeply had he drenched it with blood, that it could not contain
him. So the Earth opened again, and spewed him forth.

Then he cried, “Let the Sea hide me!” And the waves rolled over
his head.

But the Sea, whereon he had wrought iniquity, and filled the depths
thereof with the bones of the innocent, could not endure him and
threw him up on the shore as refuse.

Then he cried, “Let the Air carry me away!” And the strong winds
blew, and lifted him up so that he felt exalted.

But the pure Air, wherein he had let loose the vultures of hate,
dropping death upon helpless women and harmless babes, found the
burden and the stench of him intolerable, and let him fall.

And as he was falling he cried, “Let the Fire give me a refuge!”
 So the Fire, wherewith he had consumed the homes of men, rejoiced;
and the flames which he had compelled to do his will in wickedness
leaped up as he drew near.

“Welcome, old master!” roared the Fire. “Be my slave!”

Then he perceived that there was no hope for him in the justice of
the elements. And he said, “I will seek mercy of Him against whom
I have most offended.”

So he fled to the foot of the Great White Throne.  And as he kneeled
there, broken and abased, the world was silent, waiting for the
sentence of the Judge of All.

August, 1918.



ASHES OF VENGEANCE


Dun was a hard little city, proud and harsh; but impregnable
because it was built upon a high rock.  The host of the Visigoths
had besieged it for months in vain. Then came a fugitive from the
city, at midnight,  to the tent of Alaric, the Chief of the besiegers.

The man was haggard and torn. His eyes were wild, his hands trembling.
The Chief held and steadied him with a look.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Your name, the purpose that brings you
here?”

“My name,” said the man, “is the Avenger.  For thirty years I have
lived in Dun, and the people have been unjust and cruel to me.
They persecuted my family, because they hated me. My wife died of
a broken heart, my children of starvation. I have just escaped from
the prison of Dun, and come to tell you how the city may be taken.
There is a secret pathway, a hidden entrance. I know it and can
reveal it to you.”

“Good,” said the Chief, measuring the man with tranquil eyes, “but
what is your price?”

“Vengeance,” said the man, “I ask only the right  to revenge my
sufferings upon those who have  inflicted them, when you have taken
the city.”

Alaric bent his head and was silent for a moment.  “It is a fair
price,” he said, “and I will pay it. Tell me the way to take the
city, and I will leave at your command a troop of soldiers sufficient
to work your will on it afterward.”

II

The trumpet sounded the capture of the city in the morning. The
Avenger, waking late from his troubled sleep, led his soldiers
through the  open gate.

It was like a city of the dead, and the bodies of those who had been
killed in the last defense, lay where they had fallen. Empty and
silent were the streets where lie had so often walked in humiliation.
Gone were the familiar faces that had frowned on him and mocked
him. The houses at whose doors he had often knocked were vacant.
His wrath sank within him, and the arrow of solitude pierced him
to the heart.

Then he came to the belfry, and there was the bell-ringer, one of
the worst of his ancient  persecutors, standing at the entrance of
the tower.

“Why are you here?” said the Avenger.

“By the orders of King Alaric,” answered the bell-ringer, “to ring
the bells when peace comes to the city.”

“Ring now,” said the Avenger, “ring now!”

Then, at the sound of the bells, the people who had concealed themselves
at Alaric’s command came trooping forth from the cellars and caves
where they had been hiding,--old men and women and children, a
motley throng of sufferers.

The Avenger looked at them and the tears ran down his cheeks,
because he remembered.

“Listen,” he said, “don’t be afraid. These soldiers  are going on
to join their army. You have done me great wrong. But the fire of
hatred is burnt out, and in the ashes of vengeance we are going to
plant the seeds of peace.”

December, 1918.



THE BROKEN SOLDIER AND THE MAID OF FRANCE



I. THE MEETING AT THE SPRING


Along the old Roman road that crosses the rolling  hills from the
upper waters of the Marne to the  Meuse a soldier of France was
passing in the night.

In the broader pools of summer moonlight he showed as a hale and
husky fellow of about thirty years, with dark hair and eyes and
a handsome, downcast face. His uniform was faded and dusty; not a
trace of the horizon blue was left, only a gray shadow. He had no
knapsack on his back, no gun on his shoulder. Wearily and doggedly
he plodded his way, without eyes for the veiled beauty of the sleeping
country. The quick, firm military step was gone. He trudged like
a tramp, choosing always  the darker side of the road.

He was a figure of flight, a broken soldier.

Presently the road led him into a thick forest of oaks and beeches,
and so to the crest of a hill  overlooking a long open valley with
wooded heights  beyond. Below him was the pointed spire of some
temple or shrine, lying at the edge of the wood, with no houses
near it. Farther down he could see a cluster of white houses with
the tower of a church in the centre. Other villages were dimly
visible up and down the valley on either slope.  The cattle were
lowing from the barnyards. The cocks crowed for the dawn. Already
the moon had sunk behind the western trees. But the valley was
still bathed in its misty, vanishing light. Over the eastern ridge
the gray glimmer of the little day was rising, faintly tinged with
rose. It was time for the broken soldier to seek his covert and
rest till night returned.

So he stepped aside from the road and found a little dell thick
with underwoods, and in it a clear spring gurgling among the ferns
and mosses. Around the opening grew wild gooseberries and golden
broom and a few tall spires of purple foxglove.  He drew off his
dusty boots and socks and bathed his feet in a small pool, drying
them with fern leaves. Then he took a slice of bread and a piece of
cheese from his pocket and made his breakfast.  Going to the edge
of the thicket, he parted the branches and peered out over the
vale.

Its eaves sloped gently to the level floor where the river loitered
in loops and curves. The sun was just topping the eastern hills;
the heads of the trees were dark against a primrose sky.

In the fields the hay had been cut and gathered.  The aftermath
was already greening the moist places. Cattle and sheep sauntered
out to pasture.  A thin silvery mist floated here and there,
spreading  in broad sheets over the wet ground and shredding into
filmy scarves and ribbons as the breeze caught it among the pollard
willows and poplars on the border of the stream. Far away the water
glittered where the river made a sudden bend or a long smooth reach.
It was like the flashing of distant shields. Overhead a few white
clouds climbed up from the north. The rolling ridges, one after
another, enfolded the valley as far as eye could see; dark green
set in pale green, with here and there an arm of forest running
down on a sharp promontory to meet and turn the meandering stream.

“It must be the valley of the Meuse,” said the soldier. “My faith,
but France is beautiful and tranquil here!”

The northerly wind was rising. The clouds climbed more swiftly.
The poplars shimmered, the willows glistened, the veils of mist
vanished. From very far away there came a rumbling thunder, heavy,
insistent, continuous, punctuated with louder crashes.

“It is the guns,” muttered the soldier, shivering.  “It is the guns
around Verdun! Those damned Boches!”

He turned back into the thicket and dropped among the ferns beside
the spring. Stretching himself  with a gesture of abandon, he
pillowed his face on his crossed arms to sleep.

A rustling in the bushes roused him. He sprang to his feet quickly.
It was a priest, clad in a dusty cassock, his long black beard
streaked with gray.  He came slowly treading up beside the trickling
rivulet, carrying a bag on a stick over his shoulder.

“Good morning, my son,” he said. “You have chosen a pleasant spot
to rest.”

The soldier, startled, but not forgetting his manners  learned from
boyhood, stood up and lifted his hand to take off his cap. It was
already lying on the ground. “Good morning, Father,” he answered,
“I did not choose the place, but stumbled on it by chance. It is
pleasant enough, for I am very tired and have need of sleep.”

“No doubt,” said the priest. “I can see that you look weary, and
I beg you to pardon me if I have interrupted your repose. But why
do you say you came here ‘by chance’? If you are a good Christian
you know that nothing is by chance.  All is ordered and designed
by Providence.”

“So they told me in church long ago,” said the soldier coldly; “but
now it does not seem so true--at least not with me.”

The first feeling of friendliness and respect into which he had
been surprised was passing. He had fallen back into the mood of
his journey--mistrust, secrecy, resentment.

The priest caught the tone. His gray eyes under  their bushy brows
looked kindly but searchingly at the soldier and smiled a little.
He set down his bag and leaned on his stick. “Well,” he said, “I
can tell you one thing, my son. At all events it was not chance
that brought me here. I came with a purpose.”

The soldier started a little, stung by suspicion.  “What then,” he
cried, roughly, “were you looking for me? What do you know of me?
What is this talk of chance and purpose?”

“Come, come,” said the priest, his smile spreading  from his eyes
to his lips, “do not be angry. I assure you that I know nothing of
you whatever, not even your name nor why you are here. When I said
that I came with a purpose I meant only that a certain thought, a
wish, led me to this spot. Let us sit together awhile beside the
spring and make better acquaintance.”

“I do not desire it,” said the soldier, with a frown.

“But you will not refuse it?” queried the priest gently. “It is
not good to refuse the request of one old enough to be your father.
Look, I have here some excellent tobacco and cigarette-papers.  Let
us sit down and smoke together. I will tell you who I am and the
purpose that brought me here.”

The soldier yielded grudgingly, not knowing what else to do. They
sat down on a mossy bank beside the spring, and while the blue
smoke of their cigarettes went drifting under the little trees the
priest began:

“My name is Antoine Courcy. I am the cure of Darney, a village
among the Reaping Hook Hills, a few leagues south from here.
For twenty-five years I have reaped the harvest of heaven in that
blessed little field. I am sorry to leave it. But now this war,
this great battle for freedom and the life of France, calls me.
It is a divine vocation.  France has need of all her sons to-day,
even the old ones. I cannot keep the love of God in my heart unless
I follow the love of country in my life. My younger brother, who
used to be the priest of the next parish to mine, was in the army.
He has fallen.  I am going to replace him. I am on my way to join
the troops--as a chaplain, if they will; if not, then as a private.
I must get into the army of France or be left out of the host of
heaven.”

The soldier had turned his face away and was plucking the lobes
from a frond of fern. “A brave resolve, Father,” he said, with an
ironic note. “But you have not yet told me what brings you off your
road, to this place.”

“I will tell you,” replied the priest eagerly; “it is the love of
Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid who saved France long ago. You know about
her?”

“A little,” nodded the soldier. “I have learned in the school. She
was a famous saint.”

“Not yet a saint,” said the priest earnestly; “the Pope has not yet
pronounced her a saint. But it will be done soon. Already he has
declared her among the Blessed Ones. To me she is the most blessed
of all. She never thought of herself or of a saint’s crown. She
gave her life entire for France.  And this is the place that she
came from! Think of that--right here!”

“I did not know that,” said the soldier.

“But yes,” the priest went on, kindling. “I tell you it was here
that the Maid of France received her visions and set out to her work.
You see that village below us--look out through the branches--that
is Domremy, where she was born. That spire just at the edge of
the wood--you saw that? It is the basilica they have built to her
memory. It is full of pictures of her. It stands where the old
beech-tree, ‘Fair May,’ used to grow. There she heard the voices
and saw the saints who sent her on her mission. And this is the
Gooseberry Spring, the Well of the Good Fairies. Here she came
with the other children, at the festival of the well-dressing, to
spread their garlands around it, and sing, and cat their supper
on the green. Heavenly voices spoke to her, but the others did not
hear them.  Often did she drink of this water. It became a fountain
of life springing up in her heart. I have come to drink at the
same source. It will strengthen me as a sacrament. Come, son, let
us take it together  as we go to our duty in battle!”

Father Courcy stood up and opened his old black bag. He took out
a small metal cup. He filled it carefully at the spring. He made
the sign of the cross over it.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he murmured,
“blessed and holy is this water.” Then he held the cup toward the
soldier.  “Come, let us share it and make our vows together.”

The bright drops trembled and fell from the bottom of the cup. The
soldier sat still, his head in his hands.

“No,” he answered heavily, “I cannot take it.  I am not worthy.
Can a man take a sacrament without confessing his sins?”

Father Courcy looked at him with pitying eyes.  “I see,” he said
slowly; “I see, my son. You have a burden on your heart. Well, I
will stay with you and try to lift it. But first I shall make my
own vow.”

He raised the cup toward the sky. A tiny brown wren sang canticles
of rapture in the thicket. A great light came into the priest’s
face--a sun-ray from the east, far beyond the treetops.

“Blessed Jeanne d’Arc, I drink from thy fountain in  thy name. I vow
my life to thy cause. Aid me, aid this my son, to fight valiantly
for freedom and for France. In the name of God, Amen.”

The soldier looked up at him. Wonder, admiration,  and shame were
struggling in the look. Father Courcy wiped the empty cup carefully
and put it back in his bag. Then he sat down beside the soldier,
laying a fatherly hand on his shoulder.

“Now, my son, you shall tell me what is on your heart.”



II. THE GREEN CONFESSIONAL


For a long time the soldier remained silent. His head was bowed.
His shoulders drooped. His hands trembled between his knees. He
was wrestling  with himself.

“No,” he cried, at last, “I cannot, I dare not tell you. Unless,
perhaps”--his voice faltered--“you could receive it under the seal
of confession? But no. How could you do that? Here in the green
woods? In the open air, beside a spring? Here is no confessional.”

“Why not?” asked Father Courcy. “It is a good place, a holy place.
Heaven is over our heads and very near. I will receive your confession
here.”

The soldier knelt among the flowers. The priest pronounced the
sacred words. The soldier began his confession:

“I, Pierre Duval, a great sinner, confess my fault, my most grievous
fault, and pray for pardon.”  He stopped for a moment and then
continued, “But  first I must tell you, Father, just who I am and
where I come from and what brings me here.”

“Go on, Pierre Duval, go on. That is what I am waiting to hear. Be
simple and very frank.”

“Well, then, I am from the parish of Laucourt, in the pleasant
country of the Barrois not far from Bar-sur-Aube. My word, but that
is a pretty land, full of orchards and berry-gardens! Our old farm
there is one of the prettiest and one of the best, though it is
small. It was hard to leave it when the call to the colors came,
two years ago. But I was glad to go. My heart was high and strong
for France.  I was in the Nth Infantry, We were in the centre division
under General Foch at the battle of the Marne. _Fichtre!_ but
that was fierce fighting! And what a general! He did not know how
to spell ‘defeat.’  He wrote it ‘victory.’ Four times we went across
that cursed Marsh of St.-Gond. The dried mud was trampled full of
dead bodies. The trickling  streams of water ran red. Four times
we were thrown back by the boches. You would have thought that was
enough. But the general did not think so. We went over again on
the fifth day, and that time we stayed. The Germans could not stand
against us. They broke and ran. The roads where we chased them
were full of empty wine-bottles.  In one village we caught three
officers and a dozen men dead drunk. _Bigre!_ what a fine
joke!”

Pierre, leaning back upon his heels, was losing himself in his
recital. His face lighted up, his hands were waving. Father Courcy
bent forward with shining eyes.

“Continue,” he cried. “This is a beautiful confession--no sin yet.
Continue, Pierre.”

“Well, then, after that we were fighting here and there, on the
Aisne, on the Ailette, everywhere.  Always the same story--Germans
rolling down on us in flood, green-gray waves. But the foam on
them was fire and steel. The shells of the barrage swept us like
hailstones. We waited, waited in our trenches, till the green-gray
mob was near enough.  Then the word came. _Sapristi!_ We let
loose with mitrailleuse, rifle, field-gun, everything that would
throw death. It did not seem like fighting with men. It was like
trying to stop a monstrous thing, a huge, terrible mass that was
rushing on to overwhelm  us. The waves tumbled and broke before
they reached us. Sometimes they fell flat. Sometimes  they turned
and rushed the other way. It was wild, wild, like a change of the
wind and tide in a storm, everything torn and confused. Then perhaps
the word came to go over the top and at them. That was furious.
That was fighting with men, for sure--bayonet, revolver, rifle-butt,
knife, anything that would kill. Often I sickened at the blood and
the horror of it. But something inside of me shouted: ‘Fight on!
It is for France. It is for “L’Alouette” thy farm; for thy wife,
thy little ones. Will you let them be ruined by those beasts of
Germans? What are they doing here on French soil? Brigands, butchers,
apaches! Drive them out; and if they will not go, kill them so they
can do no more shameful deeds. Fight on!’ So I killed all I could.”

The priest nodded his head grimly. “You were right, Pierre; your
voice spoke true. It was a  dreadful duty that you were doing. The
Gospel tells us if we are smitten on one cheek we must turn the
other. But it does not tell us to turn the cheek of a little child,
of the woman we love, the country we belong to. No! that would
be disgraceful, wicked, un-Christian. It would be to betray the
innocent!  Continue, my son.”

“Well, then,” Pierre went on, his voice deepening and his face
growing more tense, “then we were sent to Verdun. That was the
hottest place of all.  It was at the top of the big German drive.
The whole sea rushed and fell on us--big guns, little guns, poison-gas,
hand-grenades, liquid fire,  bayonets, knives, and trench-clubs.
Fort after fort went down. The whole pack of hell was loose and
raging. I thought of that crazy, chinless Crown Prince sitting in
his safe little cottage hidden in the woods somewhere--they say he
had flowers and vines planted around it--drinking stolen champagne
and sicking on his dogs of death. He was in no danger. I cursed
him in my heart, that blood-lord! The shells rained on Verdun. The
houses were riddled; the cathedral was pierced in a dozen places;
a hundred fires broke out. The old citadel held good. The outer forts
to the north and east were taken. Only the last ring was left. We
common soldiers did not know much about what was happening. The big
battle was beyond our horizon. But that General Petain, he knew it
all.  Ah, that is a wise man, I can tell you! He sent us to this
place or that place where the defense was most needed. We went
gladly, without fear or holding back. We were resolute that those
mad dogs should not get through. _‘They shall not pass’!_ And
they did not pass!”

“Glorious!” cried the priest, drinking the story in. “And you,
Pierre? Where were you, what were you doing?”

“I was at Douaumont, that fort on the highest hill of all. The
Germans took it. It cost them ten thousand men. The ground around
it was like a wood-yard piled with logs. The big shell-holes were
full of corpses. There were a few of us that got away. Then our
company was sent to hold the third redoubt on the slope in front of
Port de Vaux. Perhaps you have heard of that redoubt.  That was a
bitter job. But we held it many days and nights. The boches pounded
us from Douaumont  and from the village of Vaux. They sent wave
after wave up the slope to drive us out. But we stuck to it. That
ravine of La Caillette was a boiling caldron of men. It bubbled
over with smoke and fire. Once, when their second wave had broken
just in front of us, we went out to hurry the  fragments down
the hill. Then the guns from Douaumont  and the village of Vaux
hammered us. Our men fell like ninepins. Our lieutenant called to
us to turn back. Just then a shell tore away his right leg at the
knee. It hung by the skin and tendons.  He was a brave lad. I could
not leave him to die there. So I hoisted him on my back. Three
shots struck me. They felt just like hard blows from a heavy fist.
One of them made my left arm powerless.  I sank my teeth in the
sleeve of my lieutenant’s coat as it hung over my shoulder. I must
not let him fall off my back. Somehow--God knows how--I gritted
through to our redoubt. They took my lieutenant from my shoulders.
And then the light went out.”

The priest leaned forward, his hands stretched out around the
soldier. “But you are a hero,” he cried. “Let me embrace you!”

The soldier drew back, shaking his head sadly.  “No,” he said,
his voice breaking--“no, my Father, you must not embrace me now.
I may have been a brave man once. But now I am a coward. Let me
tell you everything. My wounds were bad, but not desperate. The
_brancardiers_ carried me down to Verdun, at night I suppose,
but I was unconscious; and so to the hospital at Vaudelaincourt.
There were days and nights of blankness mixed with pain.  Then I
came to my senses and had rest. It was wonderful. I thought that I
had died and gone to heaven. Would God it had been so! Then I should
have been with my lieutenant. They told me he had passed away in
the redoubt. But that hospital was beautiful, so clean and quiet
and friendly. Those white nurses were angels. They handled me like
a baby. I would have liked to stay there. I had no desire to get
better. But I did. One day several officers visited the hospital.
They came to my cot, where I was sitting up. The highest of
them brought out a Cross of War and pinned it on the breast of my
nightshirt. ‘There,’ he said, ‘you are decorated, Pierre Duval! You
are one of the heroes of France. You are soon going to be perfectly
well and to fight again bravely for your country.’ I thanked him,
but I knew better.  My body might get perfectly well, but something
in my soul was broken. It was worn out. The thin spring had snapped.
I could never fight again.  Any loud noise made me shake all over.
I knew that I could never face a battle--impossible! I should
certainly lose my nerve and run away. It is a damned feeling, that
broken something inside of one. I can’t describe it.”

Pierre stopped for a moment and moistened his dry lips with the
tip of his tongue.

“I know,” said Father Courcy. “I understand perfectly what you want
to say. It was like being lost and thinking that nothing could save
you; a feeling that is piercing and dull at the same time, like a
heavy weight pressing on you with sharp stabs in it. It was what
they call shell-shock, a terrible thing. Sometimes it drives men
crazy for a while. But the doctors know what to do for that malady.
It passes. You got over it.”

“No,” answered Pierre, “the doctors may not have known that I had
it. At all events, they did not know what to do for it. It did
not pass. It grew worse. But I hid it, talking very little, never
telling anybody how I felt. They said I was  depressed and needed
cheering up. All the while there was that black snake coiled around
my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter. But my body grew stronger
every day. The wounds were all healed.  I was walking around. In
July the doctor-in-chief sent for me to his office. He said: ‘You
are cured, Pierre Duval, but you are not yet fit to fight. You are
low in your mind. You need cheering up. You are to have a month’s
furlough and repose. You shall go home to your farm. How is it that
you call it?’ I suppose I had been babbling about it in my sleep
and one of the nurses had told him.  He was always that way, that
little Doctor Roselly, taking an interest in the men, talking
with them and acting friendly. I said the farm was called
_‘L’Alouette’_--rather a foolish name. ‘Not, at all,’ he
answered; ‘it is a fine name, with the song of a bird in it. Well,
you are going back to _“L’Alouette”_ to hear the lark sing for
a month, to kiss your wife and your children, to pick gooseberries
and currants.  Eh, my boy, what do you think of that?  Then, when
the month is over, you will be a new man. You will be ready to fight
again at Verdun.  Remember they have not passed and they shall not
pass! Good luck to you, Pierre Duval.’ So I went back to the farm
as fast as I could go.”

