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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Blue Flower, by Henry van Dyke
+#5 in our series by Henry van Dyke
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+The Blue Flower
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+by Henry van Dyke
+
+January, 1999  [Etext #1603]
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Blue Flower, by Henry van Dyke
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+
+
+THE BLUE FLOWER
+
+by HENRY VAN DYKE
+
+
+
+
+The desire of the moth for the star,
+Of the night for the morrow,
+The devotion for something afar
+From the sphere of our sorrow.
+--SHELLEY.
+
+
+
+
+        To
+ THE DEAR MEMORY OF
+ BERNARD VAN DYKE
+     1887-1897
+ AND THE LOVE THAT LIVES
+  BEYOND THE YEARS
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Sometimes short stories are brought together like parcels in
+a basket.  Sometimes they grow together like blossoms on a
+bush.  Then, of course, they really belong to one another,
+because they have the same life in them.
+
+The stories in this book have been growing together for a
+long time.  It is at least ten years since the first of them,
+the story of The Other Wise Man, came to me; and all the
+others I knew quite well by heart a good while before I could
+find the time, in a hard-worked life, to write them down and
+try to make them clear and true to others.  It has been a slow
+task, because the right word has not always been easy to find,
+and I wanted to keep free from conventionality in the thought
+and close to nature in the picture.  It is enough to cause a
+man no little shame to see how small is the fruit of so long
+labour.
+
+And yet, after all, when one wishes to write
+about life, especially about that part of it which is inward,
+the inwrought experience of living may be of value.  And that
+is a thing which one cannot get in haste, neither can it be
+made to order.  Patient waiting belongs to it; and rainy days
+belong to it; and the best of it sometimes comes in the doing
+of tasks that seem not to amount to much.  So in the long run,
+I suppose, while delay and failure and interruption may keep
+a piece of work very small, yet in the end they enter into the
+quality of it and bring it a little nearer to the real thing,
+which is always more or less of a secret.
+
+But the strangest part of it all is the way in which a
+single thought, an idea, will live with a man while he works,
+and take new forms from year to year, and light up the things
+that he sees and hears, and lead his imagination by the hand
+into many wonderful and diverse regions.  It seems to me that
+there am two ways in which you may give unity to a book of
+stories.  You may stay in one place and write about different
+themes, preserving always the colour of the same locality.  Or
+you may go into different places and use as many of the colours
+and shapes of life as you can really see in the light of the same
+thought.
+
+There is such a thought in this book.  It is the idea of
+the search for inward happiness, which all men who are really
+alive are following, along what various paths, and with what
+different fortunes!  Glimpses of this idea, traces of this
+search, I thought that I could see in certain tales that were
+in my mind,--tales of times old and new, of lands near and far
+away.  So I tried to tell them, as best as I could, hoping
+that other men, being also seekers, might find some meaning in
+them.
+
+There are only little, broken chapters from the long story
+of life.  None of them is taken from other books.  Only one of
+them--the story of Winifried and the Thunder-Oak--has the
+slightest wisp of a foundation in fact or legend.  Yet I think
+they are all true.
+
+But how to find a name for such a book,--a name that will tell
+enough to show the thought and yet not too much to leave it free?
+I have borrowed a symbol from the old
+German poet and philosopher, Novalis, to stand instead of a
+name.  The Blue Flower which he used in his romance of
+Heinrich von Ofterdingen to symbolise Poetry, the object of
+his young hero's quest, I have used here to signify happiness,
+the satisfaction of the heart.
+
+Reader, will you take the book and see if it belongs to
+you?  Whether it does or not, my wish is that the Blue Flower
+may grow in the garden where you work.
+
+AVALON,
+December 1, 1902.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+I.     The Blue Flower
+II.    The Source
+III.   The Mill
+IV.    Spy Rock
+V.     Wood-Magic
+VI.    The Other Wise Man
+VII.   I Handful of Clay
+VIII.  The Lost Word
+IX.    The First Christmas-Tree
+
+
+
+
+THE  BLUE  FLOWER
+
+The parents were abed and sleeping.  The clock on the wall
+ticked loudly and lazily, as if it had time to spare.  Outside
+the rattling windows there was a restless, whispering wind.
+The room grew light, and dark, and wondrous light again, as
+the moon played hide-and-seek through the clouds.  The boy,
+wide-awake and quiet in his bed, was thinking of the Stranger
+and his stories.
+
+"It was not what he told me about the treasures," he said
+to himself, "that was not the thing which filled me with so
+strange a longing.  I am not greedy for riches.  But the Blue
+Flower is what I long for.  I can think of nothing else.
+Never have I felt so before.  It seems as if I had been
+dreaming until now--or as if I had just slept over into a new
+world.
+
+"Who cared for flowers in the old world where I used to
+live?  I never heard of anyone whose whole heart was set upon
+finding a flower.  But now I cannot even tell all that I
+feel--sometimes as happy as if I were enchanted.  But when the
+flower fades from me, when I cannot see it in my mind, then it is
+like being very thirsty and all alone.  That is what the other
+people could not understand.
+
+"Once upon a time, they say, the animals and the trees and
+the flowers used to talk to people.  It seems to me, every
+minute, as if they were just going to begin again.  When I
+look at them I can see what they want to say.  There must be
+a great many words that I do not know; if I knew more of them
+perhaps I could understand things better.  I used to love to
+dance, but now I like better to think after the music."
+
+Gradually the boy lost himself in sweet fancies, and
+suddenly he found himself again, in the charmed land of sleep.
+He wandered in far countries, rich and strange; he traversed
+wild waters with incredible swiftness; marvellous creatures
+appeared and vanished; he lived with all sorts of men, in
+battles, in whirling crowds, in lonely huts.  He was cast into
+prison.  He fell into dire distress and want.  All experiences
+seemed to be sharpened to an edge.  He felt them keenly, yet
+they did not harm him.  He died and came alive again; he loved to
+the height of passion, and then was parted forever from his
+beloved.  At last, toward morning, as the dawn was stealing
+near, his soul grew calm, and the pictures showed more clear
+and firm.
+
+It seemed as if he were walking alone through the deep
+woods.  Seldom the daylight shimmered through the green veil.
+Soon he came to a rocky gorge in the mountains.  Under the
+mossy stones in the bed of the stream, he heard the water
+secretly tinkling downward, ever downward, as he climbed
+upward.
+
+The forest grew thinner and lighter.  He came to a fair
+meadow on the slope of the mountain.  Beyond the meadow was a
+high cliff, and in the face of the cliff an opening like the
+entrance to a path.  Dark was the way, but smooth, and he
+followed easily on till he came near to a vast cavern from
+which a flood of radiance streamed to meet him.
+
+As he entered he beheld a mighty beam of light which
+sprang from the ground, shattering itself against the roof in
+countless sparks, falling and flowing all together into a
+great pool in the rock. Brighter was the light-beam than molten
+gold, but silent in its rise, and silent in its fall.  The sacred
+stillness of a shrine, a never-broken hush of joy and wonder,
+filled the cavern.  Cool was the dripping radiance that softly
+trickled down the walls, and the light that rippled from them was
+pale blue.
+
+But the pool, as the boy drew near and watched it,
+quivered and glanced with the ever-changing colours of a
+liquid opal.  He dipped his hands in it and wet his lips.  It
+seemed as if a lively breeze passed through his heart.
+
+He felt an irresistible desire to bathe in the pool.
+Slipping off his clothes he plunged in.  It was as if he
+bathed in a cloud of sunset.  A celestial rapture flowed
+through him.  The waves of the stream were like a bevy of
+nymphs taking shape around him, clinging to him with tender
+breasts, as he floated onward, lost in delight, yet keenly
+sensitive to every impression.  Swiftly the current bore him
+out of the pool, into a hollow in the cliff.  Here a dimness
+of slumber shadowed his eyes, while he felt the pressure of
+the loveliest dreams.
+
+When he awoke again, he was aware of a new fulness of light,
+purer and steadier than the first radiance. He found himself
+lying on the green turf, in the open air, beside a little
+fountain, which sparkled up and melted away in silver spray.
+Dark-blue were the rocks that rose at a little distance, veined
+with white as if strange words were written upon them.  Dark-blue
+was the sky, and cloudless.
+
+All passion had dissolved away from him; every sound was
+music; every breath was peace; the rocks were like sentinels
+protecting him; the sky was like a cup of blessing full of
+tranquil light.
+
+But what charmed him most, and drew him with resistless
+power, was a tall, clear-blue flower, growing beside the
+spring, and almost touching him with its broad, glistening
+leaves.  Round about were many other flowers, of all hues.
+Their odours mingled in a perfect chord of fragrance.  He saw
+nothing but the Blue Flower.
+
+Long and tenderly he gazed at it, with unspeakable love.
+At last he felt that he must go a little nearer to it, when
+suddenly it began to move and change.  The leaves glistened
+more brightly, and drew themselves up closely around the
+swiftly growing stalk.  The flower bent itself toward him, and
+the petals showed a blue, spreading necklace of sapphires, out of
+which the lovely face of a girl smiled softly into his eyes.
+His sweet astonishment grew with the wondrous transformation.
+
+All at once he heard his mother's voice calling him, and
+awoke in his parents' room, already flooded with the gold of
+the morning sun.
+
+From the German of Novalis.