He was silent for a few moments, letting his thoughts wander through
the pleasant paths of that little garden of repose. His eyes were
dreaming, his lips almost smiled.

“It was sweet at _‘L’Alouette,’_ very sweet, Father.  The
farm was in pretty good order and the kitchen-garden was all right,
though, the flowers had been a little neglected. You see, my wife,
Josephine, she is a very clever woman. She had kept up the things
that were the most necessary. She had hired one of the old neighbors
and a couple of boys to help her with the ploughing and planting.
The harvest she sold as it stood. Our yoke of cream-colored oxen
and the roan horse were in good condition.  Little Pierrot, who is
five, and little Josette, who is  three, were as brown as berries.
They hugged me almost to death. But it was Josephine herself who was
the best of all. She is only twenty-six, Father, and so beautiful
still, with her long chestnut hair and her eyes like stones shining
under the waters of a brook. I tell you it was good to get her in
my arms again and feel her lips on mine.  And to wake in the early
morning, while the birds were singing, and see her face beside me
on the white pillow, sleeping like a child, that was a little bit
of Paradise. But I do wrong to tell you of all this, Father.”

“Proceed, my big boy,” nodded the priest.  “You are saying nothing
wrong. I was a man before I was a priest. It is all natural, what
you are saying, and all according to God’s law--no sin in it.
Proceed. Did your happiness do you good?” Pierre shook his head
doubtfully. The look of dejection came back to his face. He frowned
as if something puzzled and hurt him. “Yes and no.  That is the
strange thing. It made me thankful--that goes without saying. But
it did not make me any stronger in my heart. Perhaps it was too
sweet.  I thought too much of it. I could not bear to think of
anything else. The idea of the war was hateful, horrible, disgusting.
The noise and the dirt of it, the mud in the autumn and the bitter
cold in the winter, the rats and the lice in the dugouts, And then
the fury of the charge, and the everlasting killing, killing, or
being killed! The danger had seemed little or nothing to me when
I was there.  But at a distance it was frightful, unendurable.  I
knew that I could never stand up to it again.  Besides, already I
had done my share--enough for two or three men. Why must I go back
into that hell? It was not fair. Life was too dear to be risking
it all the time. I could not endure it.  France? France? Of course
I love France. But my farm and my life with Josephine and the
children mean more to me. The thing that made me a good soldier is
broken inside me. It is beyond mending.”

His voice sank lower and lower. Father Courcy looked at him gravely.

“But your farm is a part of France. You belong to  France. He that
saveth his life shall lose it!”

“Yes, yes, I know. But my farm is such a small part of France.
I am only one man. What difference  does one man make, except to
himself? Moreover,  I had done my part, that was certain. Twenty
times, really, my life had been lost. Why must I throw it away
again? Listen, Father. There is a village in the Vosges, near the
Swiss border, where a relative of mine lives. If I could get to
him he would take me in and give me some other clothes and help me
over the frontier into Switzerland.  There I could change my name
and find work until the war is over. That was my plan. So I set
out on my journey, following the less-travelled roads, tramping by
night and sleeping by day. Thus I came to this spring at the same
time as you by chance, by pure chance. Do you see?”

Father Courcy looked very stern and seemed about to speak in anger.
Then he shook his head, and said quietly: “No, I do not see that
at all.  It remains to be seen whether it was by chance.  But tell
me more about your sin. Did you let your wife, Josephine, know
what you were going to do?  Did you tell her good-by, parting for
Switzerland?”

“Why, no! I did not dare. She would never have forgiven me.
So I slipped down to the post-office at Bar-sur-Aube and stole
a telegraph blank.  It was ten days before my furlough was out. I
wrote a message to myself calling me back to the colors at once.
I showed it to her. Then I said good-by. I wept. She did not cry
one tear. Her eyes were stars. She embraced me a dozen times.  She
lifted up each of the children to hug me. Then she cried: ‘Go now,
my brave man. Fight well.  Drive the damned boches out. It is for
us and for France. God protect you. _Au revoir!’_ I went down
the road silent. I felt like a dog. But I could not help it.”

“And you were a dog,” said the priest sternly.  “That is what you
were, and what you remain unless you can learn to help it. You lied
to your wife. You forged; you tricked her who trusted you. You have
done the thing which you yourself  say she would never forgive.
If she loves you and prays for you now, you have stolen that love
and that prayer. You are a thief. A true daughter of France could
never love a coward to-day.”

“I know, I know,” sobbed Pierre, burying his face in the weeds.
“Yet I did it partly for her, and I could not do otherwise.”

“Very little for her, and a hundred times for yourself,” said
the priest indignantly. “Be honest.  If there was a little bit of
love for her, it was the kind of love she did not want. She would
spit upon it. If you are going to Switzerland now you are leaving
her forever. You can never go back to Josephine again. You are a
deserter. She would cast you out, coward!”

The broken soldier lay very still, almost as if he were dead. Then
he rose slowly to his feet, with a pale, set face. He put his hand
behind his back and drew out a revolver. “It is true,” he said
slowly, “I am a coward. But not altogether such a coward as you
think, Father. It is not merely death that I fear. I could face
that, I think.  Here, take this pistol and shoot me now! No one
will know. You can say you shot a deserter, or that I attacked you.
Shoot me now, Father, and let me out of this trouble.”

Father Courcy looked at him with amazement.  Then he took the pistol,
uncocked it cautiously, and dropped it behind him. He turned to
Pierre and regarded him curiously. “Go on with your confession,
Pierre. Tell me about this strange kind of cowardice which can face
death.”

The soldier dropped on his knees again, and went on in a low,
shaken voice: “It is this, Father. By my broken soul, this is the
very root of it. I am afraid of fear.”

The priest thought for an instant. “But that is not reasonable,
Pierre. It is nonsense. Fear cannot  hurt you. If you fight it you
can conquer it.  At least you can disregard it, march through it,
as if it were not there.”

“Not this fear,” argued the soldier, with a peasant’s  obstinacy.
“This is something very big and dreadful. It has no shape, but
a dead-white face and red, blazing eyes full of hate and scorn. I
have seen it in the dark. It is stronger than I am.  Since something
is broken inside of me, I know I can never conquer it. No, it would
wrap its shapeless  arms around me and stab me to the heart with
its fiery eyes. I should turn and run in the middle of the battle.
I should trample on my wounded comrades. I should be shot in the
back and die in disgrace. O my God! my God! who can save me from
this? It is horrible. I cannot bear it.”

The priest laid his hand gently on Pierre’s  quivering shoulder.
“Courage, my son!”

“I have none.”

“Then say to yourself that fear is nothing.”

“It would be a lie. This fear is real.”

“Then cease to tremble at it; kill it.”

“Impossible. I am afraid of fear.”

“Then carry it as your burden, your cross. Take it back to Verdun
with you.”

“I dare not. It would poison the others. It would bring me to
dishonor.”

“Pray to God for help.”

“He will not answer me. I am a wicked man.  Father, I have made my
confession. Will you give me a penance and absolve me?”

“Promise to go back to the army and fight as well as you can.”

“Alas! that is what I cannot do. My mind is shaken to pieces.
Whither shall I turn? I can decide nothing. I am broken. I repent
of my great sin. Father, for the love of God, speak the word of
absolution.”

Pierre lay on his face, motionless, his arms stretched out. The
priest rose and went to the spring. He scooped up a few drops in
the hollow of his hand. He sprinkled it like holy water upon the
soldier’s head. A couple of tears fell with it.

“God have pity on you, my son, and bring you back to yourself.
The word of absolution is not for me to speak while you think of
forsaking France.  Put that thought away from you, do penance for
it, and you will be absolved from your great sin.”

Pierre turned over and lay looking up at the priest’s face and at
the blue sky with white cloude drifting across it. He sighed. “Ah,
if that could only be! But I have not the strength. It is impossible.”

“All things are possible to him that believeth.  Strength will
come. Perhaps Jeanne d’Arc herself will help you.”

“She would never speak to a man like me. She is a great saint, very
high in heaven.”

“She was a farmer’s lass, a peasant like yourself.  She would
speak to you, gladly and kindly, if you saw her, and in your own
language, too. Trust her.”

“But I do not know enough about her.”

“Listen, Pierre. I have thought for you. I will appoint the first
part of your penance. You shall take the risk of being recognized
and caught. You shall go down to the village and visit the places
that belong to her--her basilica, her house, her church. Then you
shall come back here and wait until you know--until you surely know
what you must do. Will you promise this?”

Pierre had risen and looked up at the priest with tear-stained
face. But his eyes were quieter. “Yes, Father, I can promise you
this much faithfully.”

“Now I must go my way. Farewell, my son.  Peace in war be with
you.” He held out his hand.

Pierre took it reverently. “And with you, Father,” he murmured.



III. THE ABSOLVING DREAM


Antoine Courcy was one of those who are fitted and trained by nature
for the cure of souls. If you had spoken to him of psychiatry he
would not have understood you. The long word would have been Greek
to him. But the thing itself he knew well.  The preliminary penance
which he laid upon Pierre Duval was remedial. It belonged to the
true healing  art which works first in the spirit.

When the broken soldier went down the hill, in the blaze of the
mid-morning sunlight, toward Domremy,  there was much misgiving and
confusion in his thoughts. He did not comprehend why he was going,
except that he had promised. He was not sure that some one might
not know him, or perhaps out of mere curiosity stop him and question
him.  It was a reluctant journey.

Yet it was in effect an unconscious pilgrimage to the one health-resort
that his soul needed. For Domremy and the region round about are
saturated with the most beautiful story of France. The life of Jeanne
d’Arc, simple and mysterious, humble and glorious, most human and
most heavenly, flows under that place like a hidden stream, rising
at every turn in springs and fountains. The poor little village
lives in and for her memory. Her presence haunts the ridges and
the woods, treads the green pastures, follows the white road beside
the river, and breathes in the never-resting valley-wind that
marries the flowers in June and spreads their seed in August.

At the small basilica built to her memory on the place where her
old beech-tree, “Fair May,” used to stand, there was an ancient
caretaker who explained  to Pierre the pictures from the life of
the Maid with which the walls are decorated. They are stiff and
conventional, but the old man found them wonderful and told with
zest the story of _La Pucelle_--how she saw her first vision;
how she recognized the Dauphin in his palace at Chinon; how she
broke the siege of Orleans; how she saw Charles crowned in the
cathedral at Rheims; how she was burned at the stake in Rouen. But
they could not kill her soul. She saved France.

In the village church there was a priest from the border of Alsace,
also a pilgrim like Pierre, but one who knew the shrine better.
He showed the difference  between the new and the old parts of the
building.  Certain things the Maid herself had seen and touched.

“Here is the old holy-water basin, an antique, broken column hollowed
out on top. Here her fingers must have rested often. Before this
ancient statue of St. Michel she must have often knelt to say her
prayers. The cure of the parish was a friend of hers and loved to
talk with her. She was a good girl, devout and obedient, not learned,
but a holy and great soul. She saved France.”

In the house where she was born and passed her childhood a crippled
old woman was custodian. It was a humble dwelling of plastered
stone standing between two tall fir-trees, with ivy growing over
the walls, lilies and hollyhocks blooming in the  garden. Pierre
found it not half so good a house as _“L’Alouette.”_ But to
the custodian it was more precious than a palace. In this upper
room with its low mullioned window the Maid began her life.  Here,
in the larger room below, is the kneeling statue which the Princess
Marie d’Orleans made of her.  Here, to the right, under the sloping
roof, with its worm-eaten beams, she slept and prayed and worked.

“See, here is the bread-board between two timbers  where she cut
the bread for the _croute au pot._ From this small window she
looked at night and saw the sanctuary light burning in the church.
Here, also, as well as in the garden and in the woods, her heavenly
voices spoke to her and told her what she must do for her king and
her country. She was not afraid or ashamed, though she lived in
so small a house. Here in this very room she braided her hair and
put on her red dress, and set forth on foot for her visit to Robert
de Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs. He was a rough man and at first he
received her roughly. But at last she convinced him. He gave her
a horse and arms and sent her to the king.  She saved France.”

At the rustic inn Pierre ate thick slices of dark bread and drank
a stoup of thin red wine at noon.  He sat at a bare table in the
corner of the room.  Behind him, at a table covered with a white
cloth, two captains on furlough had already made their breakfast.
They also were pilgrims, drawn to Domremy  by the love of Jeanne
d’Arc. They talked of nothing else but of her. Yet their points of
view were absolutely different.

One of them, the younger, was short and swarthy, a Savoyard, the
son of an Italian doctor at St. Jean de Maurienne. He was a sceptic;
he believed in Jeanne, but not in the legends about her.

“I tell you,” said he eagerly, “she was one of the greatest among
women. But all that about her ‘voices’ was illusion. The priests
suggested it.  She had hallucinations. Remember her age when they
began--just thirteen. She was clever and strong; doubtless she was
pretty; certainly she was very courageous. She was only a girl.
But she had a big, brave idea which possessed her--the liberation
of her country. Pure? Yes. I am sure she was virtuous. Otherwise
the troops would not have followed and obeyed her as they did.
Soldiers are very quick about those things. They recognize and respect
an honest woman. Several men were in love with her, I think. But
she was _une nature froide._ The only thing that moved her
was her big, brave idea--to save France. The Maid was a mother, but
not of a mortal child. Her offspring  was the patriotism of France.”

The other captain was a man of middle age, from Lyons, the son of
an architect. He was tall and pale and his large brown eyes had
the tranquillity of a devout faith in them. He argued with quiet
tenacity for his convictions.

“You are right to believe in her,” said he, “but I think you are
mistaken to deny her ‘voices.’ They were as real as anything in
her life. You credit her when she says that she was born here, that
she went to Chinon and saw the king, that delivered Orleans.  Why
not credit her when she says she heard God and the saints speaking
to her? The proof of it was in what she did. Have you read the story
of her trial? How clear and steady her answers were! The judges
could not shake her. Yet at any moment she could have saved her
life by denying  the ‘voices.’ It was because she knew, because
she was sure, that she could not deny. Her vision was a part of
her real life. She was the mother of French patriotism--yes. But
she was also the daughter of true faith. That was her power.”

“Well,” said the younger man, “she sacrificed herself  and she
saved France. That was the great thing.”

“Yes,” said the elder man, stretching his hand across the table
to clasp the hand of his companion, “there is nothing greater than
that. If we do that, God will forgive us all.”

They put on their caps to go. Pierre rose and stood at attention.
They returned his salute with a friendly smile and passed out.

After a few moments he finished his bread and wine, paid his score,
and followed them. He watched them going down the village street
toward the railway station. Then he turned and walked slowly back
to the spring in the dell.

The afternoon was hot, in spite of the steady breeze which came out
of the north. The air felt as if it had passed through a furnace.
The low, continuous thunder of the guns rolled up from Verdun,
with now and then a sharper clap from St. Mihiel.

Pierre was very tired. His head was heavy, his heart troubled. He
lay down among the ferns, looking idly at the foxglove spires above
him and turning over in his mind the things he had heard and seen
at Domremy. Presently he fell into a  profound sleep.

How long it was he could not tell, but suddenly he became aware
of some one near him. He sprang up. A girl was standing beside the
spring.

She wore a bright-red dress and her feet were bare. Her black hair
hung down her back. Her eyes were the color of a topaz. Her form was
tall and straight. She carried a distaff under her arm and looked
as if she had just come from following the sheep.

“Good day, shepherdess,” said Pierre. Then a strange thought struck
him, and he fell on his knees.  “Pardon, lady,” he stammered.
“Forgive my rudeness.  You are of the high society of heaven, a
saint.  You are called Jeanne d’Arc?”

She nodded and smiled. “That is my name,” said she. “Sometimes
they call me _La Pucelle_, or the Maid of France. But you were
right, I am a shepherdess, too. I have kept my father’s sheep in
the fields down there, and spun from the distaff while I watched
them. I know how to sew and spin as well as any girl in the Barrois
or Lorraine. Will you not stand up and talk with me?”

Pierre rose, still abashed and confused. He did not quite understand
how to take this strange  experience--too simple for a heavenly
apparition, too real for a common dream. “Well, then,” said he, “if
you are a shepherdess, why are you here? There are no sheep here.”

“But yes. You are one of mine. I have come here to seek you.”

“Do you know me, then? How can I be one of yours?”

“Because you are a soldier of France and you are in trouble.”

Pierre’s head drooped. “A broken soldier,” he muttered, “not fit
to speak to you. I am running away because I am afraid of fear.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “You speak very bad French.
There is no such thing as being afraid of fear. For if you are
afraid of it, you hate it. If you hate it, you will have nothing
to do with it. And if you have nothing to do with it, it cannot
touch you; it is nothing.”

“But for you, a saint, it is easy to say that. You had no fear when
you fought. You knew you would not be killed.”

“I was no more sure of that than the other soldiers.  Besides, when
they bound me to the stake at Rouen and kindled the fire around me
I knew very well that I should be killed. But there was no fear in
it. Only peace.”

“Ah, you were strong, a warrior born. You were not wounded and
broken.”

“Four times I was wounded,” she answered gravely. “At Orleans a
bolt went through my right shoulder. At Paris a lance tore my thigh.
I never saw the blood of Frenchmen flow without feeling my heart
stand still. I was not a warrior born. I knew not how to ride or
fight. But I did it. What we must needs do that we can do. Soldier,
do not look on the ground. Look up.”

Then a strange thing took place before his eyes.  A wondrous
radiance, a mist of light, enveloped and hid the shepherdess. When
it melted she was clad in shining armor, sitting on a white horse,
and lifting a bare sword in her left hand.

“God commands you,” she cried. “It is for France. Be of good cheer.
Do not retreat. The fort will soon be yours!”

How should Pierre know that this was the cry with which the Maid
had rallied her broken men at Orleans when the fort of _Les
Tourelles_ fell? What he did know was that something seemed to
spring up within him to answer that call. He felt that he would
rather die than desert such a leader.

The figure on the horse turned away as if to go.

“Do not leave me,” he cried, stretching out his hands to her. “Stay
with me. I will obey you joyfully.”

She turned again and looked at him very earnestly.  Her eyes shone
deep into his heart. “Here I cannot stay,” answered a low, sweet,
womanly voice. “It is late, and my other children need me.”

“But forgiveness? Can you give that to me--a coward?”

“You are no coward. Your only fault was to doubt a brave man.”

“And my wife? May I go back and tell her?”

“No, surely. Would you make her hear slander of the man she loves?
Be what she believes you and she will be satisfied.”

“And the absolution, the word of peace? Will you speak that to me?”

Her eyes shone more clearly; the voice sounded sweeter and steadier
than ever. “After the penance comes the absolution. You will find
peace only at the lance’s point. Son of France, go, go, go!  I will
help you. Go hardily to Verdun.”

Pierre sprang forward after the receding figure, tried to clasp
the knee, the foot of the Maid. As he fell to the ground something
sharp pierced his hand. It must be her spur, thought he.

Then he was aware that his eyes were shut. He opened them and looked
at his hand carefully.  There was only a scratch on it, and a tiny
drop of blood. He had torn it on the thorns of the wild gooseberry-bushes.

His head lay close to the clear pool of the spring.  He buried his
face in it and drank deep. Then he sprang up, shaking the drops
from his mustache, found his cap and pistol, and hurried up the
glen toward the old Roman road.

“No more of that damned foolishness about Switzerland,” he said,
aloud. “I belong to France.  I am going with the other boys to save
her. I was born for that.” He took off his cap and stood still for
a moment. He spoke as if he were taking an oath. “By Jeanne d’Arc!”



IV. THE VICTORIOUS PENANCE


It never occurred to Pierre Duval, as he trudged those long kilometres
toward the front, that he was doing a penance.

The joy of a mind made up is a potent cordial.

The greetings of comrades on the road put gladness  into his heart
and strength into his legs.

It was a hot and dusty journey, and a sober one.  But it was not
a sad one. He was going toward that for which he was born. He was
doing that which France asked of him, that which God told him to
do. Josephine would be glad and proud of him. He would never be
ashamed to meet her eyes.  As he went, alone or in company with
others, he whistled and sang a bit. He thought of _“L’Alouette”_
a good deal. But not too much. He thought also of the forts of
Douaumont and Vaux.

_“Dame!”_ he cried to himself. “If I could help to win them
back again! That would be fine! How sick that would make those
cursed boches and their knock-kneed Crown Prince!”

At the little village of the headquarters behind Verdun he found
many old friends and companions.  They greeted him with cheerful
irony.

“Behold the prodigal! You took your time about coming back, didn’t
you? Was the hospital to your taste, the nurses pretty? How is the
wife? Any more children? How goes it, old man?”

“No more children yet,” he answered, grinning; “but all goes well.
I have come back from a far country, but I find the pigs are still
grunting. What have you done to our old cook?”

“Nothing at all,” was the joyous reply. “He tried to swim in his
own soup and he was drowned.”

When Pierre reported to the officer of the day, that busy functionary
consulted the record.

“You are a day ahead of your time, Pierre Duval,”  he said, frowning
slightly.

“Yes, sir,” answered the soldier. “It costs less to be a day ahead
than a day too late.”

“That is well,” said the officer, smiling in his red beard. “You
will report to-morrow to your regiment at the citadel. You have a
new colonel, but the regiment is busy in the old way.”

As Pierre saluted and turned to go out his eye caught the look
of a general officer who stood near, watching. He was a square,
alert, vigorous man, his face bronzed by the suns of many African
campaigns,  his eyes full of intelligence, humor, and courage. It
was Guillaumat, the new commander of the Army of Verdun.

“You are prompt, my son,” said he pleasantly, “but you must
remember not to be in a hurry. You have been in hospital. Are you
well again?  Nothing broken?”

“Something was broken, my General,” responded the soldier gravely,
“but it is mended.”

“Good!” said the general. “Now for the front, to beat the Germans
at their own game. We shall get them. It may be long, but we shall
get them!”

That was the autumn of the offensive of 1916, by which the French
retook, in ten days, what it had cost the Germans many months to
gain.

Pierre was there in that glorious charge at the end of October which
carried the heights of  Douaumont and took six thousand prisoners.
He was there at the recapture of the Fort de Vaux which the Germans
evacuated in the first week of November.  In the last rush up the
slope, where he had fought long ago, a stray shell, an inscrutable
messenger of fate, coming from far away, no one knows whence, caught
him and ripped him horribly across the body.

It was a desperate mass of wounds. But the men of his squad loved
their corporal. He still breathed. They saw to it that he was carried
back to the little transit hospital just behind the Fort de Souville.

It was a rude hut of logs, covered with sand-bags, on the slope
of the hill. The ruined woods around it were still falling to the
crash of far-thrown shells.  In the close, dim shelter of the inner
room Pierre came to himself.

He looked up into the face of Father Courcy.  A light of recognition
and gratitude flickered  in his eyes. It was like finding an old
friend  in the dark.

“Welcome!--But the fort?” he gasped.

“It is ours,” said the priest.

Something like a smile passed over the face of Pierre. He could
not speak for a long time. The blood in his throat choked him. At
last he whispered:

“Tell Josephine--love.”

Father Courcy bowed his head and took Pierre’s hand. “Surely,” he
said. “But now, my dear son Pierre, I must prepare you--”

The struggling voice from the cot broke in,  whispering slowly,
with long intervals: “Not  necessary.... I know already.... The
penance.  ... France.... Jeanned’Arc.... It is done.”

A few drops of blood gushed from the corner of his mouth. The
look of peace that often comes to those who die of gunshot wounds
settled on his face. His eyes grew still as the priest laid the
sacred wafer on his lips. The broken soldier was made whole.



THE HEARING EAR


There were three American boys from the region of Philadelphia
in the dugout, “Somewhere in France”; and they found it a snug
habitation, considering the circumstances.

The central heating system--a round sheet-iron stove, little larger
than a “topper” hat--sent out incredible quantities of acrid smoke
at such times as the rusty stovepipe refused to draw. But on cold
nights and frosty mornings the refractory thing was a distinct
consolation. The ceiling of the  apartment lacked finish. When
wet it dropped mud; when dry, dust. But it had the merit of being
twenty feet thick--enough to stop any German shell except a “Jack
Johnson” full of high explosive. The beds were elegantly excavated
in the wall, and by a slight forward inclination of the body
you could use them as _fauteuils_. The rats approved of them
highly.

There were two flights of ladder-stairs leading down from the trench
into the dugout, and the holes at the top which served as vestibules
were three or four yards apart. It was a comfort to think of this
architectural design; for if the explosion of a big shell blocked
up one of the entrances, the other would probably remain open, and
you would not be caught in a trap with the other rats.

The main ornament of the _salon_ was a neat but not gaudy
biscuit-box. The top of it was a centre-table, illuminated by a
single, guttering candle; the interior was a “combination” wardrobe
and sideboard. Around this simple but satisfying piece of furniture
the three transient tenants of the  dugout had just played a game
of dummy bridge, and now sat smoking and bickering as peacefully
as if they were in a college club-room in America. The night on
the front was what the French call  _“relativement calme.”_
Sporadic explosions  above punctuated but did not interrupt the
debate,  which eddied about the high theme of Education--with a
capital “E”--and the particular point of dispute was the study of
languages.

“Everything is going to change after the war,” said Phipps-Herrick,
a big Harvard man from Bryn Mawr and a member of the Unsocial
Socialists’ Club. “We are going to make a new world. Must have a
new education. Sweep away all the old stuff--languages, grammar,
literature, philosophy, history, and all that. Put in something modern
and practical. Montessori system for the little kids. Vocational
training for the bigger ones. Teach them to make a living. Then
organize them politically  and economically. You can do what you
like, then, with England, France, and America  together. Germany
will be shut out. Why study German? From a practical point of view,
I ask you, why?”

“Didn’t you take it at Harvard?” sarcastically drawled Rosenlaube,
a Princeton man from Rittenhouse  Square. (His grandfather was born
at Frankfort-on-the-Main, but his mother was a Biddle, and he had
penetrated about an inch into the American  diplomatic service when
the war summoned him to a more serious duty.) “I understood that
all you Harvard men were strong on modern languages,  especially
German.”

Phipps-Herrick grunted.

“Certainly I took it. It was supposed to be a soft-snap course.
What do you think we go to Harvard  for? But that little beast,
Professor von Buch, gave me a cold forty-minus on examination. So
I dropped it, and thank God I’ve forgotten the little I ever knew
of German! It will be absolutely useless in the new world.”

“Right you are,” said Rosenlaube. “My grandfather  used to speak
it when he was angry--a sloppy, slushy language, extremely ugly.
At Princeton, you know, we stand by the classics, Latin and Greek,
the real thing in languages. You ought to hear Dean Andy West talk
about that. Of course a fellow forgets his Virgil and his Homer when
he gets out in the world. But, then, he’s had the benefit of them;
they’ve given him real culture and  literature. There’s nothing
outside of the classics,  except perhaps a few things in French
and Italian.  Thank God I never studied German!”

The third man, who had kept silence up to this point, now gently
butted in. It was little Phil Mitchell, of Overbrook, a University
of  Pennsylvania man, who had been stopped in his  junior year by
a financial catastrophe in the  family, and had gone out to Idaho
to earn his living as third assistant bookkeeper in a big mining
concern. He took a few real books with him, besides those that
he was to “keep.” Double entry was his business; reading,  his
recreation; thinking, his vocation. From all this the great war
called him as with a trumpet.

“Look here, you fellows,” he said quietly, “in spite of this war
and all the rest of it, there  are some good things in German.”

“What,” they cried, “you, a fire-eater, stand up for the Kaiser
and his language? Damn him!”

“With all my heart,” assented Mitchell. “But the language isn’t his.
It existed a long while before he was born. It isn’t very pretty,
I’ll admit. But there are lots of fine things in it. Kant and Lessing,
Goethe and Schiller and Heine--they all loved liberty and made it
shine out in their work. Do you mean to say that I must give them
up and throw my German overboard because these modern Potsdammers
have acted like brutes?”

“Yes,” cried Phipps-Herrick and Rosenlaube, nodding at each other,
“that’s what we mean, and that’s what America means. The German
language must go!”

“Look here,” said Phipps-Herrick, “you admit that modern education
must be useful? Well, there won’t be any more use for German, because
we are going to shut Germany out of the international trades-union.
She has betrayed the principles of the new era. We are going to
boycott her.”

“Won’t that be rather difficult?” queried Mitchell,  shaking his
head. “Seventy or eighty million people--hard to shut them out of
the world, eh?”

“Nonsense, dear Phil,” drawled Rosenlaube; “it will be easy enough.
But I don’t agree with Phipps-Herrick about the reason or method.
We are going to have a new era after the war. But it will not
be a utilitarian age. It will be a return to beauty and form and
culture--not with a ‘k.’ First of all, we are going to kill a great
many  Germans. Then we are going to Berlin to knock down all the
ugly statues in the _Sieges-Allee_ and smash the parvenu German
Empire. Then we shall have a new age on classic lines. People will
still use French and English and Italian because there is some beauty
in those languages. But nobody outside of Germany  will speak or
read German. It is a barbarous tongue--shapeless and hideous--used
by barbarians who gobble and snort when they talk. Sorry for Kant
and Goethe and Heine and all that crowd, but their time is up;
they’ve got to go out with their beastly language!”

“Yes,” said Phipps-Herrick, “out with them, bag and baggage. Think
what the German spies and propagandists have done in America.
Schools full of pacifist and pro-German teachers; text-books full
of praise of the German Empire and the  Hohenzollern Highbinders;
newspapers full of treason, printed in the German language. Why,
it’s only a piece of self-defense to clean it all out, root and
branch. No more German taught or spoken, printed or read, in the
United States. Forget it! Twenty-three for the Hun language!”

“Noble,” gently murmured Mitchell, shaking his head again; “very
noble! But not very easy and perhaps not entirely wise. Why should I
throw away something that has been useful to me, and may be again?
Why forget the little German that I know and burn my Goethe and
refuse to listen to Beethoven’s music? I won’t do it, that’s all.”

“Our little friend is a concealed Kaiserite,” said Rosenlaube. “He
wants to Germanize America.”

“No, Rosy,” said Mitchell, thoughtfully running his  hand over some
nicks on the butt of his rifle in the corner; “you know I’m not a
Kaiserite of any kind. I’ve got seven scored against him already,
and I’m going to get some more. But the language question seems to
me different. Cut out the German newspapers and the German schools
in America by all means! No more teaching of the primary branches
in any language but English!  Make it absolutely necessary for
everybody in the U. S. A. to learn the language of the country the
first thing. Then in the high schools and universities  let German
be studied like any other foreign language, by those who want
it--chemists, and philosophers, and historians, and electrical
engineers, and so on. We could censor the text-books and keep out
all complimentary allusions to the  Hohenzollern family.”

“Oh, shut up, Phil,” growled Phipps-Herrick.  “You’re too soft,
you old easy-mark! You don’t go half far enough. We may not decide
to exterminate  the Hun race in Europe. But we have decided to
exterminate their language in America.”

His hand was groping inside the biscuit-box.  He pulled out a little
ditty-bag and carefully  extracted a bit of newspaper.

“Listen to this, you fellows. This is from the National Obscurity
Society. You know a chap with a German name is president of it,
but he’s a real patriot, hundred per cent, not fifty-fifty, Philly.
‘The following States have abolished the teaching of German:
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Virginia,  Georgia, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois,
Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, Arizona,  Colorado,
Montana, California, and Oregon.’ _Abolished_, mind you! What
do you think of that?”

“Most excellent Phippick,” nodded Rosenlaube, “I opine, as Horace
said to Cicero, ‘That’s the stuff,’ or words to that effect. What
saith the senator from Mitchellville?”

“Noble,” grinned Phil, “unmistakably noble!  Those Obscurity fellows
are a fiery lot. It reminds me that during the late war with Spain,
when I was a little, tiny boy, but brimful of ferocity, I  refused
to eat my favorite dessert because it was called _Spanish_
cream. I felt sure at the time that my heroic conduct was of distinct
assistance to Dewey in the battle of Manila Bay.”

“Well, then,” said Phipps-Herrick, grabbing him by the shoulders
and shaking him  good-humoredly, “you murderous little pacifist
with seven nicks on your gun, will you give up your  German? Will
you forget it?”

Mitchell chuckled and shook his head,

“As far as requisite under military orders. But no further, not by
a--”

A pair of muddy boots was heard and seen descending  one of
the ladders, followed by the manly and still rather neat form of
Lieutenant Barker Bunn, a Cornell man from West Philadelphia. The
three men sprang to their feet and saluted smartly, for the lieutenant
was very stiff about all the  preliminary forms.

“Too loud talking here,” he said gruffly. “I heard you before I
came down. Who is here? Oh, I see, Sergeant Phipps-Herrick, Privates
Rosenlaube  and Mitchell. It’s your turn to go out on listening
post to-night, sergeant. Twelve sharp, stay three hours, go as far
as you can, come back and report, take Mitchell or Rosenlaube with
you.  Captain’s orders.”

The sergeant saluted again, and the two men looked at each other.

“Why not both of us, sir?” said Mitchell.

The lieutenant regarded him with some surprise.  Listening post is
not a detail passionately desired by the men. It is always dirty,
frequently  dangerous, generally obscure, and often fatal. Hence
there is no keen competition for it.

“Two is the usual number for a listening post,” said Barker Bunn
thoughtfully. “But there is no regulation about it, and the captain
did not specify any number. Well, yes, I suppose you can all three
go, if you are set on it. In fact, I give the order to that effect.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Rosenlaube and Mitchell.  Phipps-Herrick,
feeling that the strict etiquette of the preliminaries had been
fully observed and the time to be human had come, held out a box
of “Fierce Fairies.”

“Have a cigarette, Bunn, and take a chair, do.  Time for a little
talk this quiet night? Tell us what’s doing up above.”

“Nothing particular,” said Barker Bunn, lighting  and relaxing. “But
the old man has a hunch that the Fritzies are grubbing a mine--a
corker--to get our goat. Hence this business of ears  forward.
The old man thinks the Fritzies have a strong grouch against this
little alley, and since they couldn’t take it top side last week
they’re going to try to bust it out bottom side with a big bang some
day soon. Maybe so--maybe just greens--but, anyway, you’ve got to
go on the Q. T. with this job--no noise, don’t even whisper unless
you have to; just listen for all you’re worth. P’r’aps you’ll hear
that little tap-tap-tapping that tells where Fritzie Mole is at
work. Then if you come back and tell the old man where it is, he’ll
give you all the cigarettes you want. But say, do you want me to
give you a pointer on the way to go, the method of procedure, as
the old man would call it?”

They agreed that they were thirsting for information  and instruction.

“Well, it’s this way,” continued Barker Bunn.  “You know I had a
bit of experience in listening post while I was with the Canadians
down around ‘Wipers’; and I noticed that most of the troubles
came from a bad method of procedure. Fellows went out any old way;
followed each other in the dark, and then hunted for each other
and came to grief; all those kind of silly fumbles. Now, what you
need is _formation_--see? Must have some sort of formation
for advance. Must keep in touch. For two men a tandem is right. For
three men, what you want is a spike-team--middle man crawls ahead,
other men follow on each side just near enough to touch his left
heel with right hand and right heel with left hand--a triangle,
see?  Keep touching once every thirty seconds. If you miss it,
leader crawls back, side men crawl in, sure to meet, nobody gets
lost. Go as far _as_ you can, then spread out like a fan, fold
together _when_ you can, come back _if_ you can--that’s
the way to cover the most possible ground on a listening post. Do
you get me?”

“We get you,” they nodded. “It’s a wonderful scheme.” And Rosenlaube
added in his most  impressive literary manner: “Plato, it _must_
be so, thou reasonest well.”

“But tell me,” said the lieutenant, “what were you  fellows chattering
about so loud when I came down?”

So they told him, and, according to the habit of college boys,
they skirmished over the ground of debate again, and Barker Bunn
vigorously supported  the majority opinion, and Mitchell was left
in a hopeless minority of one, clinging obstinately to his faith
that there had been, and still might be, some use for the German
language.

Midnight came, and with it the return of the lieutenant’s official
manner. He saw the trio slide over the top, one by one, vanishing
in the starless dark. “Good luck going and coming,” he whispered;
and it sounded almost like an unofficial prayer.

In single file they crept through the prepared opening in the
barbed-wire entanglement, and so out into No Man’s Land, where they
took up their spike-team formation. Phipps-Herrick was the leader,
the other men were the wheelers. They had agreed on a code of
silent signals: One kick with the heel or one pinch with the hand
meant “stop”; two meant “back”; three meant “get together.” They
carried no rifles, because the rifle is an awkward tool for a
noiseless crawler to lug.  But each man had a big trench-knife and
a pair of automatic pistols, with plenty of ammunition.

The space between the two front lines of barbed wire in this region
was not more than four or five hundred yards. In the murk of that
unstarred, drizzling night, where every inch must be felt out, it
seemed like a vast, horrible territory. There was nothing monotonous
about it but the blackness of darkness. To the touch it was a
_paysage accidente_, a landscape full of surprises. Dead bodies
were sprinkled over it. It was pockmarked with small shell-holes
and pitted with large craters, many of them full of water, all slimy
with mud. Phipps-Herrick nearly slipped into one of the deepest, but
a lively kick warned his followers of the danger, and they pulled
him back by the heels.

Now and then a star-shell looped across the spongy sky, casting a
lurid illumination over the ghastly field. When the three travellers
caught the soft swish of its ascent, they “froze”--motionless as
a shamming ‘possum--mimicking death among the dead.

It was a long, slow, silent, revolting crawl.  Sounds which did
not concern them were plenty--distant cannonade, shells exploding
here and there, scattered rifle-shots. All these they unconsciously
eliminated, listening for something else, ears pressed to the ground
wherever they could find a comparatively  dry spot. From their
point of hearing the night was still as the grave--no subterranean
tapping  and scraping could they hear anywhere under the sea of
mud.

Once Rosenlaube caught a faint metallic sound, and signalled
through Phipps-Herrick’s left leg to Mitchell’s left arm, “Stop!”
 All three listened tensely. They crawled toward the faint noise.
It was made by a loose end of wire swaying in the night-wind and
tapping on a broken helmet.

They were getting close to the German barbed wire. The leader had
swung around to the west, following what he judged to be the line
of the front trench, perhaps forty yards away. He was determined
to hear something before he went back.  And he did!

Just as he had made up his mind to call up the other fellows for the
final spreadout in fan  formation, his groping right hand touched
something round and smooth and hard. It seemed to be made fast to
a string or wire, but he pulled it toward him and gave the “stop”
 signal to his followers.

The thing he had picked up was a telephone receiver.  How it came
to be there he did not know.  Perhaps a German listening post had
carried it out last night, in order to receive directions from the
trench; perhaps the mining party--man killed, receiver  dropped,
wire connection not cut, or tangled up with other wires--who can
tell? One thing is sure--here is the receiver, faintly buzzing.
Phipps-Herrick joyfully puts it to his ear. He hears a voice and
words, but it is all gibberish to him. With a look of desperation
on his face he gives the “get together” signal.

Rosenlaube crawls up first and takes hold of the cylinder, puts it
to his ear. He hears the sound, but it says absolutely nothing to
him. It is like being at the door of the secret of the universe
and unable to get over the threshold.

Then comes Mitchell, slowly, a little lame, and almost “all in.”
 Phipps-Herrick thrusts the receiver  into his hand. As he listens
a beatific expression  spreads over his face. It lasts a long time,
and then he lays down the cylinder with a sigh.

The three heads are close together, and Mitchell whispers under
his breath:

“Got ‘em--got the whole thing--line of mine changed--raiders coming
out now--twelve men--rough on us, but if we can get back to our
alley we’ve got ‘em! Crawl home quick.”

[Illustration with caption: “I’m going to carry you in, spite of
hell”]

They crawled together in a bunch, formation ignored. Presently
steps sounded near them. A swift light swept the hole where they
crouched, a volley of rifle-shots crashed into it. The Americans
answered with their pistols, and saw three or four of the dark
forms on the edge of the hole topple over. The rest disappeared.
But Rosenlaube had a rifle-ball through his right hip and another
through his shoulder. Mitchell and Phipps-Herrick started to carry
him.

“Drop it,” he whispered. “I’m safe here till dawn--you get home,
quick! Specially Phil. He’s the one that counts. Cut away, boys!”

Meantime the American trench had opened fire and the German trench
answered. The still night broke into a tempest of noise. A bullet
or a bit of shell caught Mitchell in the knee and crumpled him up.
Phipps-Herrick lifted him on his back and stood up.

“Come on,” he said, “you little cuss. You’re the only one that has
the stuff we went out after.  I’m going to carry you in, ‘spite of
hell.”

And he did it.

Mitchell told the full story of the change in the direction of the
German mine and the plan of the next assault, as he had heard it
through that lost receiver. The captain said it was information
of the highest value. It counted up to a couple of hundred German
prisoners and three machine-guns  in the next two days.

Rosenlaube, still alive, was brought in just before  daybreak by a
volunteer rescue-party under the guidance of Phipps-Herrick. All
three were cited in the despatches. Phipps-Herrick in due time
received the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry on the field.
But Mitchell had the surplus  satisfaction of the hearing ear.

“Look here, old man,” Rosenlaube said to him as they lay side by
side in the hospital, “‘member our talk in the dugout just before
our big night?  Well, I allow there was something in what you
said.  There are times when it is a good thing to know a bit of
that barbarous German language. And you never can tell when one of
those times may hit you.”



SKETCHES OF QUEBEC


If you love a certain country, for its natural beauty, or for the
friends you have made there, or for the happy days you have passed
within its borders, you are troubled and distressed when that
country comes under criticism, suspicion, and reproach.

It is just as it would be if a woman who had been very kind
to you and had done you a great deal of good were accused of some
unworthiness. You would refuse to believe it. You would insist on
understanding before you pronounced judgment.  Memories would ask
to be heard.

That is what I feel in regard to French Canada, the province of
Quebec, where I have had so many joyful times, and found so many
true comrades among the _voyageurs_, the _habitants_, and
the _coureurs de bois._

People are saying now that Quebec is not loyal, not brave, not
patriotic in this war for freedom and humanity.

Even if the accusation were true, of course it would not spoil the
big woods, the rushing rivers, the sparkling lakes, the friendly
mountains of French Canada. But all the same, it hurts me to hear
such a charge against my friends of the forest.

Do you mean to tell me that Francois and Ferdinand  and Louis and
Jean and Eugene and Iside are not true men? Do you mean to tell me
that these lumbermen who steer big logs down steep places, these
trappers who brave the death-cold grip of Winter, these canoe-men
who shout for joy as they run the foaming rapids,--do you mean to
tell me that they have no courage?

I am not ready to credit that. I want to hear what they have to say
for themselves. And in listening for that testimony certain little
remembrances come to me--not an argument--only a few sketches on
the wall. Here they are. Take them for what they are worth.

I

LA GRANDE DECHARGE

September, 1894

In one of the long stillwaters of the mighty stream that rushes
from _Lac Saint Jean_ to make the  Saguenay--below the _Ile
Maligne_ and above the cataract of Chicoutimi--two birch-bark
canoes are floating quietly, descending with rhythmic strokes of
the paddle, through the luminous northern twilight.

The chief guide, Jean Morel, is a _coureur de bois_ of the old
type--broad-shouldered, red-bearded, a fearless canoeman, a good
hunter and fisherman--simple of speech and deep of heart: a good
man to trust in the rapids.

“Tell me, Jean,” I ask in the comfortable leisure of our voyage
which conduces to pipe-smoking and conversation, “tell me, are you
a Frenchman or an Englishman?”

“Not the one, nor the other,” answers Jean in his  old-fashioned
_patois._ “M’sieu’ knows I am French-Canadian.”

A remarkable answer, when you come to think of it; for it claims
a nationality which has never existed, and is not likely to exist,
except in a dream.

“Well, then,” I say, following my impulse of psychological curiosity,
of which Jean is sublimely ignorant, “suppose a war should come
between France and England. On which side would you fight?”

Jean knocks the dottle out of his pipe, refills and relights. Then,
between the even strokes of his paddle, he makes this extraordinary
reply:

_“M’sieu, I suppose my body would march under the flag of England.
But my heart would march under the flag of France.”_

Good old Jean Morel! You had no premonition of this glorious war
in which the Tricolor and the Union Jack would advance together
against the ravening black eagle of Germany, and the Stars and
Stripes would join them.

How should you know anything about it? Your log cabin was your
capitol. Your little family was your council of state. Even the
rest of us, proud of our university culture, were too blind, in
those late Victorian days, to see the looming menace of Prussian
paganism and the conquer-lust of the Hohenzollerns, which has
plunged the whole world in war.