+
+
+
+
+THE  SOURCE
+
+I
+
+In the middle of the land that is called by its inhabitants
+Koorma, and by strangers the Land of the Half-forgotten, I was
+toiling all day long through heavy sand and grass as hard as
+wire.  Suddenly, toward evening, I came upon a place where a
+gate opened in the wall of mountains, and the plain ran in
+through the gate, making a little bay of level country among
+the hills.
+
+Now this bay was not brown and hard and dry, like the
+mountains above me, neither was it covered with tawny billows
+of sand like the desert along the edge of which I had wearily
+coasted.  But the surface of it was smooth and green; and as
+the winds of twilight breathed across it they were followed by
+soft waves of verdure, with silvery turnings of the under
+sides of many leaves, like ripples on a quiet harbour.  There
+were fields of corn, filled with silken rustling, and
+vineyards with long rows of trimmed maple-trees standing
+each one like an emerald goblet wreathed with vines, and
+flower-gardens as bright as if the earth had been embroidered
+with threads of blue and scarlet and gold, and olive-orchards
+frosted over with delicate and fragrant blossoms.  Red-roofed
+cottages were scattered everywhere through the sea of
+greenery, and in the centre, like a white ship surrounded by
+a flock of little boats, rested a small, fair, shining city.
+
+I wondered greatly how this beauty had come into being on
+the border of the desert.  Passing through the fields and
+gardens and orchards, I found that they were all encircled and
+lined with channels full of running water.  I followed up one
+of the smaller channels until it came to a larger stream, and
+as I walked on beside it, still going upward, it guided me
+into the midst of the city, where I saw a sweet, merry river
+flowing through the main street, with abundance of water and
+a very pleasant sound.
+
+There were houses and shops and lofty palaces and all that
+makes a city, but the life and joy of all, and the one thing
+that I remember best, was the river.  For in the open square at
+the edge of the city there were marble pools where the children
+might bathe and play; at the corners of the streets and on the
+sides of the houses there were fountains for the drawing of
+water; at every crossing a stream was turned aside to run out to
+the vineyards; and the river was the mother of them all.
+
+There were but few people in the streets, and none of the
+older folk from whom I might ask counsel or a lodging; so I
+stood and knocked at the door of a house.  It was opened by an
+old man, who greeted me with kindness and bade me enter as his
+guest.  After much courteous entertainment, and when supper
+was ended, his friendly manner and something of singular
+attractiveness in his countenance led me to tell him of my
+strange journeyings in the land of Koorma and in other lands
+where I had been seeking the Blue Flower, and to inquire of
+him the name and the story of his city and the cause of the
+river which made it glad.
+
+"My son," he answered, "this is the city which was called
+Ablis, that is to say, Forsaken.  For long ago men lived here,
+and the river made their fields fertile, and their dwellings were
+full of plenty and peace.  But because of many evil things which
+have been half-forgotten, the river was turned aside, or else it
+was dried up at its source in the high place among the mountains,
+so that the water flowed down no more.  The channels and the
+trenches and the marble pools and the basins beside the houses
+remained, but they were empty.  So the gardens withered; the
+fields were barren; the city was desolate; and in the broken
+cisterns there was scanty water.
+
+"Then there came one from a distant country who was very
+sorrowful to see the desolation.  He told the people that it
+was vain to dig new cisterns and to keep the channels and
+trenches clean; for the water had come only from above.  The
+Source must be found again and reopened.  The river would not
+flow unless they traced it back to the spring, and visited it
+continually, and offered prayers and praises beside it without
+ceasing.  Then the spring would rise to an outpouring, and the
+water would run down plentifully to make the gardens blossom
+and the city rejoice.
+
+"So he went forth to open the fountain; but there were few
+that went with him, for he was a poor man of lowly aspect, and
+the path upward was steep and rough.  But his companions saw
+that as he climbed among the rocks, little streams of water
+gushed from the places where he trod, and pools began to
+gather in the dry river-bed.  He went more swiftly than they
+could follow him, and at length he passed out of their sight.
+A little farther on they came to the rising of the river and
+there, beside the overflowing Source, they found their leader
+lying dead."
+
+"That was a strange thing," I cried, "and very pitiful.
+Tell me how it came to pass, and what was the meaning of it."
+
+"I cannot tell the whole of the meaning," replied the old
+man, after a little pause, "for it was many years ago.  But
+this poor man had many enemies in the city, chiefly among the
+makers of cisterns, who hated him for his words.  I believe
+that they went out after him secretly and slew him.  But his
+followers came back to the city; and as they came the river
+began to run down very gently after them.  They returned to the
+Source day by day, bringing others with them; for they said that
+their leader was really alive, though the form of his life had
+changed, and that he met them in that high place while they
+remembered him and prayed and sang songs of praise.  More and
+more the people learned to go with them, and the path grew
+plainer and easier to find.  The more the Source was revisited,
+the more abundant it became, and the more it filled the river.