II

OXFORD

February, 1917

The “Schools” building, though modern, is one of the stateliest
on the Main Street. Here, in old peaceful times, the university
examinations used to be held. Now it is transformed into a hospital
for the wounded men from the fighting front  of freedom.

Sir William Osier, Canadian, and world-renowned physician, is my
guide, an old friend in Baltimore, now Regius Professor of Medicine
in Oxford.

“Come,” he says, “I want you to see an example of the Carrel
treatment of wounds.”

The patient is sitting up in bed--a fine young fellow about twenty
years old. A shrapnel-shell, somewhere in France, passed over his
head and burst just behind him. His bare back is a mass of scars.
The healing fluid is being pumped in through the shattered elbow
of his right arm, not yet out of danger.

“Does it hurt,” I ask.

“Not much,” he answers, trying to smile, “at least not too much,
M’sieu’.”

The accent of French Canada is unmistakable.  I talk to him in his
own dialect.

“What part of Quebec do you come from?”

“From _Trois Rivieres,_ M’sieu’, or rather from a country back
of that, the Saint Maurice River.”

“I know it well--often hunted there. But what made you go to the
war?”

“I heard that England fought to save France from the damned Germans.
That was enough, M’sieu’, to make me march. Besides, I always liked
to fight.”

“What did you do before you became a soldier?”

“I was a lumberjack.”

(What he really said was, _“J’allais en chantier,”_ “I went
in the shanty.” If he had spoken in classic French he would have
said, _“J’etais bucheron.”_ How it brought back the smell of
the big spruce forest to hear that word _chantier_, in Oxford!)

[Illustration: “I was a lumberjack.”]

“Well, then, I suppose you will return to the wood-cutting again,
when this war is over.”

“But no, M’sieu’, how can I, with this good-for-nothing arm? I
shall never be capable of swinging the axe again.”

“But you could be the cook, perfectly. And you  know the cook gets
the best pay in the whole shanty.”

His face lights up a little.

“Truly,” he replies; “I never thought of that, but it is true. I
have seen a bit of cooking at the front and learned some things.
I might take up that end of the job. _But anyway, Im glad I went
to the war.”_

So we say good-by--_“bonne chance!”_

Since that day the good physician who guided me through the hospital
has borne without a murmur  the greatest of all sacrifices--the loss
of his only son, a brave and lovely boy, killed in action against
the thievish, brutal German hordes.

III

SAINTE MARGUERITE August, 1917

The wild little river _Sainte Marguerite_ runs joyously among
the mountains and the green woods, back of the Saguenay, singing
the same old song of liberty and obedience to law, as if the world
had never been vexed and tortured by the madness of war-lords.

A tired man who has a brief furlough from active service is lucky
if he can spend it among the big trees and beside a flowing stream.
The trees are ministers of peace. The stream is full of courage
and adventure as it rushes toward the big sea.

We are coming back to camp from the morning’s  fishing, with a
brace of good salmon in the canoe.

“Tell me, Iside,” I ask of the wiry little bowman, the best hunter
and fisher on the river, “why is it that you are not at the war?”

“But, M’sieu’, I am too old. A father of family--almost a
grandfather--the war is not for men of that age. Besides, it does
not concern us here in Quebec.”

“Why not? It concerns the whole world. Who told you that it does
not concern you?”

“The priest at our village of _Sacre Coeur,_ M’sieu’.  He says
that it is only right and needful for a good Christian to fight
in defense of his home and his church. Let those Germans attack us
here, _chez nous_, and you shall see how the men of _Sacre
Coeur_ will stand up and fight.”

It was an amazing revelation of a state of mind, absolutely simple,
perfectly sincere, and strictly imprisoned by the limitations of
its only  recognized teacher.

“But suppose, Iside, that England and France should be beaten down
by Germany, over there.  What would happen to French Canada? Do
you think you could stand alone then, to defend your home and your
church? Are you big enough, you French-Canadians?”

“M’sieu’, I have never thought of that. Perhaps  we have more than
a million people--many of them children, for you understand we
French-Canadians have large families--but of course the children
could not fight. Still, we should not like to have them subject to
a German Emperor. We would fight against that, if the war came to
us here on our own soil.”

“But don’t you see that the only way to keep it from coming
to you on your own soil is to fight against it over there? Hasn’t
the English Government  given you all your liberties, for home and
church?”

“Yes, M’sieu’, especially since Sir Wilfred Laurier.  Ah, that is
a great man! A true French-Canadian!”

“Well, then, you know that he is against Germany.  You know he
believes the freedom of Canada depends on the defeat of Germany,
over there, on the other side of the sea. You would not like a
German Canada, would you?”

“Not at all, M’sieu’, that would be intolerable.  But I have never
thought of that.”

“Well, think of it now, will you? And tell your priest to think of
it, too. He is a Christian. The things we are fighting for belong
to Christianity--justice, liberty, humanity. Tell him that, and tell
him also some of the things which the Germans did to the Christian
people in Belgium and Northern France. I will narrate them to you
later.”

“M’sieu’,” says Iside, dipping his paddle deeper as we round the
sharp corner of a rock, “I shall remember all that you tell me, and
I shall tell it again to our priest. You know we have few newspapers
here. Most of us could not read them, anyway. I am  not well convinced
that we yet comprehend, here in  French Canada, the meaning of
this war. But we shall endeavor to comprehend it better. And when
we comprehend, we shall be ready to do our duty--you can trust
yourself to the men of _Sacre Coeur_ for that. We love peace--we
all about here _(nous autres d’icite)--but we can fight like the
devil when we know it is for a good cause--liberty, for example._
Meanwhile would M’sieu’ like to stop at the pool _‘La Pinette’_
on the way down and try a couple of casts? There was a big salmon
rising there yesterday.”

That very evening a runner comes up the river, through the woods,
to tell Iside and Eugene, who are Selectmen of the community of
_Sacre Coeur,_ that they must come down to the village for an
important meeting at ten o’clock the next morning.

So they set off, quite as a matter of course, for their thirty-five
mile tramp through the forest in the dark. They are good citizens,
as well as good woodsmen, you understand. On the second day they
are back again at their work in the canoe.

“Well, Iside,” I ask, “how was it with the meeting  yesterday? All
correct?”

“All correct, M’sieu’. It was an affair of a new schoolhouse. We are
going to build it. All goes well. We are beginning to comprehend.
Quebec is a large corner of the world. But it is only a corner,
after all, we can see that. And those damned Germans  who do such
terrible things in France, we do not love them at all, no matter what
the priest may say about Christian charity. They are Protestants,
M’sieu’, is it not?”

“Well,” I answer, hiding a smile with a large puff of smoke, “some
of them call themselves Protestants  and some call themselves
Catholics. But it seems to me they are all infidels, heathen--judging
by what they do. That is the real proof.”

_“C’est b’en vrai, M’sieu’,_” says Iside. “It is the conduct
that shows the Christian.”

IV

BELOW CAPE DIAMOND March, 1818

The famous citadel of Quebec stands on top of the steep hill that
dominates the junction of the Saint Charles River with the Saint
Lawrence. That is Cape Diamond--a natural stronghold. Indians and
French, and British, and Americans have fought for that coign of
vantage. For a century and a half the Union Jack has floated there,
and under its fair protection the Province of Quebec, keeping its
quaint old language and peasant customs, has become an important
part of the British Empire.

The Upper Town, on the high shoulders of Cape Diamond, with
its government buildings, convents, hospitals, showy new shops,
and ancient gardens, its archiepiscopal palace, trim theological
seminary,  huge castle-like hotel, and placid ramparts dominating
the _Ile d’Orleans_ with rows of antiquated, harmless cannon
around which the children  play--the Upper Town belongs distinctly
to the citadel. The garrison is in evidence here. A regimental band
plays in the kiosk on Dufferin Terrace on summer evenings. There
is a good mixture  of khaki in the coloring of the street crowd,
and many wounded soldiers are seen, invalided home from the front.
They are all very proud of the glorious record that Canada has made
in the battle for freedom. Most of them, it seems to me, are from
English-speaking families. But by no means all. There are many of
unmistakable French-Canadian  stock; and they tell me proudly of
the notable bravery of a certain regiment which was formed early
from volunteers of their own people--hunters, woodsmen, farmers,
guides. The war does not seem  very far away, up here in the region
of the citadel.

The Lower Town, with its narrow streets, little shops, gray stone
warehouses, dingy tenements, and old-fashioned markets, is quite a
different place.  It belongs to the slow rivers on whose banks it
drowses and dreams. The once prosperous lumberyards  are half empty
now. The shipping along the wharfs has been dwindling for many
years. The northern winter puts a quietus on the waterside.  Troops,
munitions, supplies, must go down by rail to an ice-free port. The
white river-boats are all laid up. But a way is kept open across
the river to Levis, and the sturdy, snub-nosed little ice-breaking
ferry-boats buffet back and forth almost without  interruption. There
is a plenty of nothing to do, now, in the Lower Town; pipe-smoking
and heated discussion of parish politics are incessant; an inconsiderate
quantity of bad liquor is imbibed, _pour faire passer le temps._

Suddenly--if anything can be said to happen suddenly in Quebec--bad
news comes from the Lower Town. A riot has broken out, an insurrection
of the French-Canadians against the new military  service act, an
armed resistance to the draft.  Windows have been smashed, shops
looted. A mob, not very large perhaps, but extremely noisy, has
marched up the steep curve of Mountain Hill Street, into the Upper
Town. Shots have been exchanged. People have been killed. The
revolution  in Quebec has begun.

That is the disquieting rumor which comes to us, carefully spread and
magnified by those agencies which have an interest in preventing, or
at least obstructing the righteous punishment of the German criminals
in this war. Can it possibly be true?  Have the French-Canadians gone
crazy, as the Irish did in 1916, under the lunatic incantations of
the Sinn-Feiners? Are they also people without a country,  playing
blindly into the hands of the Prussian gang who have set out to
subjugate the world?

No! This riot in the old city is not an expression of the spirit of
French Canada at all. It is only a shrewdly stupid trick in local
politics, planned and staged by small-minded and loud-voiced
politicians  who are trying to keep their hold upon the province.
The so-called revolutionists are either imported loafers and
trouble-makers, or else they are drawn from that class of “hooligans”
 who have always made a noise around the Quebec hotels at night. They
shout much: they swear abominably: but they have no real fight in
them. They can be hired and used--up to a certain point--but beyond
that they are worthless. It is a waste of money to employ them.
The trouble below Cape Diamond froths up and goes down as quickly
as the effervescence  on a bottle of ginger beer. Before you can
find out what it is all about, it is all over. It has not even
touched the real French-Canadians, the men of the forests and the
farms. They are loyal by nature, and slow by temperament. You have
got to give them time, and light.

What is happening in Quebec now? Just what ought to happen. The
draft is going forward smoothly and steadily, without resistance.
Sons of the best French-Canadian families are volunteering  for the
war. Recruits from Laval University are coming in, stirred perhaps
by the knowledge that forty thousand Catholic priests in France
have entered the army which fights against the  Prussian paganism.

The petty politicians who have sought to serve their own ends
by putting forward the mad notion of secession and an independent
“Republic of Quebec”  have gone to cover under a storm of ridicule
and indignation. M. Bourassa’s iridescent dream of French-Canadian
nationalism has disappeared like a soap-bubble. M. Francoeur’s
motion in the Quebec legislature, carrying a vague hint that the
province might withdraw from the Dominion if the other provinces
were not particularly nice to it, was snowed under by an overwhelming
vote.  The patriotic and eloquent speech of the provincial Premier,
M. Gouin, was received with every sign of approval. The political
cinema has shown its latest film, and the title is evidently
_“Fidelite de Quebec.”_

Meantime a Catholic missioner has been in the province. The visit
of Archbishop Mathieu of Saskatchewan was probably made on the
invitation, certainly with the consent, of the hierarchy of Quebec.
That intelligent and fearless preacher brought with him a clear and
ringing gospel, a call to all Christian folk to stand up together
and “resist  even unto blood, striving against sin”--the sin of
the German war-lords who have plunged the world in agony to enforce
their heresy that Might makes Right.

Such a message, at this time, must be of inestimable  value to
the humble and devout people of the province, attached as they are
to their church, and looking patiently to her for guidance. The
parish priests, devoted to their lonely tasks in obscure hamlets,
may get a new and broader inspiration from it. They may have a vision
of the ashes of Louvain University, the ruin of Rheims Cathedral,
wrought by ruthless German hands. Then the church in Quebec will
measure up to the church in Belgium and in France. Then the village
cure will say to his young men: “Go! Fight! It is for the glory
of God and the good of the world. It is for the Christian religion
and the life of  free Canada.”


“Well, then,” says the gentle reader, of a sociological  turn of
mind, who has followed me thus far, “what have you got to say about
the big political problem of Quebec? Is a French-speaking province
a safe factor in the Dominion of Canada,  in the British Empire? Why
was Quebec so late in  coming into this world war against Germany?”

Dear man, I have nothing whatever to say about what you call the
big political problem of Quebec.  I told you that at the beginning.
That is a question  for Canada and Great Britain to settle. The
British colonial policy has always been one of the greatest liberality
and fairness, except perhaps in that last quarter of the eighteenth
century, when the madness of a German king and his ministers in
England forced the United States to break away from her, and form
the republic which has now become her most powerful friend.

The perpetuation of a double language within a state, an _enclave_,
undoubtedly carries with it an element of inconvenience and possibly
of danger.  Yet Belgium is bilingual and Switzerland is  quadrilingual.
If any tongue other than that of the central government is
to be admitted, what could be better than French--the language of
culture, which has spoken the large words, _liberte, egalite,
fraternite?_ The native dialect of French Canada is a quaint
and delightful thing--an eighteenth-century  vocabulary with pepper
and salt from the speech of the woodsmen and hunters. I should be
sorry if it had to fade out. But evidently that is a question for
Canada to decide. She has been a bilingual country for a long time.
I see no reason why the  experiment should not be carried on.

Quebec has been rather slow in waking up to the meaning of this war
for world-freedom. But she has been very little slower than some
of the United States, after all.

The Church? Well, the influence of the Church always has depended
and always must depend upon the quality of her ministers. In
France, in Belgium, they have not fallen short of their high duty.
The Archbishop of Saskatchewan, who came to Quebec, preached a
clear gospel of self-sacrifice for a  righteous cause.

But the plain people of Quebec--the _voyageurs_, the
_habitants_, my old friends in the back districts--that is
what I am thinking about. I am sure they are all right. They are
very simple, old-fashioned, childish, if you like; but there is
no pacifist or  pro-German virus among them. If their parochial
politicians  will let them alone, if their priests will speak to
them as prophets of the God of Righteousness,  they will show their
mettle. They will prove their right to be counted among the free
peoples of the world who are willing to defend peace with arms.

That is what I expect to find if I ever get back to my canoemen on
the _Sainte Marguerite_ again.

SYLVANORA, July 10, 1918.



A CLASSIC INSTANCE


“Latin and Greek are dead,” said Hardman, lean, eager, absolute,
a fanatic of modernity. “They have been a long while dying, and
this war has finished  them. We see now that they are useless in
the modern world. Nobody is going to waste time in studying them.
Education must be direct and scientific. Train men for efficiency
and prepare them for defense. Otherwise they will have no chance
of making a living or of keeping what they make. Your classics are
musty and rusty and fusty.  _Heraus mit----“_

He checked himself suddenly, with as near a blush as his sallow
skin could show.

“Excuse me,” he stammered; “bad habit, contracted  when I was a
student at Kiel--only place where they really understood metallurgy.”

Professor John De Vries, round, rosy, white-haired, steeped in the
mellow lore of ancient history,  puffed his cigar and smiled that
benignant smile with which he was accustomed joyfully to enter a
duel of wits. Many such conflicts had enlivened  that low-ceilinged
book-room of his at Calvinton.

“You are excused, my dear Hardman,” he said, “especially because
you have just given us a valuable illustration of the truth that
language and the study of language have a profound influence upon
thought.  The tongue which you inadvertently used belongs to the
country that bred the theory of education which you advocate. The
theory is as crude and imperfect as the German language itself.
And that is saying a great deal.”

Young Richard De Vries, the professor’s favorite nephew and adopted
son, whose chief interest was athletics, but who had a very pretty
side taste for verbal bouts, was sitting with the older men before
a cheerful fire of logs in the chilly spring of 1917.  He tucked
one leg comfortably underneath him and leaned forward in his chair,
lighting a fresh cigarette. He foresaw a brisk encounter, and was
delighted, as one who watches from the side-lines the opening of
a lively game.

“Well played, sir,” he ejaculated; “well played, indeed. Score one
for you, Uncle.”

“The approbation of the young is the consolation of the aged,”
 murmured the professor sententiously, as if it were a quotation
from Plutarch. “But let us hear what our friend Hardman has to say
about the German language and the Germanic theory of education. It
is his turn.”

“I throw you in the German language,” answered Hardman, rather
tartly. “I don’t profess to admire  it or defend it. But nobody
can deny its utility for the things that are taught in it. You can
learn more science from half a dozen recent German books than from
a whole library of Latin and Greek. Besides,  you must admit that
the Germans are great classical scholars too.”

“Rather neat,” commented Dick; “you touched him there, Mr. Hardman.
Now, Uncle!”

“I do not admit,” said the professor firmly, “that the Germans are
great classical scholars. They are great students, that is all.
The difference is immense. Far be it from me to deny the value of
the patient and laborious researches of the Germans in the grammar
and syntax of the ancient languages and in archaeology. They are
painstaking  to a painful degree. They gather facts as bees gather
pollen, indefatigably. But when it comes to making honey they go
dry. They cannot interpret, they can only instruct. They do not
comprehend, they only classify. Name me one recent German book of
classical interpretation to compare in  sweetness and light with
Jowett’s ‘Dialogues of Plato’ or Butcher’s ‘Some Aspects of the
Greek Genius’ or Croiset’s ‘Histoire de la Litterature Grecque.’
You can’t do it,” he ended, with a note of triumph.

“Of course not,” replied Hardman sharply. “I never claimed to know
anything about classical literature or scholarship. My point at
the beginning--you have cleverly led the discussion away from it,
like one of your old sophists--the point I made was that Greek and
Latin are dead languages, and therefore practically worthless in
the modern world. Let us go back to that and discuss it fairly and
leave the Germans out.”

“But that, my dear fellow, is precisely what you cannot do. It
is partly because they have insisted on treating Latin and Greek
as dead that the Germans  have become what they are--spectacled
barbarians,  learned Huns, veneered Vandals. In older times it was
not so bad. They had some perception  of the everlasting current
of life in the classics.  When the Latin spirit touched them for a
while, they acquired a sense of form, they produced some literature
that was good--Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller. But it was a
brief illumination, and the darkness that followed it was deeper
than ever.  Who are their foremost writers to-day? The Hauptmanns
and the Sudermanns, gropers in obscurity, violent sentimentalists,
‘bigots to laxness,’ Dr.  Johnson would have called them. Their
world is a moral and artistic chaos agitated by spasms of hysteria.
Their work is a mass of decay touched with gleams of phosphorescence.
The Romans would have called it _immunditia_. What is your new
American word for that kind of thing, Richard?  I heard you use it
the other day.”

“Punk,” responded Dick promptly. “Sometimes, if it’s very sickening,
we call it pink punk.”

“All right,” interrupted Hardman impatiently.  “Say what you like
about Hauptmann and Sudermann.  They are no friends of mine. Be as
ferocious with them as you please. But you surely do not mean to
claim that the right kind of study and understanding of the classics
could have had any practical influence on the German character, or
any value in saving the German Empire from its horrible blunders.”

“Precisely that is what I do mean.”

“But how?”

“Through the mind, _animus_, the intelligent  directing spirit
which guides human conduct in all who have passed beyond the stage
of mere barbarism.”

“You exaggerate the part played by what you call the mind. Human
conduct is mainly a matter of heredity and environment. Most of it
is  determined by instinct, impulse, and habit.”

“Granted, for the sake of argument. But may there not be a mental
as well as a physical  inheritance, an environment of thought as
well  as of bodily circumstances?”

“Perhaps so. Yes, I suppose that is true to a certain extent.”

“A poor phrase, my dear Hardman; but let it pass. Will you admit
that there may be habits of thinking and feeling as well as habits
of doing and making things?”

“Certainly.”

“And do you recognize a difference between bad habits and good
habits?”

“Of course.”

“And you agree that this difference exists both in mental and
in physical affairs? For example, you would call the foreman of a
machine-shop who directed his work in accordance with the natural
laws of his material and of his steam or electric power a man of
good habits, would you not?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“And you would not deny him this name, but would rather emphasize
it, if in addition he had the habit of paying regard to the moral
and social laws which condition the welfare and efficiency of his
workmen; for example, self-control, cheerfulness,  honesty, fair
play, honor, human kindness, and so on. If he taught these things,
not only by word but by deed, you would call him an excellent
foreman, would you not?”

“Without a question. That machine-shop would be a great success,
a model.”

“But suppose your foreman had none of these good mental and moral
habits. Suppose he was proud, overbearing, dishonest, unfair, and
cruel.  Do you not believe he would have a bad influence upon his
men? Would not the shop, no matter what kind of work it turned out,
become a nest of evil and a menace to its neighbors?”

“It surely would.”

“What, then, would you do with the foreman?”

“I would try to teach him better. If that failed, I would discharge
him.”

“In what method and by what means would you endeavor to teach him?”

“By all the means that I could command. By precept and by example,
by warning him of his faults and by showing him better ways, by
wholesome books and good company.”

“And if he refused to learn; if he remained  obstinate; if he
mocked you and called you a  hypocrite; if he claimed that his way
was the best, in fact the only way, divinely inspired, and therefore
beyond all criticism, then you would throw him out?”

“Certainly, and quickly! I should regard him as morally insane,
and try my best to put him where he could do no more harm. But tell
me why this protracted imitation of Socrates? Where are you trying
to lead me? Do you want me to say that the German Kaiser is a very
bad foreman of his shop; that he has got it into a horrible mess
and made it despised and hated by all the other shops; that he ought
to be put out? If that is your point, I am with you in advance.”

“Right you are!” cried Dick joyously. “Can the Kaiser! We all agree
to that. And here the bout ends, with honors for both sides, and
a special prize for the Governor.”

The professor smiled, recognizing in the name more affection than
disrespect. He leaned forward in his chair, lighting a fresh cigar
with gusto.

“Not yet,” he said, “O too enthusiastic youth!  Our friend here has
not yet come to the point at which I was aiming. The application of
my remarks  to the Kaiser--whom I regard as a gifted paranoiac--is
altogether too personal and limited.  I was thinking of something
larger and more important.  Do you give me leave to develop the
idea?”

“Fire away, sir,” said Dick.

Hardman nodded his assent. “I should like very much  to hear in
what possible way you connect the misconduct  of Germany, which
I admit, with your idea of the present  value of classical study,
which I question.”

“In this way,” said the professor earnestly.  “Germany has been
living for fifty years with a closed mind. Oh, I grant you it was an
active mind, scientific, laborious, immensely patient. But it was
an ingrowing mind. Sure of its own superiority, it took no counsel
with antiquity and scorned the advice of its neighbors. It was
intent on producing  something entirely new and all its own--a purely
German _Kultur_, independent of the past, and  irresponsible
to any laws except those of Germany’s interests and needs. Hence
it fell into bad habits of thought and feeling, got into trouble,
and brought infinite trouble upon the world.”

“And do you claim,” interrupted Hardman, “that this would have been
prevented by reading the classics? Would that have been the only
and efficient cure for Germany’s disease? Rather a large claim,
that!”

“Much too large,” replied the professor. “I did not make it. In
the first place, it may be that Germany’s trouble had gone beyond
any cure but the knife. In the second place, I regard the  intelligent
reading of the Bible and the vital  apprehension of the real spirit
of Christianity  as the best of all cures for mental and moral ills.
All that I claim for the classics--the works of the  greatest of
the Greek and Roman writers--is that  they have in them a certain
remedial and sanitary  quality. They contain noble thoughts in noble
forms.  They show the strength of self-restraint. They breathe the
air of clearness and candor. They set forth ideals of character
and conduct which are elevating.  They also disclose the weakness
and the ugliness of things mean and base. They have the broad and
generous spirit of the true _literae humaniores._ They reveal
the springs of civilization and lead us--


   ‘To the glory that was Greece,
    To the grandeur that was Rome.’


Now these are precisely the remedies ‘indicated,’ as the physicians
say, for the cure, or at least the mitigation, of the specific bad
habits which finally caused the madness of Germany.”

“Please tell us, sir,” asked Dick gravely, “how you mean us to
take that. Do you really think it would have done any good to those
brutes who ravaged Belgium and outraged France to read Tacitus or
Virgil or the Greek tragedies? They couldn’t have done it, anyhow.”

“Probably not,” answered the professor, while Hardman sat staring
intently into the fire,  “probably not. But suppose the leaders
and guides of Germany (her masters, in effect, who moulded and
_kultured_ the people to serve their nefarious purpose of
dominating the world by violence), suppose these masters had really
known the meaning and felt the truth of the Greek tragedies, which
unveil reckless  arrogance--_Hybris_--as the fatal sin,
hateful to the gods and doomed to an inevitable Nemesis. Might not
this truth, filtering through the masters to the people, have led
them to the abatement of the ruinous pride which sent Germany out
to subjugate the other nations in 1914?  The egregious General von
der Goltz voiced the insane arrogance which made this war when he
said, ‘The nineteenth century saw a German Empire,  the twentieth
shall see a German world.’

“Or suppose the Teutonic teachers and pastors had read with
understanding and taken to heart the passages of Csesar in which he
curtly describes the violent and thievish qualities of the ancient
Germans--how they spread desolation around them to protect their
borders, and encouraged their young men in brigandage in order to
keep them in practice.  Might not these plain lessons have been
used as a warning to the people of modern Germany to discourage
their predatory propensities and their habits of devastation and to
hold them back from their relapse into the _Schrecklichkeit_
of savage  warfare? George Meredith says a good thing in ‘Diana
of the Crossways’: ‘Before you can civilize a man, you must first
de-barbarize him.’ That is the trouble with the Germans, especially
their leaders and masters.  They have never gotten rid of their
fundamental barbarism,  the idolatry of might above right.


    They have only put on a varnish of civilization.
    It cracks and peels off in the heat.


“Take one more illustration. Suppose these German thought-masters
and war-lords had really understood and assimilated the true greatness
of the conception of the old Roman Empire as it is shown, let us
say, by Virgil. You remember that splendid passage in the Sixth
Book of the AEneid where the Romans are called to remember that it
is their mission ‘to crown Peace with Law, to spare the humbled,
and to subdue and tame the proud.’ Might not sucn a noble doctrine
have detached the Germans a little from their blind devotion to
the Hohenzollern-Hollweg conception of the modern pinchbeck German
Empire--a predatory state, greedy to gain new territory but incapable
of ruling  it when gained, scornful of the rights of smaller peoples,
oppressing them when subjugated, as she has oppressed Poland and
Schleswig-Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine, a clumsy and exterminating
tyrant in her own colonies, as she has shown herself in East and
West Africa? I tell you that a vital perception of what the Roman
Empire really meant in its palmy days might have been good medicine
for Germany.  It might have taught her to make herself fit for
power before seeking to grasp it.”

“Granted, granted,” broke in Hardman, impatiently  poking the fire.
“You can’t say anything about Germany too severe to suit me. Whatever
she needed to keep her from committing the criminal  blunder of
this war, it is certain that she did not get it. The blunder was
made and the price must be paid. But what I say now, as I said at
the beginning, is that Latin and Greek are dead languages. For us,
for the future, for the competitions  of the modern industrial and
social era, the classics are no good. For a few ornamental persons
a knowledge of them may be a pleasing accomplishment.  But they are
luxuries, not necessaries. They belong to a bygone age. They have
nothing to tell us about the things we most need to know--chemistry
and physics, engineering and intensive agriculture,  the discovery
of new forms and applications of power, the organization of labor
and the distribution  of wealth, the development of mechanical skill
and the increase of production--these are the things that we must
study. I say they are the only things that will count for success
in the new democracy.”

“That is what _you_ say,” replied Professor De Vries dryly.
“But the wisest men of the world have said something very different.
No democracy ever has survived, or ever will survive, without
an aristocracy at the heart of it. Not an aristocracy of birth
and privilege, but one of worth and intelligence;  not a band of
hereditary lords, but a company of well-chosen leaders. Their value
will depend not so much upon their technical knowledge and skill
as upon the breadth of their mind, the clearness  of their thought,
the loftiness of their motives, the balance of their judgment, and
the strength of their devotion to duty. For the cultivation of these
things I say--pardon the apparent contradiction of what _you_
said--I say the study of the classics has been and still is of the
greatest value.”

“What did George Washington know about the classics?” Hardman
interrupted sharply. “He was one of your aristocrats of democracy,
I suppose?”

“He was,” answered the professor blandly, “and he knew more about
the classics than, I fear, you do, my dear Hardman. At all events,
he understood  what was meant when he was called ‘the Cincinnatus
of the West’--and he lived up to the ideal, otherwise we should
have had no  American Republic.

“But let us not drop to personalities. What I maintain is that
Latin and Greek are not dead languages, because they still convey
living thoughts.  The real success of a democracy--the production
of a finer manhood--depends less upon mechanics than upon morale.
For that the teachings of the classics are excellent. They have a
bracing and a steadying quality. They instil a sense of order and
they inspire a sense of admiration, both of which are needed by
the people--especially the plain people--of a sane democracy. The
classics are fresher, younger, more vital and encouraging than most
modern books. They have lessons for us to-day--believe me--great
words for the present crisis and the pressing duty of the hour.”

“Give us an example,” said Dick; “something classic to fit this
war.”

“I have one at hand,” responded the professor promptly. He went to
the book-shelves and pulled out a small brown volume with a slip
of paper in it. He opened the book at the marked place. “It is from
the Eighth Satire of Juvenal, beginning at line 79. I will read
the Latin first, and afterward a little version which I made the
other day.”

The old man rolled the lines out in his sonorous voice, almost
chanting:


   “‘Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem
    Integer; ambiguae si quando citabere testis
    Incertaeque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis
    Falsus et admoto dictet periuria tauro,
    _Summum crede nefas, animam praeferre pudori
    Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.’”_

“Please to translate, sir,” said Dick, copying exactly the professor’s
classroom phrase and manner.

“To gratify my nephew,” said the professor, nodding and winking at
Hardman. “But, understand,  this is not a real translation. It is
only a paraphrase. Here it is:


   “Be a good soldier, and a guardian just;
    Likewise an upright judge. Let no one thrust
    You in a dubious cause to testify,
    Through fear of tyrant’s vengeance, to a lie.
    Count it a baseness if your soul prefer
    Safety above what Honor asks of her:
    And hold it manly life itself to give,
    Rather than lose the things for which we live.


It is not half as good as the Latin. But it gives the meaning. How
do you like it, Richard?”

“Fine!” answered the young man quickly; “especially the last lines.
They are great.” He hesitated slightly, and then went on. “Perhaps
I ought to tell you now, sir, that I have signed up and got my
papers for the training-school at Madison Barracks. I hope you will
not be angry with me.”

The old man put both hands on the lad’s shoulders  and looked at
him with a suspicious moisture in his eyes. He swallowed hard a
couple of times.  You could see the big Adam’s apple moving up and
down in his wrinkled throat.

“Angry!” he cried. “Why, boy, I love you for it.”

Hardman, who was a thoroughly good fellow at heart, held out his
hand.

“Good for you, Dick! But I must be going now.  I am putting up at
the Ivy. Will you walk up with me? I’d like to have a word with
you.”

The two men walked in silence along the shady, moon-flecked streets
of the tranquil old university town. Then the elder one spoke.

“You have done the right thing, I am sure. That officers’
training-school is a good place to get a  practical education. When
you are through, how would you like to have a post in the Ordnance
Department at  Washington? I have some influence there and believe
I could get you in without difficulty.”

“Thanks, a lot,” answered the lad modestly.  “You’re awfully kind.
But, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think I’d rather have service
at the front--that is, if I can qualify for it.”

There was another long silence before Hardman spoke again, with an
apparent change of subject:

“I wish you would tell me what you really think of your uncle’s
views on the classics, you and the other fellows of your age in
the university.”

Dick hesitated a moment before he replied:

“Well, personally, you know, I believe what Uncle says is usually
about right. He has the habit of it. But I allow when he gets
on his hobby he rides rather hard. Most of the other fellows have
given up the classics--they like the modern-language course with
sciences better--perhaps it’s softer.  They say not; but I know
the classics are hard enough. I flunked out on my Greek exam junior
year. So, you see, I’m not a very good judge. But, anyhow, wasn’t
the bit he read us from Juvenal simply fine? And didn’t he read
it well? I’ve felt that a hundred times, but never knew how to say
it.”



It was in the early fall of 1918, more than a year later, that
Hardman came once more into the familiar library at Calvinton. He
had read the casualty list of the last week of August and came to
condole with his friend De Vries.

The old man sat in the twilight of the tranquil book-lined room,
leaning back in his armchair, with an open letter on the table
before him. He gave his hand cordially to Hardman and thanked him
for his sympathetic words. He talked quietly and naturally about
Dick, and confessed how much he should miss the boy--as it were,
his only son.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I am going to be lonely, but I am not
forsaken. I shall be sad sometimes, but never sorry--always proud
of my boy. Would you  like to see this letter? It is the last that
he wrote.”

It was a young, simple letter, full of cheerful joking and personal
details and words of affection which the shy lad would never have
spoken face to face. At the end he wrote:

“Well, dear Governor, this is a rough life, and some parts are
not easy to bear. But I want you to know that I was never happier
in all my days.  I know that we are fighting for a good cause,
justice,  and freedom, and a world made clean from this beastly
German militarism. The things that the Germans have done to France
and Belgium must be stopped, and they must never be done again.
We want a decent world to live in, and we are going to have it, no
matter what it costs. Of course I should like to live through it
all, if I can do it with honor. But a man never can tell what is
going to happen. And I certainly would rather give up my life than
the things we are fighting for--the things you taught me to believe
are according to the will of God. So good-night for the present,
Uncle, and sleep well.

“Your loving nephew and son,

“DICK.”

Hardman’s hand shook a little as he laid the paper on the table.

“It is a beautiful letter,” he said.

“Yes,” nodded the old professor, putting his hand upon it; “it is
a classic; very clear and simple and high-minded. The German Crown
Prince says our American soldiers do not know what they are fighting
for. But Richard knew. It was to defend ‘the things for which we
live’ that he gladly gave his life.”

September, 1918.



HALF-TOLD TALES



THE NEW ERA AND CARRY ON


The Commandant of the Marine Hospital was at his desk, working
hard, when the door of the room was flung open and the Officer of
the Day rushed in.

“Sir,” he exploded, “the New Era has come.”

“Very likely, Mr. Corker,” answered the Commandant.  “It has been
coming continually since the world began. But is that any reason
why you should enter without knocking, and with your coat covered
with bread-crumbs and cigarette-ashes?”

So the Officer of the Day went outside, brushed his coat, knocked
at the door, and awaited orders.

“Mr. Corker,” said the Commandant, “have the kindness to bring me
your report on the condition  of yesterday’s cases, and let me know
what operations are indicated for to-day. Good morning.  Orderly,
my compliments to the Executive Officer, and I wish to see him at
once.”

When the Executive Officer arrived, he began:

“Sir, the New Era--”

“Quite so, Mr. Greel, but you understand this Hospital has to
carry on as required in any kind of an era. How many patients did
we receive yesterday?  Good. Have we enough bedding and provisions?
Bad. Attend to it immediately, and let me know the result of your
efforts to remedy a situation which should never have arisen. The
Navy cannot be run on hot air.”

As the Executive Officer went out he held the door open for the Head
Nurse to pass in. She was a fine, upstanding creature, tremulous
with emotion.

“Oh, Doctor,” she cried, “I simply must tell you about the New Era.
Woman Suffrage is going to save the world.”

“I hope so, Miss Dooby, it certainly needs saving.  Meantime how
are things in the pneumonia ward?”

“Two deaths last night, sir, three new cases this morning. Oxygen
is running short: no beef-tea or milk. Five of my nurses have gone
to attend conventions of woman--”

“Slackers,” interrupted the Commandant. “Put them on report for
leaving the ship without permission.  I shall attend to their cases.
Fill their places from the volunteer list. Be so good as to send
the head steward here immediately.”

“I’m very sorry, Sir,” said the steward, “but ye see it’s just
this way. The mess-boys was holdin’  a New Era mass-meetin’, and
the cook he forgot--”

“Milk and beef-tea!” growled the Commandant as if they were
swear-words. “What the devil is this new influenza that has struck
the hospital?  Steward, you will provide what the head nurse requires
at once. Orderly, my cap, and call Mr.  Greel to accompany me on
inspection.”

In the galley the fires were out, the ovens cold, the soup-kettles
empty, and all the cooks,  dish-washers, and scrubbers were absorbing
the eloquence of the third assistant pie-maker, who stood on an
empty biscuit-box and explained the glories of the one-hour day in
the New Era.

‘“Ten_shun!_” yelled the Orderly, and the force of habit
brought the men up, stiff and silent. The Commandant looked around
the circle, grinning.

“My word!” he cried, “what a beautiful sight!  What do you think
this is--a blooming debating society? Wrong! It’s a hospital, with
near a thousand sick and wounded to take care of. And it’s going
to be done, see? And you’re going to help do it, see? No work--no
pay and no food!  Neglect of orders means extra duty and no
liberty--perhaps a couple of twenty-four-hour days in the brig. That’s the
rule in all eras, see? Now get busy, all of you. Chow at twelve as
usual. Carry on, men.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” they answered cheerily, for they were weary of
the third assistant pie-maker’s brand of talk and felt the pangs
of healthy hunger.

Then came the second engineer, out of breath with running, followed
by two or three helpers.

“Fire, captain,” he gasped, “fire in the fuel-room--awful
blaze--started in the wood box--cigarette--we were just settin’
round talkin’ over what we were goin’ to do in the New Era, an’
the first thing we knew it was burnin’ like--”

“The New Era,” snapped the Commandant, “and be damned to it! Sound
the fire-call. All hands to quarters. Lead along the hose. Follow
me,” he cried, hurrying forward through the gathering  smoke, “this
ship must be saved.”

And so it was--strictly in conformity with the old laws that fire
burns, water quenches, and every man must do his duty promptly. On
these ancient principles, and others equally venerable, the hospital
carried on its good work. But the Commandant made one  new rule.
It cost five dollars to mention the New Era within its walls.



THE PRIMITIVE AND HIS SANDALS


“I am sick of all this,” said the Great Author, sweeping his hand
over the silver-laden dinner-table.  He seemed to include in his
gesture the whole house and the broad estate surrounding it. “It
bores me, and I don’t believe it can be right.”

His wife, at the other end of the table, shining in her low-necked
dress with diamonds on her breast and in her hair, leaned forward
anxiously, knowing her husband’s temperament.

“But, Nicholas,” she said, “what do you mean?  You have earned all
this by your work as a writer.  You are the greatest man in the
country. You are entitled to a fine house and a large estate.”

He gravely nodded his big head with its flamboyant  locks, and lit
a fresh cigarette.

“Quite right, my dear,” said he, “you are always right on practical
affairs. But, you see, this is an artistic affair. My books are
realistic and radical.  They teach the doctrine of the universal
level, that no man can be above other men. They have made poverty,
perhaps not exactly popular, but at least romantic. My villains
are always rich and my heroes poor. The people like this; but it is
rather a strain to believe it and keep on believing it. If my work
is to hold the public it must have illustrations--moving pictures,
you know! Something in character! Nobody else can do that as well
as I can. It will be better than many advertisements.  I am going
to become a virtuous peasant, a son of the soil, a primitive.”

His wife laughed, with a slight nervous tremor in her voice. She
knew her husband’s temperament, to be sure, but she never knew just
how far it would carry him.

“I think you must be a little crazy, Nicholas,” she said.

“Thank you, Alexandra,” he answered, “thank you for the temperate
flattery. Evidently you have heard the old proverb about genius
and madness.  But why not make the compliment complete and say
‘absolutely crazy’?”

“Well,” she replied, “because I do not understand  just what you
propose to do. Are you going to impoverish yourself and the whole
family? Are you thinking of turning over your farms to these stupid
peasants who will let them go to rack and ruin? Will you give your
property to the village council who will drink it up in a month?
You know how much money Peter needs; he is a member of twelve
first-class clubs. And Olga’s husband is not earning much. Are you
going to starve your children and grandchildren for the sake of an
idea of consistency in art?”

The Great Author was now standing in front of the fireplace, warming
himself and filling a pipe.  The flames behind him made an aureole
in his  extravagant white hair and beard. He smiled and puffed
slowly at his pipe. At last he answered.

“My dear, you go too fast and too far. You know I am enthusiastic,
but have you ever known me to be silly? It would be wrong to make
you and the children suffer. I have no right to do that.”

[Illustration: I am going to become a virtuous peasant, a son of
the soil, a primitive]

She nodded her head emphatically, and a look of comprehension spread
over her face.  “Suppose,” he continued, “suppose that I should
make over the real estate and farms to you--you are an excellent
manager. And suppose that I should put the personal estate, including
copyrights, into a trust, the income to be paid to you and the
children. You would take care of me while I became a primitive,
wouldn’t you?”

“I would,” she answered, “you know I would.  But think how
uncomfortable it will be for you.  While we are living in luxury,
you--”

“Don’t worry about that,” he interrupted with a laugh. “I shall
have all the luxury I want: flannel shirts, loose around the neck,
instead of these infernal  stiff collars; velveteen trousers and
jacket instead of this waiter’s uniform; and I shall go barefoot
when the weather is suitable--do you understand? Barefoot  in the
summer grass--it will be immense.”

“But your food,” she asked, “how will you manage that on a primitive
basis?”

“You will manage it,” he replied, “you know I have always preferred
beefsteak and onions to any French dish. Champagne does not agree
with me.  I’d rather have a glass of the straight stuff,  without
any gas in it.”

“But your sleeping arrangements,” she murmured,  “are you going to
leave the house? Our bedroom is not exactly primitive.”

“No fear of it,” he answered. “There is a little room beyond your
bathroom. Put an iron cot in there, with a soft mattress, linen
sheets, and light blankets. I’ll do my morning wash at the pump in
the yard, for the sake of the picture. When I want a bath you’ll
leave the door of the room open if you are not actually in the
tub.”

“Nicholas,” she said, with a Mona Lisa smile, “for an author you
have a very clever way of putting  things. But suppose we have
guests at the house, you can’t come to dinner in dirty clothes and
with bare feet.”

“Certainly not,” he answered. “I shall put on clean flannels, clean
velveteens, and sandals.”

“Sandals,” she murmured, “sandals for dinner are simply wonderful.
Do you think I could--”

“Not at all, my dear,” said the Great Author firmly. “Your present
style of dress becomes you amazingly. I am the only one who has to
do  the primitive.”

So the arrangements were completed. The interviewers  who came
to the house described the Great Author in his loose flannels and
velveteens, with bare feet, returning from labor in the fields.
The moving pictures were full of him. But the sandals did not
appear. There were no flash-lights permitted at the part-primitive
dinner-table.



DIANA AND THE LIONS


In the darkest hour before the dawn, Diana floated away from her
Garden Tower and came down between the  Lions on the Library Steps.

At first, she did not know they were Lions. She thought they were
Cats, and so she was afraid. For she was very lightly clad; and
(except in Egypt) Cats are terrible to undomesticated goddesses.
Diana shivered as she strung her bow for defense.  She felt that
she was divine, but she knew that she had cold feet.

In truth, the Library Steps were wet and glistening,  for there had
been a shower after midnight.  But now the gibbous moon was giving
a silent imitation  of an arc-light high in the western heaven.
Her beams silver-plated the weird architecture of the shrines of
Commerce which face the great Temple dedicated to the Three Muses
of New York--Astor, Lenox, and Tilden.

But on the awful animals guarding the steps the light was florid,
like a flush of sunburn discovered by the ablution of a warranted
complexion cream.  They were wonderfully pink, and Diana hastened
to draw an arrow from her quiver, for it seemed to her as if her
feline neighbors were beginning to glow with rage.

“Do not shoot,” said the ruddier one; “we are not angry, we are
only blushing.” And he glanced at her costume.

Diana was astonished to hear a masculine voice utter such a modest
sentiment. But being a woman, she knew that the first word does
not count.

“Cats never blush,” she answered boldly, “no matter how big they
are.”

“But we are not Cats,” they cried, ramping suddenly  like crests
on a millionaire’s note-paper. “We are Lions!”

Diana smiled at this, for now she felt safe,  remembering that when
a male begins to boast he is not dangerous.

“Roar a little for me, please,” she said, laying down her unconcealed
weapon.

“Impossible,” said the Northern Lion, “a city ordinance forbids
unnecessary noise.”

“Nonsense!” interrupted the Southern Lion.  “Who would not break
a law to oblige a lady?”

“Let us compromise,” said the Northern Lion, “and  give her our
reproduction of an automobile horn.”

“No,” said the Southern Lion, “we will give her our automatic record
of a Book-Advertisement; it is louder.”

Then Diana trembled, indeed. But she bravely continued smiling,
and said: “Thank you a thousand  times for doing it once! And now
please tell me what kind of Lions you are.”

“Literary Lions,” was their prompt and  unanimous reply.

“Ah,” she cried, clapping her hands with a charming gesture, “how
glad I am to meet you! I have been in New York more than twenty
years and never seen any one like you before! Come and sit beside
me and talk.”

The Lions looked at each other rather sheepishly, and glanced up
and down the street, as if fearing the approach of a city ordinance.
But there was no one in sight except Diana, so they shook their
literary locks into a becoming disorder and sat on the steps with
her, purring gently.

“Now tell me,” she said, “who you are.”

If she had been less beautiful they would have resented this. But,
as it was, they looked sorry, and asked her if she had never read
“Who’s Who in America”? She shook her head, and admitted that she
had not read it all through.

“Well,” said her neighbor on the south, “this is rather an offhand
_soiree,_ and we may as well cut out proper names. But I will
put you wise to the fact that I am the Magazine Lion. I got away
from Roosevelt in Africa. He called me ‘Mucky,’ and I made tracks.
Here he cannot hurt me, for they will never let that man do anything
in good old New York, not even touch a Tiger.”

“And I,” said her neighbor on the north, “I am the Academic Lion, of
whom you must have heard.  My character is noted for its concealed
sweetness, and my style leaves nothing to be hoped for. I am
literally a man of letters, for I have seventeen degrees. Usually
I look literary-lean and nobly dissatisfied, but yesterday I
swallowed a British Female Novelist by accident, and that accounts
for my inartistic air of cheerfulness. I won my splendid reputation
by telling other Lions how they ought to have done their little
tricks. But now, tired of that, I have gone into politics. This is
my first public office.”

Diana was somewhat confused and benumbed by these personally conducted
biographies, but she was too well-bred not to appear interested.

“How lovely,” she murmured, “to sit between two such Great
Personages! I wonder what brought poor little Me to such an honor.
And, by the way, how do you happen to be just here? What is this
beautiful building behind you? Is it your Palace?”

“It is a Library,” said the Academic Lion, with a superior tone.

“The biggest book-heap in America,” said the Magazine Lion in his
vivid way. “We have them all beaten to a finish--except the old
junk-shop down in Washington.”

“You forget Boston,” said the Academic Lion.

“Who wouldn’t?” growled the Magazine Lion.

“Do you mean to tell me,” asked Diana, with her most engaging and
sprightly air, “that this splendid place is a Library, all full of
books, and that you are its most prominent figures, its figureheads,
so to speak? How interesting! I have travelled a great deal--under
the name of Pasht or Bast, in Egypt, where the Cats liked me;
and under the name of Artemis in Greece; and under my own name
in Italy. Believe me, I have seen all things that the moon shines
upon. But I do not remember having seen Lions on a Library before.
How original!  How appropriate! How suggestive! But what does it
suggest? What are you here for?”

“For educational purposes,” said the Academic Lion.

“To catch the eye,” said the Magazine Lion, “same as head-lines in
a newspaper.”

“I see,” exclaimed Diana. “You are here to keep the  people from
getting at the books? How modern!”

This remark made the Academic Lion look like a Sphinx, as if he
knew something but did not want to tell. But the Magazine Lion was
distinctly flattered.

“Right you are,” said he cheerfully, “or next door to it. We don’t
propose to keep the people out, only the authors. Why, when this
place was publicly opened there was not a single author in the
exhibit, except John Bigelow.”

“Why did you not keep him out?” asked Diana.

“We were not on the spot, then,” said the Lion.  “Besides, there
are some things that even a Lion does not dare to do.”

“But I do not understand,” said Diana, “precisely  why authors
should be kept away from a library.”

The Magazine Lion laughed. “Silly little thing!” he said, with a
fascinating tone of virile condescension. “An author’s business is
to write books, not to read them. If he reads, he grows  intelligent
and thoughtful and careful about his work.  Those old books spoil
him for the modern market.  But if he just goes ahead and writes
whatever comes into his head, he can do it with a bang, and everybody
sits up and pays attention. That’s the only way to be original.
See?”

“Excuse me,” broke in the Academic Lion, “but you go too far,
brother. Authors should be  encouraged to read, but only under
critical guidance and professorial direction. Otherwise they will
not be able to classify the books, and tabulate their writers, and
know which ones to admire and praise.  How can you expect a mere
author to comprehend the faulty method of Shakespeare, or the ethical
commonplaceness of Dickens and Thackeray, or the vital Ibsenism of
Bernard Shaw and the other near-Ibsens, without assistance?”

“But the other people,” asked Diana, “what is going to happen to
them if you let them go in free and browse among the books?”

“They are less important,” answered the Academic  Lion. “Besides we
expect soon to establish a cranial, neurological, and psychopathic
examination  which will determine the subliminal, temperamental
needs of every applicant. Then we classify the readers in groups,
and the books in lists, and the whole thing works with automatic
precision.”

“And I am going to make the book-lists!” said the Magazine Lion,
ecstatically wagging his tail, and half-unconsciously putting his
paw around the lady’s waist in a spirit of pure comradeship.

But she gently slipped away, stood up, and gracefully  covered a
yawn with her hand.

“I am ever so much obliged to you Literary Lions for not eating
me,” said she. “Probably I should have disagreed with you even
more than your  conversation has with me. I am quite sleepy. And
the moon has almost disappeared. I must be going where I can bid
it good night.”

So Diana rose, with shining limbs, above the housetops, and
vanished toward her Garden Tower.  The Lions looked disconcerted.
“Old-fashioned, Victorian prude!” said one, “Brazen hussy!” said
the other. And they climbed back on their Pedestals, resuming their
supercilious expression.  There I suppose they will stay, no matter
what Diana may think of them.



THE HERO AND TIN SOLDIERS


On December twenty-fifth, 1918, that little white house in the park
was certainly the happiest dwelling  in Calvinton. It was simply
running over with Christmas.

You see, there had come to it a most wonderful present, a surprise
full of tears and laughter. Captain  Walter Mayne reached home on
Christmas Eve.

For a while they had thought that he would never come back at all.
News had been received that he was grievously wounded in France--shot
to pieces, in effect, leading his men near Chateau-Thierry. His
life hung on the ragged edge of those wounds. But his wife Katharine
always believed that he would pull through. So he did. But he was
lacking a leg, his right arm was knocked out of commission for the
present, and various other _souvenirs de la grande guerre_
were inscribed upon his body.

Then word arrived that he was coming on a transport, with other
wounded, to be patched up in a hospital on Staten Island. So his
wife Katharine smiled her way through innumerable entanglements
of red tape and went to nurse him. Then she set her steady hand to
pull all the wires necessary to get him discharged and sent home.
Christmas was in her heart and she would not be denied. So it came
to pass that the one-legged Hero was in his own house on the happy
day, and joy was  bubbling all around him.

When the old Pastor entered, late in the afternoon,  the Christmas-tree
was twinkling with lights, the children swarming and buzzing all over
the place, so that he was dazed for a moment. There were Walter’s
mother and his aunt and his sisters-in-law, boys and girls of various
sizes, and a jubilant and entrancing baby. The Pastor took it all
in, and was glad of it, but his mind was on the Hero.

Katharine, who always understood everything, whispered softly:
“Walter is waiting to see you, Doctor. He is in his study, just
across the hall.”

_Waiting?_ Well, what can a man whose right leg has been cut
off above the knee, and who has not yet been able to get an artificial
one--what can he do but wait?

The room was rather dimly lighted; brilliance is not good for the
eyes of the wounded. Walter was in a long chair in the corner; his
face was bronzed, drawn and lined a little by suffering; but steady
and cheerful as ever, with the eager look which had made his students
listen to him when he talked to them about English literature.

“My dear Walter,” said the Pastor, “my dear boy, we are so glad
to have you home with us again.  We are very proud of you. You are
our Hero.”

“Thank you,” said Walter, “it is mighty good to be home again. But
there is no hero business about it. I only did what all the other
Americans who went over there did--fought my--excuse me, my best,
against the beastly Germans.”

“But your leg,” said the Pastor impulsively, “it is gone. Aren’t
you angry about that?”

Walter was silent for a moment. Then he answered.

“No, I don’t think angry is the right word. You remember that story
about Nathan Hale in the Revolution--‘I only regret that I have
but one life to give to my country.’ Well, I’m glad that I had two
legs to give for my country, and  particularly glad that she only
needed one of them.”

“Tell me a bit about the fighting,” said the Pastor,  “I want to
know what it was like--the hero-touch--you understand?”

“Not for me,” said Walter, “and certainly not now. Later on I can
tell you something, perhaps.  But this is Christmas Day. And war?
Well, Doctor, believe me, war is a horrible thing, full of grime and
pain, madness, agony, hell--a thing that ought not to be. I have
fought alongside of the other fellows to put an end to it, and
now--”

The door swung open, and Sammy, the eldest son of the house, pranced
in.

“Look, Daddy,” he cried, “see what Aunt Emily has  sent me for
Christmas--a big box of tin soldiers!”

Mayne smiled as the little boy carefully laid the box on his knee;
but there was a shadow of pain in his eyes, and he closed them
for a few seconds, as if his mind were going back, somewhere, far
away. Then he spoke, tenderly, but with a grave voice.

“That’s fine, sonny--all those tin soldiers. But don’t you think
they ought to belong to me? You have lots of other toys, you know.
Would you give the soldiers to me?”

The child looked up at him, puzzled for a moment; then a flash of
comprehension passed over his face, and he nodded valiantly.

“Sure, Father,” he said, “You’re the Captain.  Keep the soldiers.
I’ll play with the other toys,” and he skipped out of the room.

Mayne’s look followed him with love. Then he turned to the old
Pastor and a strange expression came into his face, half whimsical
and half grim.

“Doctor,” he said, “will you do me a favor?  Poke up that fire till
it blazes. That’s right. Now lay this box in the hottest part of
the flames. That’s right. It will soon be gone.”

The elder man did what was asked, with an air of slight bewilderment,
as one humors the fancies of an invalid. He wondered whether Mayne’s
fever had quite left him. He watched the fire bulging the lid and
catching round the edges of the box.  Then he heard Mayne’s voice
behind him, speaking very quietly.

“If ever I find my little boy _playing with tin soldiers,_ I
shall spank him well. No, that wouldn’t be quite fair, would it?
But I shall tell him why he must not do it, and _I shall make
him understand that it’s an impossible thing.”_

Then the old Pastor comprehended. There was no touch of fever. The
one-legged Hero had come home from the wars completely well and
sound in mind. So the two men sat together in love by the Christmas
fire, and saw the tin soldiers melt away.



SALVAGE POINT


The Hermanns built their house at the very end of the island, five
or six miles from the more or less violently rustic “summer-cottages”
 which adorned the hills and bluffs around the native village of
Winterport.

There was a long point running out to the southward  at the mouth
of the great bay, rough and rocky for the most part, with little
woods of pointed firs on it, some acres of pasture, and a few
pockets of fertile soil lying between the stony ridges. A yellow
farmhouse, with a red barn beside it, had nestled for near a hundred
years in one of these hollows, buying shelter from the winter winds
at the cost of an outlook over sea and shore.

It was a large price to pay. The view from the summit of the little
hill a few hundred yards away was superb--a wonder even on that
wonderful coast of Maine where mountain and sea meet together,
forest and flood kiss each other.

But I suppose the old Yankee farmer knew what he wanted when he
paid the price and snuggled his house in the hollow. I am certain
the Hermanns knew what they wanted when they bought the whole
point and perched their house on the very top of the hill, where
all the winds of heaven might visit it as roughly as they pleased,
but where nothing could rob the outlook of its ever-changing splendor
and mystery, its fluent wonder and abiding charm.

You see, the Hermanns knew what they wanted because they had come
through a lot of trouble. I met them when they were young--no matter
how many years ago--when they were in the thick of it.

Alice Mackaye and Will Hermann had the rare luck to fall in love--a
very real and great love--when they were in their early twenties.
You would think that extraordinary piece of good fortune would have
been enough to set them up for life, wouldn’t you? But no. There
was an Obstacle. And  that Obstacle came very near wrecking them
both.

Will Hermann was an artist and the son of an artist. The love of
beauty ran in his blood. Otherwise he was poor. He earned a decent
living by his painting, but each year’s living depended on each
year’s work. Hence he was in the proletarian class.

Alice Mackaye, on the other hand, belonged to the capitalist class.
I say “belonged,” because that is precisely the word to describe her
situation.  Her father was a millionaire sugar-merchant, who lived
in an ugly palace near Morristown, New Jersey,  and was accustomed
to have his own way in that and other States. He was the Obstacle.

He was a florid, handsome old Scotchman, orthodox in  religion,
shrewd in business, correct in conduct, but with no more sentiment
than a hard-shell crab, and obstinate as the devil. His fixed
idea was that none of his daughters should ever be carried off by
a fortune-hunter. The two older girls apparently escaped this danger
by making fairly wealthy matches. But Alice--come away!  why should
she take up with this impecunious painter? He was good-looking and
had the gift of the gab, but what was that worth? If he would come
into the sugar-business, where a place was waiting for him, and
make good there, it would be all right. Otherwise, the affair must
be broken off, absolutely, finally, and forever. From this you can
see that the Obstacle was not bad-hearted, but only pig-headed.

Well, for five or six years things drifted rather miserably along
this way. Will Hermann was forbidden  the house at Morristown. Alice
was practically a  captive; her correspondence was censored.  But
of course, even before Marconi, wireless  communication in matters
of this kind has always  been possible.

The trouble was that the state of affairs between them, while
conventionally correct, was thoroughly unnatural and full of peril.
Alice, a very good girl, obedient and tractable, was in danger of
becoming a recalcitrant and sour old maid. Will, a healthy and
normal young man, with no bad habits, was in danger of being driven
to them by the  emptiness and exasperation of his mind. The worst
of it all was that both of the young people were, in accordance
with a well-known law of nature, growing  older with what seemed
to them a frightful and unreasonable rapidity. The years crawled
like snails. But the sum of them rose by leaps and bounds to an
appalling total. Alice found two grey hairs in her red-gold locks.
Will had to use glasses for reading fine print at night. From
their point of view, decrepitude, senility, dotage stared them in
the face, while the bright voyage of life which they were resolved
to make only together, was threatened  with shipwreck among the
shoals of interminable delay.

It was at this juncture of affairs that they came to me, as fine-looking
a young couple as ever I saw.  They were good, as mortals go; they
were loyal and upright, they wanted no scandal, no rumpus in the
family, no trouble or pain for anybody else; but they wanted to
belong to each other much more than they wanted to belong to any
class, artistic, proletarian, or capitalist. And they were desperate
because of the pertinacity of the Obstacle, whom they both respected
fully as much as he deserved.

When they had stated their case, I made my answer.

“So far as I can see, the salvage of your ship of love depends
entirely on yourselves. Mr. Hermann  is not after a fortune, he
only wants his girl; is that so? [Hermann nodded vigorously.] And
Miss Mackaye does not care about being supported in the manner of
living to which she has been  accustomed; she only wants to live
with the man whom she has chosen; is that so? [Alice blushed and
nodded.] Well, then, why shouldn’t you lay your course and sail
ahead together? You are both of age, aren’t you?”

They smiled at each other. “Yes, and a little over.”

“But my father!” said Alice. “You know I honor him,  and I can
never deny his authority over me.”

Here was the turn of the talk, the critical moment,  the point where
the chosen counsellor had to fall back upon the ultimate reality
of his faith.

“Well,” I said, “you are absolutely correct, dear daughter, in
your feeling toward your father. He has earned his money and has
a right to dispose of it as he will. But, you know, there is a
statute of limitations in regard to the authority of parents over
the _lives_ of their children. You have passed the limitation.
What do you want to do?”

“To be married to Will Hermann,” she said, “for better for worse,
for richer for poorer, I don’t care.  But I don’t want a family
quarrel, a runaway match, all that horrid newspaper talk.” Here
she was evidently a little excited and on the verge of tears.

“Certainly not,” I hastened to reassure her, “you can’t possibly
have a runaway match, because there is nothing for you to run away
from.  There is not a single duty in your father’s house which you
have not fulfilled, and of which your sisters can not now relieve
you. There is no  authority in the world which has the right to
command the sacrifice of your life to another’s judgment.  There
is only one thing that stands in your way, and that is your claim
on a large inheritance. I understand you are quite willing to let
that go.  You are not even ‘running away’ from it--that is not the
word--you are ready to _jettison_ it.”

She looked puzzled, and murmured; “I don’t exactly understand what
that means.”

“To jettison,” I said, in that learned and dispassionate manner
which is sometimes useful in relieving an emotional situation,
“is a seafaring phrase. It means throwing overboard a part or the
whole of a cargo in order to save the ship. As far as I can see
that is the question which is up to you and your best friend at
the present moment. Are you prepared to jettison the claim on a
big fortune for the sake of making your voyage of life together?”

They looked at each other and a kind of radiance  spread over their
faces. “Surely,” they answered  with one voice. “But how can the
marriage be arranged,” asked Alice, “without a row in the family?”

“Very easily,” I answered. “Both of you are over age, though you
don’t look it. Our good lawyer friend Harrison will help you to
get the license.  Fix your day for the wedding, neither secret nor
notorious; invite anybody you like, and come to me on the day you
have chosen. The arrangements will be made. You shall be married,
all right.”

So they came, and I married them, and it was a very good job.

They had some years of difficulty and uncertainty  during which
I caught brief glimpses of them now and then, always cheerful and
happy together.  In the course of time the Obstacle, being not at
all bad-hearted but only pig-headed, probably relented a little, and
finally was gathered to his fathers,  according to the common lot
of man. The older sisters  behaved very well about the inheritance,
and Alice was not left portionless. She brought three fine boys
into the world. The house on Salvage Point was built by her and
Will together.

It was there that I spent a day with them, in the summer of 1918,
after many years during which we had not met. I was on naval duty,
with Commander  Kidd, of a certain station on the Maine coast. By
invitation we put in with the motorboat  S.P. 297, at Salvage Point.
So it was that I met my old friends again, and knew what had become
of their barque of love which I had helped to save from shipwreck.

The house on the peak of the hill was just what it ought to be;
not aggressively rustic, not  obtrusively classic--white pillars
in front of  it, and a terrace, but nothing dominating--it had the
air of a very large and habitable lighthouse.

The extraordinary thing was the arrangement of the grounds. At
every point one came upon some reminder of salvage. On the glorious
August day when I was there, shipwreck seemed impossible: the
Southern Way which opened to the Ocean was dancing with gay waves;
the blue mountains of Maine were tranquil on the horizon.

“But you see,” said Will Hermann, “this is really rather a dangerous
point, though it is so beautiful. It is the gateway of the open sea,
and there are three big ledges across it. A ship that has lost her
bearings a little, or is driving in through thick weather, easily
comes to grief. But there is not often a loss of life, only the
ship goes to pieces.  And we save the pieces.”

It was true. There was a terrace west of the house, with a balustrade
made of the taffrail of a wrecked brigantine. The gateway to the
garden was the door of an old wheel-house. There was a pergola
constructed from the timbers of a four-masted schooner that had
broken up on the third ledge. The bow of the sloop _Christabel,_
with the name still painted on it, was just outside the garden-gate.
Everywhere you saw old anchor-bits, and rudder-posts, and knees,
all silver-greyed by the weather, and fitted in to the _decor_
of the place.

The prettiest thing of all was a crow’s-nest from a wrecked
brigantine, perched on the highest point of the hill, and looking
out over the marvellous panorama of sea and shore, island and
mountain.  Here we sat, after a hearty luncheon with Alice and her
three boys and half-a-dozen others who were with them in a kind
of summer camp-school; and while we smoked our pipes, Will Hermann
told this story.

“You see, Alice and I have a mania for things that have been
salvaged. We don’t like the idea of the wrecks, of course. But they
would happen any way, whether we were here or not. And since that
is so, we like to live here on the point and help save what we
can. Sometimes we get a chance to do something for the crews of
the little ships that come ashore--hot supper and dry clothes and
so forth. But the most interesting salvage case that we ever had
on the point was one in which there was really no wreck at all.

“It was a bright September afternoon ten years ago--one of those
silver-blue days when there is a little quivering haze in the air
everywhere, but no fog. We were sitting up here and looking out to
sea. Just beyond the end of Dunker Rock a large motor-boat came in
sight through the haze. She was about sixty feet long, with a low
cabin forward,  a cockpit aft, and a raised place for the steersman
amidship--a good-looking craft, and evidently very speedy. She
carried no flag or pennant.  She came driving on, full tilt, straight
toward us.  We supposed of course she would turn east through the
narrow channel to Winterport, or sheer off to the west into the
Southern Way and go up the bay. But not a point did she swerve.
Steady on she came, toward the three big ledges that lie out there
beyond that bit of shingly beach at the end of the point.

“‘I can’t see any helmsman,’ said Alice, ‘those people must be
asleep or crazy. Give them a hail through the megaphone. Perhaps
you can make them hear.’

“So I yelled at the top of my lungs, and Alice waved her jersey.
We might as well have hailed a comet. That boat ran straight for
the ledges as if she meant to hurdle them. She came near doing it,
too. Over the first she scraped, as if her heel had hit it. Over
the second she shivered, hanging there for a second till a wave
lifted her. On the third she bumped hard and checked her way for
a moment, but the engine kept going, and finally she got herself
over somehow and ran head on to the beach.

“Of course we were excited, and everybody hurried down to see what
this crazy performance meant.  There was not a creature on the
boat, alive or dead.

“Everything was shipshape. The little craft had evidently been
used for fishing. There were rough men’s clothes on board, rubber
boots and oilskins, fresh water and provisions, blankets in
the cabin, fishing-lines and bait in the cockpit, gasolene in the
tanks--a nice little outfit, all complete, and no one to run it.

“Where had she come from? There were no names on bow or stern, no
papers in the cabin. Who had started her on this crazy voyage? How
did she get away from them? Had they perhaps abandoned  her and
cast her adrift for some mysterious reason? Undoubtedly there were
men--apparently three--on board when she set out. What had happened
to them? A drunken quarrel? Or possibly one of the men had fallen
overboard; the others had jumped in to save him; the engine had
started up and the boat left them all in the lurch. Perhaps one
or all of them may have had some reason for wanting to ‘disappear
without a trace,’ so they hit upon the plan of going ashore at
some lonely place and turning the boat loose to wreck herself. That
would have been a stupid scheme of course, but not too stupid to
be human.

“It was just a little piece of sea mystery to which we had no clew.
So we debated it for an hour, and then set about the more important
work of salvaging the stranded derelict. Fortunately she went
ashore near the last of the ebb, and now lay comfortably in the
mud, apparently little damaged except for some long scratches on
her side, and a broken blade in her propeller. We dug away the mud
at bow and stern, made fast a tow-line, and when the tide came in
my small cruiser pulled her off easily. In the morning the mysterious
stranger lay at anchor in  the cove round the corner, as quiet as
a China duck.

“Of course we advertised in the coast newspapers, giving a description
of the boat--‘came ashore,’ etc.

“Three days later a boy about thirteen years old turned up at
Winterport. He came from a village at the northeast corner of the
bay forty miles away.  He guessed the boat was his father’s, but
couldn’t say for sure until he had seen it. So he came down to
the point and identified it beyond a doubt. He told his story very
simply.

“The boat belonged to his father, who was a widow-man with only one
child. He used the boat for fishing, and sometimes he took Johnny
with him, sometimes not. On the trips without the boy he used to
stay out longer, sometimes a week or ten days. About a week ago
he had started out on one of these trips with two other men. They
had a dory in tow. They hadn’t come back. Johnny had seen the piece
in the paper. Here was the boat, for sure, but no dory. As for the
rest of the story--well, that was all that Johnny had to tell us
about it--the mystery was as far away as ever.

“He was a fine, sturdy little chap, with tanned face and clear
blue eyes. He was rather shaken by his experience, of course, but
he wouldn’t cry--not for the world. We were glad to take him in
for the night, while we verified his story by telegraph.  It seemed
the boat was practically his only inheritance,  and the first question
he asked, after we had gone over it, was how much we wanted him to
pay for salvage.

“‘Just one cent,’ said Alice, taking the words out of my mouth, ‘and
what is more, we are going to have her repaired for you. She isn’t
much hurt.’ So the boy stammered out the best kind of a ‘thank you’
that he could manage, and the look in his eyes made up for the lack
of words. That was the time that he came nearest to crying. But
Alice saved him by asking what he was going to do with the boat.

“He had an idea that he could run her himself, perhaps with another
man to help him, for fishing in the fall, and for pleasure parties
in the summer.  He didn’t want to cut loose from home altogether
and sell the boat. Perhaps Dad might come back, some day, or send
a letter. Anyway Johnny wanted to stay by a seafaring life.

“So we arranged the repairs and all that, and got a man to help
on the homeward trip, and after a few days Johnny sailed off with
his patrimony.  That is what Alice and I consider our neatest job
of salvage.”

“Did it work all right?” I asked.

“Finely,” said Will Hermann, “like a charm.”

“And where is the lad now?”

“Bo’sun’s mate on a certain destroyer somewhere off the coast of
France, fighting in the U. S. Navee.”

“And the father?” I inquired, being one of those old-fashioned
persons who like all the loose ends of a story to be tied up. “Was
anything ever heard of him?”

“That,” answered my friend, carefully shaking out the ashes of
his pipe beyond the crow’s-nest rail, “that belongs in a different
compartment of the ship.”



THE BOY OF NAZARETH DREAMS


There was a Boy in Nazareth long ago whose after-life was wonderful,
and whose story is written in the heart of mankind. His birth was
predicted in dreams foretelling marvellous things of him, and in
later years there were many true visions wherein he played a wondrous
part.

Did he not also dream, in the days of his youth, while he was growing
in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man? It would be
strange indeed if his boyhood was not often visited and illumined
by those swift flashes of insight and clear unveilings of hidden
things, which we call dreams but which are in truth rays from “the
fountain light of all our day.”

The first journey that he made, his earliest visit to a great city,
the three days and nights when he was lost there--surely these
were times when visions must have come to him, full of mystery and
wonder, yet clothed in the simple, real forms of this world, which
he was learning to know. So I let my revery follow him on that
unrecorded path, remembering where it led him, and imagining, in
the form of dreams, what may have met him on his way.



I. THE JOURNEY TO THE CITY


There was not a lad in the country town of Nazareth, nestled high
on the bosom of the Galilean hills, who did not often look eagerly
southward over the plain toward the dark mountains of Samaria, and
think of the great city which lay beyond  them, and long for the
time when he would be old enough to go with his family on pilgrimage
to Jerusalem.

That journey would carry him out of childhood.  It would mark the
beginning of his life as a “son of the commandment,” a member of
the Hebrew nation. Moreover it would be an adventure--a very great
and joyous adventure, which youth loves.

Palestine, in the days when Augustus Caesar was Lord of the World,
was an exciting country to travel in. It was full of rovers and
soldiers of fortune from many lands. It was troubled by mobs and
tumults and rebellions, infested with landlopers and brigands.
Jerusalem itself was not only a great city, it was a boisterous and
boiling city, crowded with visitors from all parts of the world,
merchants and travellers, princes and beggars, citizens of Rome
and children of the Desert. There were strange sights to be seen
there, and all kinds of things were sold in the markets. So while
the heart of young Nazareth longed for it, the heart of older
Nazareth was not without anxieties and apprehensions  in regard to
the first pilgrimage.

This was doubly true in the home of the Boy of whom I speak. He was
the first-born, the darling  of his parents, a lad beloved by all
who knew him. His mother hung on him with mystical joy and hope.
He was the apple of her eye. Deep in her soul she kept the memory
of angelic words which had come to her while she carried him under
her heart--words which made her believe that her son would be
the morning-star of Israel and a light unto the Gentiles. So she
cherished the Boy and watched over him with tender, unfailing care,
as her most precious possession, her living, breathing,  growing
treasure.

When he reached the age of twelve, he was old enough to go up to
the Temple and take part in the national feast of the Passover. So
she clad him in the garments of youth and made him ready for the
four days’ pilgrimage.

It was a camping-trip, a wonder-walk, full of variety, with a spice
of danger and a feast  of delight.

The Boy was the joy of the journey. His keen interest in all things
seen and heard was like a  refreshing spring of water to the older
pilgrims. They had so often travelled the same road that they had
forgotten that it might be new every morning. His unwearying vigor
and gladness as he ran down the hillsides, or scrambled among the
rocks far above the path, or roamed through the fields filling his
hands with flowers, was like a merry song that cheered the long
miles of the way. He was glad to be alive, and it made the others
glad to look at him.

There were sixty or seventy kinsfolk and neighbors, plain rustic
men and women, in the little  company that set out from Nazareth.
The men carried arms to protect the caravan from robbers or
marauders. As they wound slowly down the steep, stony road to the
plain of Esdraelon the Boy ran ahead, making short cuts, turning
aside to find a partridge’s nest among the bushes, jumping from
rock to rock like a young gazelle, or poising on the edge of some
cliff in sheer delight of his own  sure-footedness.

His body was outlined against the sky; his blue eyes (like those
of his mother, who was a maid of Bethlehem) sparkled with the joy
of living; his long hair was lifted and tossed by the wind of April.
But his mother’s look followed him anxiously, and her heart often
leaped in her throat.

“My son,” she said, as they took their noon-meal in the valley at
the foot of dark Mount Gilboa,  “you must be more careful. Your
feet might slip.”

“Mother,” answered the Boy, “I am truly very careful. I always
put my feet in the places that God has made for them--on the big,
strong rocks that will not roll. It is only because I am so happy
that you think I am careless.”

The tents were pitched, the first night, under the walls of Bethshan,
a fortified city of the Romans.  Set on a knoll above the river
Jordan, the town loomed big and threatening over the little camp
of the Galilean pilgrims. But they kept aloof from it, because it
was a city of the heathen. Its theatres and temples and palaces
were accursed. The tents were indifferent to the city, and when
the night opened its star-fields above them and the heavenly lights
rose over the mountains of Moab and Samaria,  the Boy’s clear voice
joined in the slumber-song of the pilgrims:


  “I will lift up mine eyes to the hilis,
  From whence cometh my help;
  My help cometh from the Lord,
  Who made heaven and earth.
  He will not suffer thy foot to stumble,
  He who keepeth thee will not slumber.
  Behold, He who guardeth Israel
  Will neither slumber nor sleep.”


Then they drew their woollen cloaks over their heads and rested on
the ground in peace.

For two days their way led through the wide valley of the Jordan,
along the level land that stretched from the mountains on either
side to the rough gulch where the river was raging through its
jungle. They passed through broad fields of ripe barley and ripening
wheat, where the quail scuttled and piped among the thick-growing
stalks. There were fruit-orchards and olive-groves on the foothills,
and clear streams ran murmuring down through glistening oleander
thickets. Wild flowers sprang in every untilled corner; tall spikes
of hollyhocks, scarlet and blue anemones, clusters of mignonette,
rock-roses, and cyclamens, purple iris in the moist places, and
many-colored spathes of gladiolus growing  plentifully among the
wheat.

The larks sang themselves into the sky in the early morn. Hotter
grew the sun and heavier the air in that long trough below the
level of the sea.  The song of birds melted away. Only the hawks
wheeled on motionless wings above silent fields, watching for the
young quail or the little rabbits, hidden among the grain.

The pilgrims plodded on in the heat. Companies of soldiers with
glittering arms, merchants with laden mules jingling their bells,
groups of ragged thieves and bold beggars met and jostled the
peaceful  travellers on the road. Once a little band of robbers,
riding across the valley to the land of Moab, turned from a distance
toward the Nazarenes, circled swiftly around them like hawks,
whistling and calling  shrilly to one another. But there was small
booty in that country caravan, and the men who guarded it looked
strong and tough; so the robbers whirled away as swiftly as they
had come.

The Boy had stood close to his father in this moment of danger,
looking on with surprise at the actions of the horsemen.

“What did those riders want?” he asked.

“All we have,” answered the man.

“But it is very little,” said the Boy. “Nothing but our clothes
and some food for our journey. If they were hungry, why did they
not ask of us?”

The man laughed. “These are not the kind that ask,” he said, “they
are the kind that take--what they will and when they can.”

“I do not like them,” said the Boy. “Their horses were beautiful,
but their faces were hateful--like a jackal that I saw--in the
gulley behind Nazareth one night. His eyes were burning red as
fire. Those men had fires inside of them.”

For the rest of that afternoon he walked more quietly and with
thoughtful looks, as if he were pondering the case of men who looked
like jackals and had flames within them.

At sunset, when the camp was made outside the gates of the new
city of Archelaus, on a hillock among the corn-fields, he came to
his mother with his hands full of the long lavender and rose and
pale-blue spathes of the gladiolus-lilies.

“Look, mother,” he cried, “are they not fine--like the clothes of
a king?”

“What do you know of kings?” she answered, smiling. “These are
only wild lilies of the field.  But a great king, like Solomon,
has robes of thick silk, and jewels on his neck and his fingers,
and a big crown of gold on his head.”

“But that must be very heavy,” said the Boy, tossing his head
lightly. “It must tire him to wear a crown-thing and such thick
robes. Besides, I think the lilies are really prettier. They look
just as if they were glad to grow in the field.”

The third night they camped among the palm-groves and heavy-odored
gardens of Jericho, where Herod’s splendid palace rose above the
trees. The fourth day they climbed the wild, steep, robber-haunted
road from the Jordan valley to the highlands  of Judea, and so came
at sundown to their camp-ground among friends and neighbors on the
closely tented slope of the Mount of Olives, over against Jerusalem.

What an evening that was for the Boy! His first sight of the holy
city, the city of the great king, the city lifted up and exalted
on the sides of the north, beautiful for situation, the joy of the
whole earth! He had dreamed of her glory as he listened at his
mother’s knee to the wonder-tales of David and Solomon and the
brave adventures of the fighting  Maccabees. He had prayed for the
peace of Jerusalem every night as he kneeled by his bed and lifted
his hands toward the holy place. He had tried a thousand times to
picture her strength and her splendor, her marvels and mysteries,
her multitude of houses and her vast bulwarks, as he strayed among
the humble cottages of Nazareth or sat in the low doorway of his
own home.

Now his dream had come true. He looked into the face of Jerusalem,
just across the deep, narrow valley of the Kidron, where the shadows
of the evening  were rising among the tombs. The huge battlemented
walls, encircling the double mounts of Zion and Moriah--the vast
huddle of white houses, covering hill and hollow with their flat
roofs and standing so close together that the streets were hidden
among them--the towers, the colonnades, the terraces--the dark bulk
of the Roman castle--the marble pillars and glittering roof of the
Temple in its broad court on the hilltop--it was a city of stone
and ivory and gold, rising clear against the soft saffron and rose
and violet of the sunset sky.

The Boy sat with his mother on the hillside while the light waned,
and the lamps began to twinkle in the city, the stars to glow in
the deepening blue.  He questioned her eagerly--what is that black
tower?--why does the big roof shine so bright?--where was King
David’s house?--where are we going to-morrow?

“To-morrow,” she answered, “you will see. But now it is the
sleep-time. Let us sing the psalm that we used to sing at night in
Nazareth--but very softly, not to disturb the others--for you know
this psalm is not one of the songs of the pilgrimage.”

So the mother and her Child sang together with low voices:


   “In peace will I both lay me down and sleep,
    For thou, Lord, makest me dwell in safety.”


The tune and the words quieted the Boy. It was like a bit of home
in a far land.



II. THE GILDED TEMPLE


The next day was full of wonder and excitement.  It was the first
day of the Feast, and the myriad of pilgrims crowded through the
gates and streets of the city, all straining toward the enclosure
of the Temple, within whose walls two hundred thousand people could
be gathered. On every side the Boy saw new and strange things:
soldiers in their armor, and shops full of costly wares; richly
dressed Sadducees with their servants following; Jews from far-away
countries, and curious visitors from all parts of the world; ragged
children of the city, and painted women of the street, and beggars
and outcasts of the lower quarters, and rich ladies with their
retinues, and priests in their snowy robes.

The family from Nazareth passed slowly through the confusion, and
the Boy, bewildered by the changing scene, longed to get to the
Temple. He thought everything must be quiet and holy there.  But
when they came into the immense outer court, with its porticos
and alcoves, he found the confusion worse than ever. For there the
money-changers and the buyers and sellers of animals for sacrifice
were bargaining and haggling; and the thousands of people were
jostling and pushing one another; and the followers of the Pharisees
and the Sadducees were disputing; and on many faces he saw that
strange look which speaks of a fire in the heart, so that it seemed
like a meeting-place of robbers.

His father had bought a lamb for the Passover sacrifice, at one of
the stalls in the outer court, and was carrying it on his shoulder.
He pressed on through the crowd at the Beautiful Gate, the Boy and
his mother following until they came to the Court of the Women.
Here the mother stayed, for that was the law--a woman must not go
farther.  But the Boy was now “a son of the Commandment,” and he
followed his father through the Court of Israel to the entrance
of the Court of the Priests.  There the little lamb was given to a
priest, who carried it away to the great stone altar in the middle
of the court.

The Boy could not see what happened then, for the place was crowded
and busy. But he heard the blowing of trumpets, and the clashing
of cymbals, and the chanting of psalms. Black clouds of smoke went
up from the hidden altar; the floor around was splashed and streaked
with red. After a long while, as it seemed, the priest brought back
the dead body of the lamb, prepared for the Passover supper.

“Is this our little lamb?” asked the Boy as his father took it
again upon his shoulder.

The father nodded.

“It was a very pretty one,” said the Boy. “Did it have to die?”

The father looked down at him curiously.  “Surely,” he said,
“it had to be offered on the altar, so that we can keep our feast
according to the law of Moses to-night.”

“But why,” persisted the Boy, “must all the lambs be killed in the
Temple? Does God like that? How many do you suppose were brought
to the altar to-day?”

“Tens of thousands,” answered the father.

“It is a great many,” said the Boy, sighing. “I wish one was enough.”

He was silent and thoughtful as they made their way through the
Court of the Women and found the mother and went back to the camp
on the hillside.  That night the family ate their Paschal feast,
with their loins girded as if they were going on a journey, in
memory of the long-ago flight of the Israelites from Egypt. There
was the roasted lamb, with bitter herbs, and flat cakes of bread
made without yeast. A cup of wine was passed around the table four
times. The Boy asked his father the meaning of all these things,
and the father repeated the story of the saving of the first-born
sons of Israel in that far-off night of terror and death when they
came out of Egypt. While the supper was going on, hymns were sung,
and when it was ended they all chanted together:


   “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
    For His loving-kindness endureth for ever.”


So the Boy lay down under his striped woollen cloak of blue and
white and drifted toward sleep, glad that he was a son of Israel,
but sorry when he thought of the thousands of little lambs and the
altar floor splashed with red. He wondered if some day God would
not give them another way to keep that feast.

The next day of the festival was a Sabbath, on which no work could
be done. But the daily sacrifice of the Temple, and all the services
and songs and benedictions in its courts, continued as usual, and
there was a greater crowd than ever within its walls. As the Boy
went thither with his parents they came to a place where a little
house was beginning to burn, set on fire by an overturned lamp.  The
poor people stood by, wringing their hands and watching the flames.

“Why do they not try to save their house?” cried the Boy.

The father shook his head. “They can do nothing,” he answered. “They
follow the teaching of the Pharisees, who say that it is unlawful
to put out a fire on the Sabbath, because it is a labor.”

A little later the Boy saw a cripple with a crutch, sitting in the
door of a cottage, looking very sad and lonely.

“Why does he not go with the others,” asked the Boy, “and hear the
music at the Temple? That would make him happier. Can’t he walk?”

“Yes,” answered the father, “he can hop along pretty well with his
crutch on other days, but not on the Sabbath, for he would have to
carry his crutch, and that would be labor.”

All the time he was in the Temple, watching the procession of priests
and Levites and listening to the music, the Boy was thinking what
the Sabbath meant, and whether it really rested people and made
them happier.

The third day of the festival was the offering of the first-fruits
of the new year’s harvest. That was a joyous day. A sheaf of ripe
barley was reaped and carried into the Temple and presented before
the high altar with incense and music. The priests blessed the
people, and the people shouted and sang for gladness.

The Boy’s heart bounded in his breast as he joined in the song and
thought of the bright summer begun, and the birds building their
nests, and the flowers clothing the hills with beautiful colors,
and the wide fields of golden grain waving in the wind. He was happy
all day as he walked through the busy streets with his parents,
buying some things that were needed for the home in Nazareth; and
he was happy at night when he lay down under an olive-tree beside
the tent, for the air was warm and gentle, and he fell asleep under
the tree, dreaming of what he would see and do to-morrow.



III. HOW THE BOY WAS LOST


Now comes the secret of the way he was lost--a way so simple that
the wonder is that no one has ever dreamed of it before.

The three important days of the Passover were ended, and the time
had come when those pilgrims who wished to return to their homes
might leave Jerusalem without offense, though it was more commendable
to remain through the full seven days.  The people from Nazareth
were anxious to be gone--they had a long road to travel--their
harvests were waiting. While the Boy, tired out, was sleeping under
the tree, the question of going home was talked out and decided.
They would break camp at sunrise, and, joining with others of their
countrymen who were tented around them, they would take the road
for Galilee.

But the Boy awoke earlier than any one else the next morning. Before
the dawn a linnet in the tree overhead called him with twittering
songs.  He was rested by his long sleep. His breath came lightly.
The spirit of youth was beating in his limbs, His heart was eager
for adventure. He longed for the top of a high hill--for the wide,
blue sky--for the world at his feet--such a sight as he had often
found in his rambles among the heights near Nazareth.  Why not? He
would return in time for the next visit to the Temple.

Quietly he stepped among the sleeping-tents in the dark. A footpath
led through the shadowy olive-grove, up the hillside, into the
open. There the light was clearer, and the breeze that runs before
the daybreak was dancing through the grass.  The Boy turned to
the left, following along one of the sheep-trails that crossed the
high, sloping pastures. Then he bore to the right, breasting the
long ridge, and passed the summit, running lightly to the eastward
until he came to a rounded, rocky knoll. There he sat down among
the little bushes to wait for sunrise.

Far beyond the wrinkled wilderness of Tekoa, and the Dead Sea, and
the mountain-wall of Moab, the rim of the sky was already tinged
with silvery gray. The fading of the stars travelled slowly upward,
and the brightening of the rose of dawn followed it, until all the
east was softly glowing and the deep blue of the central heaven
was transfused with turquoise light. Dark in the gulfs and chasms
of the furrowed land the night lingered. Bright along the eastern
peaks and ridges the coming day, still hidden, revealed itself in
a fringe of dazzling gold, like the crest of a long mounting wave.
Shoots and flashes of radiance sprang upward from the glittering
edge. Streamers of rose-foam and gold-spray floated in the sky.
Then over the barrier of the hills the sun surged royally-crescent,
half-disk, full-orb--and overlooked the world. The luminous tide
flooded the gray villages of Bethany and Bethphage, and all the
emerald hills around Bethlehem were bathed in light.

The Boy sat entranced, watching the miracle by which God makes His
sun to shine upon the good and the evil. How strange it was that
God should do that--bestow an equal light upon those who obeyed Him
and those who broke His law!  Yet it was splendid, it was King-like
to give in that way, with both hands. No, it was Father-like--and
that was what the Boy had learned from his mother--that God who made
and ruled all things was his Father. It was the name she had taught
him to use in his prayers. Not in the great prayers he learned
from the book--the name there was Adonai, the Lord, the Almighty.
But in the little prayers that he said by himself it was “my Father!”
 It made the Boy feel strangely happy and strong to say that. The
whole world seemed to breathe and glow around him with an invisible
presence.  For such a Father, for the sake of His love and favor,
the Boy felt he could do anything.

More than that, his mother had told him of something special that
the Father had for him to do in the world. In the evenings during
the journey and when they were going home together from the Temple,
she had repeated to him some of the words that the angel-voices
had spoken to her heart, and some of the sayings of wise men from
the East who came to visit him when he was a baby. She could not
understand all the mystery of it; she did not see how it was going
to be brought to pass. He was a child of poverty and lowliness;
not rich, nor learned, nor powerful. But with God all things were
possible. The choosing and calling of the eternal Father were more
than everything else.  It was fixed in her heart that somehow her
Boy was sent to do a great work for Israel. He was the son of God
set apart to save his people and bring back the glory of Zion.
He was to fulfil the promises made in olden time and bring in the
wonderful reign of the Messiah in the world--perhaps as a forerunner
and messenger of the great King, or perhaps himself--ah, she did
not know! But she believed in her Boy with her whole soul; and she
was sure that his Father would show him what to do.

These sayings, coming amid the excitements of his first journey,
his visit to the Temple, his earliest sight of the splendor and
confusion and misery of the great city, had sunken all the more
deeply into the Boy’s mind. Excitement does not blur the impressions
of youth; it sharpens them, makes them more vivid. Half-covered
and hardly noticed at the time, they spring up into life when the
quiet hour comes.

So the Boy remembered his mother’s words while he lay watching the
sunrise. It would be great to make them come true. To help everybody
to feel what he felt there on the hilltop--that big, free feeling
of peace and confidence and not being afraid!  To make those robbers
in the Jordan valley see how they were breaking the rule of the
world and burning out their own hearts! To cleanse the Temple from
the things that filled it with confusion and pain, and drive away
the brawling buyers and sellers who were spoiling his Father’s great
house! To go among those poor and wretched and sorrowful folks who
swarmed in Jerusalem and teach them that God was their Father too,
and that they must not sin and quarrel any more! To find a better
way than the priests’ and the Pharisees’ of making people good! To
do great things for Israel--like Moses, like Joshua, like David--or
like Daniel, perhaps, who prayed and was not afraid of the
lions--or like Elijah and Elisha, who went about speaking to the people
and healing them--

The soft tread of bare feet among the bushes behind him roused the
Boy. He sprang up and saw a man with a stern face and long hair and
beard looking at him mysteriously. The man was dressed in white,
with a leathern girdle round his waist, into which a towel was
thrust. A leathern wallet hung from his neck, and he leaned upon
a long staff.

“Peace be with you, Rabbi,” said the Boy, reverently bowing at the
stranger’s feet. But the man looked at him steadily and did not
speak.

The Boy was confused by the silence. The man’s eyes troubled him
with their secret look, but he was not afraid.

“Who are you, sir,” he asked, “and what is your will with me? Perhaps
you are a master of the Pharisees or a scribe? But no--there are
no broad blue fringes on your garments. Are you a priest, then?”

The man shook his head, frowning. “I despise the priests,” he
answered, “and I abhor their bloody and unclean sacrifices. I am
Enoch the Essene, a holy one, a perfect keeper of the law. I live
with those who have never defiled themselves with the eating of
meat, nor with marriage, nor with wine; but we have all things in
common, and we are baptized in pure water every day for the purifying
of our wretched bodies, and after that we eat the daily feast of
love in the kingdom of the Messiah which is at hand. Thou art called
into that kingdom, son; come with me, for thou art called.”

The Boy listened with astonishment. Some of the things that the man
said--for instance, about the sacrifices and about the nearness of
the kingdom--were already in his heart. But other things puzzled
and bewildered him.

“My mother says that I am called,” he answered, “but it is to serve
Israel and to help the people.  Where do you live, sir, and what
is it that you do for the people?”

“We live among the hills of that wilderness,” he answered, pointing
to the south, “in the oasis of Engedi. There are palm-trees and
springs of water, and we keep ourselves pure, bathing before we eat
and offering our food of bread and dates as a sacrifice to God. We
all work together, and none of us has anything that he calls his
own. We do not go up to the Temple nor enter the synagogues. We
have forsaken the uncleanness of the world and all the impure ways
of men. Our only care is to keep ourselves from defilement. If we
touch anything that is forbidden we wash our hands and wipe them
with this towel that hangs from our girdle.  We alone are serving
the kingdom. Come, live with us, for I think thou art chosen.”

The Boy thought for a while before he answered.  “Some of it is
good, my master,” he said, “but the rest of it is far away from
my thoughts. Is there nothing for a man to do in the world but to
think of himself--either in feasting and uncleanness as the heathen
do, or in fasting and purifying yourself as you do? How can you
serve the kingdom if you turn away from the people? They do not see
you or hear you. You are separate from them--just as if you were
dead without dying. You can do nothing for them. No, I do not want
to come with you and live at Engedi. I think my Father will show
me something better to do.”

“Your Father!” said Enoch the Essene. “Who is He?”

“Surely,” answered the Boy, “He is the same as yours. He that made
us and made all that we see--the great world for us to live in.”

“Dust,” said the man, with a darker frown--“dust and ashes! It will
all perish, and thou with it. Thou art not chosen--not pure!”

With that he went away down the hill; and the Boy, surprised and
grieved at his rude parting, wondered a little over the meaning
of his words, and then went back as quickly as he could toward the
tents.

When he came to the olive-grove they were gone!  The sun was
already high, and his people had departed hours ago. In the hurry
and bustle of breaking camp each of the parents had supposed that the
Boy was with the other, or with some of the friends and neighbors,
or perhaps running along the hillside above them as he used to do.
So they went their way cheerfully, not knowing that they had left
their son behind. This is how it came to pass that he was lost.



IV. HOW THE BOY WENT HIS WAY


When the Boy saw what had happened he was surprised and troubled,
but not frightened. He did not know what to do. He might hasten
after them, but he could not tell which way to go. He was not even
sure that they had gone home; for they had talked of paying a visit
to their relatives in the south before returning to Nazareth; and
some of the remaining pilgrims to whom he turned for news of his
people said that they had taken the southern road from the Mount
of Olives, going toward Bethlehem.

The Boy was at a loss, but he was not disheartened, nor even cast
down. He felt that somehow all would be well with him; he would be
taken care of. They would come back for him in good time.  Meanwhile
there were kind people here who would give him food and shelter.
There were boys in the other camps with whom he could play. Best
of all, he could go again to the city and the Temple.  He could see
more of the wonderful things there, and watch the way the people
lived, and find out why so many of them seemed sad or angry, and a
few proud and scornful, and almost all looked unsatisfied. Perhaps
he could listen to some of the famous rabbis who taught the people
in the courts of the Temple and learn from them about the things
which his Father had chosen him to do.

So he went down the hill and toward the Sheep Gate by which he had
always gone into the city.  Outside the gate a few boys about his
own age, with a group of younger children, were playing games.

“Look there,” they cried--“a stranger! Let us have some fun with
him. Halloo, Country, where do you come from?”

“From Galilee,” answered the Boy.

“Galilee is where all the fools live,” cried the children. “Where
is your home? What is your name?”

He told them pleasantly, but they laughed at his country way of
speaking and mimicked his pronunciation.

“Yalilean! Yalilean!” they cried. “You can’t task. Can you play?
Come and play with us.”

So they played together. First, they had a mimic wedding-procession.
Then they made believe that the bridegroom was killed by a robber,
and they had a mock funeral. The Boy took always the lowest part.
He was the hired mourner who followed the body, wailing; he was the
flute-player who made music for the wedding-guests to dance to.

So readily did he enter into the play that the children at first were
pleased with him. But they were not long contented with anything.
Some of them would dance no more for the wedding; others would
lament no more for the funeral. Their caprices made them quarrelsome.

“Yalilean fool,” they cried, “you play it all wrong. You spoil the
game. We are tired of it.  Can you run? Can you throw stones?”

So they ran races; and the Boy, trained among the hills, outran
the others. But they said he did not keep to the course. Then they
threw stones; and the Boy threw farther and straighter than any of
the rest. This made them angry.

Whispering together, they suddenly hurled a shower of stones at
him. One struck his shoulder, another made a long cut on his cheek.
Wiping away the blood with his sleeve, he turned silently and ran
to the Sheep Gate, the other boys chasing him with loud shouts.

He darted lightly through the crowd of animals and people that
thronged the gateway, turning and dodging with a sure foot among
them and running up the narrow street that led to the sheep-market.
The cries of his pursuers grew fainter behind him. Among the stalls
of the market he wound this way and that way like a hare before
the hounds. At last he had left them out of sight and hearing.

Then he ceased running and wandered blindly on through the northern
quarter of the city. The sloping streets were lined with bazaars and
noisy workshops. The Roman soldiers from the castle were sauntering
to and fro. Women in rich attire, with ear-rings and gold chains,
passed by with their slaves. Open market-places were still busy,
though the afternoon trade was slackening.

But the Boy was too tired and faint with hunger and heavy at heart
to take an interest in these things.  He turned back toward the
gate, and, missing his way a little, came to a great pool of water,
walled in wit, white stone, with five porticos around it.  In some
of these porticos there were a few people lying upon mats. But one
of the porches was empty, and here the Boy sat down.

He was worn out. His cheek was bleeding again, and the drops
trickled down his neck. He went down the broad steps to the pool
to wash away the blood. But he could not do it very well. His head
ached too much. So he crept back to the porch, unwound his little
turban, curled himself in a corner on the hard stones, his head
upon his arm, and fell sound asleep.

He was awakened by a voice calling him, a hand laid upon his
shoulder. He looked up and saw the face of a young woman, dark-eyed,
red-lipped, only a few years older than himself. She was clad in
silk, with a veil of gauze over her head, gold coins in her hair,
and a phial of alabaster hanging by a gold chain around her neck.
A sweet perfume like the breath of roses came from it as she moved.
Her voice was soft and kind.

“Poor boy,” she said, “you are wounded; some one has hurt you. What
are you doing here? You look like a little brother that I had long
ago. Come with me. I will take care of you.”

The Boy rose and tried to go with her. But he was stiff and sore; he
could hardly walk; his head was swimming. The young woman beckoned
to a Nubian slave who followed her. He took the Boy in his big
black arms and so carried him to a pleasant house with a garden.

There were couches and cushions there, in a marble court around
a fountain. There were servants who brought towels and ointments.
The young woman bathed the Boy’s wound and his feet.  The servants
came with food, and she made him eat of the best. His eyes grew
bright again, and the color came into his cheeks. He talked to her
of his life in Nazareth, of the adventures of his first journey,
and of the way he came to be lost.

She listened to him intently, as if there were some strange charm
in his simple talk. Her eyes rested upon him with pleasure. A new
look swept over her face. She leaned close to him.

“Stay with me, boy,” she murmured, “for I want you. Your people are
gone. You shall sleep here to-night--you shall live with me and I
will be good to you--I will teach you to love me.”

The Boy moved back a little and looked at her with wide eyes, as
if she were saying something that he could not understand.

“But you have already been good to me, sister,” he answered, “and
I love you already, even as your brother did. Is your husband here?
Will he come soon, so that we can all say the prayer of thanks-giving
together for the food?”

Her look changed again; her eyes filled with pain and sorrow; she
shrank back and turned away her face.

“I have no husband,” she said. “Ah, boy, innocent boy, you do
not understand. I eat the bread of shame and live in the house of
wickedness. I am a sinner, a sinner of the city. How could I pray?”

With that she fell a-sobbing, rocking herself to and fro, and the
tears ran through her fingers like rain. The Boy looked at her,
astonished and pitiful.  He moved nearer to her, after a moment,
and spoke softly.

“I am very sorry, sister,” he said; and as he spoke he felt her
tears falling on his feet. “I am more sorry than I ever was in my
life. It must be dreadful to be a sinner. But sinners can pray, for
God is our Father, and fathers know how to forgive.  I will stay
with you and teach you some of the things my mother has taught me.”

She looked up and caught his hand and kissed it. She wiped away
her tears, and rose, pushing back her hair.

“No, dear little master,” she said, “you shall not stay in this
house--not an hour. It is not fit for you. My Nubian shall lead you
back to the gate, and you will return to your friends outside of
the city, and you will forget one whom you comforted for a moment.”

The Boy turned back as he stood in the doorway.  “No,” he said. “I
will not forget you. I will always remember your love and kindness.
Will you learn to pray, and give up being a sinner?”

“I will try,” she answered; “you have made me want to try. Go in
peace. God knows what will become of me.”

“God knows, sister,” replied the Boy gravely.  “Abide in peace.”

So he went out into the dusk with the Nubian and found the camp on
the hillside and a shelter in one of the friendly tents, where he
slept soundly and woke refreshed in the morning.

This day he would not spend in playing and wandering.  He would go
straight to the Temple, to find some of the learned teachers who
gave instruction there, and learn from them the wisdom that he
needed in order to do his work for his Father.

As he went he thought about the things that had befallen him
yesterday. Why had the man dressed in white despised him? Why had
the city children mocked him and chased him away with stones?  Why
was the strange woman who had been so kind to him afterward so
unhappy and so hopeless?

There must be something in the world that he did not understand,
something evil and hateful and miserable that he had never felt in
himself.  But he felt it in the others, and it made him so sorry, so
distressed for them, that it seemed like a heavy weight, a burden
on his own heart. It was like the work of those demons, of whom
his mother had told him, who entered into people and lived inside
of them, like worms eating away a fruit.

Only these people of whom he was thinking did not seem to have a
demon that took hold of them and drove them mad and made them foam
at the mouth and cut themselves with stones, like a man he once
saw in Galilee. This was something larger and more mysterious-like
the hot wind that sometimes blew from the south and made people
gloomy and angry--like the rank weeds that grew in certain fields,
and if the sheep fed there they dropped and died.

The Boy felt that he hated this unknown, wicked, unhappy thing more
than anything else in the world.  He would like to save people from
it. He wanted to fight against it, to drive it away. It seemed as
if there were a spirit in his heart saying to him, “This is what
you must do, you must fight against this evil, you must drive out
the darkness, you must be a light, you must save the people--this
is your Father’s work for you to do.”

But how? He did not know. That was what he wanted to find out. And
he went into the Temple hoping that the teachers there would tell
him.

He found the vast Court of the Gentiles, as it had been on his first
visit, swarming with people.  Jews and Syrians and foreigners of
many nations were streaming into it through the eight open gates,
meeting and mingling and eddying round in confused currents,
bargaining and haggling with the merchants and money-changers,
crowding together around some group where argument had risen to a
violent dispute, drifting away again in search of some new excitement.

The morning sacrifice was ended, but the sound of music floated
out from the enclosed courts in front of the altar, where the more
devout worshippers were gathered. The Roman soldiers of the guard
paced up and down, or leaned tranquilly upoa their spears, looking
with indifference or amused contempt upon the turbulent scenes of
the holy place where they were set to keep the peace and prevent
the worshippers from attacking one another.

The Boy turned into the long, cool cloisters, their lofty marble
columns and carved roofs, which ran around the inside of the walls.
Here he found many groups of people, walking in the broad aisles
between the pillars, or seated in the alcoves of Solomon’s Porch
around the teachers who were instructing them. From one to another
of these open schools he wandered, listening eagerly to the different
rabbis and doctors of the law.

Here one was reading from the Torah and explaining the laws about
the food which a Jew must not eat, and the things which he must not
do on the Sabbath. Here another was expounding the doctrine of the
Pharisees about the purifying of the sacred vessels in the Temple;
while another, a Sadducee, was disputing with him scornfully and
claiming that the purification of the priests was the only important
thing. “You would wash that which needs no washing,” he cried,
“the Golden Candlestick, one day in every week! Next you will want
to wash the sun for fear an unclean ray of light may fall on the
altar!”

Other teachers were reciting from the six books of the Talmud which
the Pharisees were making to expound the law. Others repeated the
histories of Israel, recounted the brave deeds of the Maccabees,
or read from the prophecies of Enoch and Daniel. Others still were
engaged in political debate: the Zealots talking fiercely of the
misdeeds of the house of Herod and the outrages committed by the
Romans; the Sadducees contemptuously mocking at the hopes of the
revolutionists and showing that the dream of freedom for Judea
was foolish.  “Freedom,” they said, “belongs to those who are well
protected. We have the Temple and priesthood because Rome takes care
of us.” To this the Zealots answered angrily: “Yes, the priesthood
belongs to you unbelieving Sadducees; that is why you are content
with it. Look, now, at the place where you let Herod hang an accursed
eagle of gold on the front of Jehovah’s House.”

So from group to group the Boy passed, listening intently, but
hearing little to his purpose. All day long he listened, now to
one, now to another, completely absorbed by what he heard, yet not
satisfied.  Late in the afternoon he came into the quietest part
of Solomon’s Porch, where two large companies were seated around
their respective teachers, separated from each other by a distance
of four or five columns.

As he stood on the edge of the first company, whose rabbi was a
lean, dark-bearded, stern little man, the Boy was spoken to by a
stranger at his side, who asked him what he sought in the Temple.

“Wisdom,” answered the Boy. “I am looking for some one to give a
light to my path.”

“That is what I am seeking, too,” said the stranger, smiling. “I
am a Greek, and I desire wisdom. Let us see if we can get it from
this teacher. Listen.”

He made his way to the centre of the circle and stood before the
stern little man.

“Master,” said the Greek, “I am willing to become thy disciple if
thou wilt teach me the whole law while I stand before thee thus--on
one foot.”

The rabbi looked at him angrily, and, lifting up his stick, smote
him sharply across the leg. “That is the whole law for mockers,”
 he cried. The stranger limped away amid the laughter of the crowd.

“But the little man was too angry; he did not see that I was in
earnest,” said he, as he came back to the Boy. “Now let us go to
the next school and see if the master there is any better.”

So they went to the second company, which was gathered around a
very old man, with long, snowy beard and a gentle face. The stranger
took his place as before, standing on one foot, and made the same
request. The rabbi’s eyes twinkled and his lips were smiling as he
answered promptly:

“Do nothing to thy neighbor that thou wouldst not have him do to
thee, this is the whole law; all the rest follows from this.”

“Well,” said the stranger, returning, “what think you of this
teacher and his wisdom? Is it better?”

“It is far better,” replied the Boy eagerly: “it is the best of
all I have heard to-day. I am coming back to hear him to-morrow.
Do you know his name?”

“I think it is Hillel,” answered the Greek, “and he is a learned
man, the master of the Sanhedrim.  You will do well, young Jew, to
listen to such a man. Socrates could not have answered me better.
But now the sun is near setting. We must go our ways. Farewell.”

In the tent of his friends the Boy found welcome and a supper, but
no news of his parents. He told his experiences in the Temple, and
the friends heard him, wondering at his discernment. They were in
doubt whether to let him go again the next day; but he begged so
earnestly, arguing that they could tell his parents where he was
if they should come to the camp seeking him, that finally he won
consent.



V. HOW THE BOY WAS FOUND


He was in Solomon’s Porch long before the schools had begun to
assemble. He paced up and down under the triple colonnade, thinking
what questions he should ask the master.

The company that gathered around Hillel that day was smaller, but
there were more scribes and doctors of the law among them, and
they were speaking of the kingdom of the Messiah--the thing that
lay nearest to the Boy’s heart. He took his place in the midst of
them, and they made room for him, for they liked young disciples
and encouraged them to ask after knowledge.

It was the prophecy of Daniel that they were discussing, and the
question was whether these things were written of the First Messiah
or of the Second Messiah; for many of the doctors held that there
must be two, and that the first would die in battle, but the second
would put down all his enemies and rule over the world.

“Rabbi,” asked the Boy, “if the first was really the Messiah, could
not God raise him up again and send him back to rule?”

“You ask wisely, son,” answered Hillel, “and I think the prophets
tell us that we must hope for only one Messiah. This book of Daniel
is full of heavenly words, but it is not counted among the prophets
whose writings are gathered in the Scripture. Which of them have
you read, and which do you love most, my son?”

“Isaiah,” said the Boy, “because he says God will have mercy with
everlasting-kindness. But I love Daniel, too, because he says they
that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever
and ever. But I do not understand what he says about the times
and a half-time and the days and the seasons before the coming of
Messiah.”

With this there rose a dispute among the doctors about the meaning
of those sayings, and some explained them one way and some another,
but Hillel sat silent. At last he said:

“It is better to hope and to wait patiently for Him than to reckon
the day of His coming. For if the reckoning is wrong, and He does
not come, then men despair, and no longer make ready for Him.”

“How does a man make ready for Him, Rabbi?” asked the Boy.

“By prayer, son, and by study of the law, and by good works, and
by sacrifices.”

“But when He comes He will rule over the whole world, and how can
all the world come to the Temple to sacrifice?”

“A way will be provided,” answered the old man, “though I do not
know how it will be. And there are offerings of the heart as well
as of the altar. It is written, ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice.’”

“Will His kingdom be for the poor as well as for the rich, and for
the ignorant as well as for the wise?”

[Illustration: From a painting by Holman Junt. The Finding of Christ
in The Temple]

“Yes, it will be for the poor and for the rich alike. But it will
not be for the ignorant, my son.  For he who does not know the law
cannot be pious.”

“But, Rabbi,” said the Boy eagerly, “will He not have mercy on them
just because they are ignorant? Will He not pity them as a shepherd
pities his sheep when they are silly and go astray?”

“He is not only a Shepherd,” answered Hillel firmly, “but a great
King. They must all keep the law, even as it is written and as the
elders have taught it to us. There is no other way.”

The Boy was silent for a time, while the others talked of the law,
and of the Torah, and of the Talmud in which Hillel in those days
was writing down the traditions of the elders. When there was an
opportunity he spoke again.

“Rabbi, if most of the people should be both poor and ignorant
when the Messiah came, so ignorant that they did not even know Him,
wouldn’t He save them just because they were poor?”

Hillel looked at the Boy with love, and hesitated before he answered.

At that moment a man and a woman came through the colonnade with
hurried steps. The man stopped at the edge of the circle, astonished
at what he saw. But the woman came into the centre and put her arm
around the Boy.

“My boy,” she cried, “why hast thou done this to us? See how sorrowful
thou hast made me and thy father, looking everywhere for thee.”

“Mother,” he answered, “why did you look everywhere for me with
sorrow? Did you not know that I would be in my Father’s house? Must
I not begin to think of the things my Father wants me to do?”

Thus the lost Boy was found again, and went home with, his parents
to Nazareth. The old rabbi blessed him as he left the Temple.

But had he really been lost, or was he finding his way?

THE END





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