+All the channels and the basins were supplied with water, and men
+made new channels which were also filled.  Some of those who were
+diggers of trenches and hewers of cisterns said that it was
+their work which had wrought the change.  But the wisest and
+best among the people knew that it all came from the Source,
+and they taught that if it should ever again be forgotten and
+left unvisited the river would fail again and desolation
+return.  So every day, from the gardens and orchards and the
+streets of the city, men and women and children have gone up
+the mountain-path with singing, to rejoice beside the spring
+from which the river flows and to remember the one who opened it.
+We call it the River Carita.  And the name of the city is no more
+Ablis, but Saloma, which is Peace.  And the name of him who died
+to find the Source for us is so dear that we speak it only when
+we pray.
+
+"But there are many things yet to learn about our city,
+and some that seem dark and cast a shadow on my thoughts.
+Therefore, my son, I bid you to be my guest, for there is a
+room in my house for the stranger; and to-morrow and on the
+following days you shall see how life goes with us, and read,
+if you can, the secret of the city."
+
+That night I slept well, as one who has heard a pleasant
+tale, with the murmur of running water woven through my
+dreams; and the next day I went out early into the streets,
+for I was curious to see the manner of the visitation of the
+Source.
+
+Already the people were coming forth and turning their
+steps upward in the mountain-path beside the river.  Some of
+them went alone, swiftly and in silence; others were in groups
+of two or three, talking as they went; others were in larger
+companies, and they sang together very gladly and sweetly.
+But there were many people who remained working
+in their fields or in their houses, or stayed talking on the
+corners of the streets.  Therefore I joined myself to one of
+the men who walked alone and asked him why all the people did
+not go to the spring, since the life of the city depended upon
+it, and whether, perhaps, the way was so long and so hard that
+none but the strongest could undertake it.
+
+"Sir," said he, "I perceive that you are a stranger, for
+the way is both short and easy, so that the children are those
+who most delight in it; and if a man were in great haste he
+could go there and return in a little while.  But of those who
+remain behind, some are the busy ones who must visit the
+fountain at another hour; and some are the careless ones who
+take life as it comes and never think where it comes from; and
+some are those who do not believe in the Source and will hear
+nothing about it."
+
+"How can that be?" I said; "do they not drink of the
+water, and does it not make their fields green?"
+
+"It is true," he said; "but these men have made wells
+close by the river, and they say that these wells fill
+themselves; and they have digged channels through their
+gardens, and they say that these channels would always have
+water in them even though the spring should cease to flow.
+Some of them say also that it is an unworthy thing to drink
+from a source that another has opened, and that every man
+ought to find a new spring for himself; so they spend the hour
+of the visitation, and many more, in searching among the
+mountains where there is no path."
+
+While I wondered over this, we kept on in the way.  There
+was already quite a throng of people all going in the same
+direction.  And when we came to the Source, which flowed from
+an opening in a cliff, almost like a chamber hewn in the rock,
+and made a little garden of wild-flowers around it as it fell,
+I heard the music of many voices and the beautiful name of him
+who had given his life to find the forgotten spring.
+
+Then we came down again, singly and in groups, following
+the river.  It seemed already more bright
+and full and joyous.  As we passed through the gardens I saw
+men turning aside to make new channels through fields which
+were not yet cultivated.  And as we entered the city I saw the
+wheels of the mills that ground the corn whirling more
+swiftly, and the maidens coming with their pitchers to draw
+from the brimming basins at the street corners, and the
+children laughing because the marble pools were so full that
+they could swim in them.  There was plenty of water
+everywhere.
+
+For many weeks I stayed in the city of Saloma, going up
+the mountain-path in the morning, and returning to the day of
+work and the evening of play.  I found friends among the
+people of the city, not only among those who walked together
+in the visitation of the Source, but also among those who
+remained behind, for many of them were kind and generous,
+faithful in their work, and very pleasant in their
+conversation.
+
+Yet there was something lacking between me and them.  I
+came not onto firm ground with them, for all their warmth of
+welcome and their pleasant ways.  They were by nature of the
+race of those who dwell ever in one place; even in their thoughts
+they went not far abroad.  But I have been ever a seeker, and the
+world seems to me made to wander in, rather than to abide in one
+corner of it and never see what the rest has in store.  Now
+this was what the people of Saloma could not understand, and
+for this reason I seemed to them always a stranger, an alien,
+a guest.  The fixed circle of their life was like an invisible
+wall, and with the best will in the world they knew not how to
+draw me within it.  And I, for my part, while I understood
+well their wish to rest and be at peace, could not quite
+understand the way in which it found fulfilment, nor share the
+repose which seemed to them all-sufficient and lasting.  In
+their gardens I saw ever the same flowers, and none perfect.
+At their feasts I tasted ever the same food, and none that
+made an end of hunger.  In their talk I heard ever the same
+words, and none that went to the depth of thought.  The very
+quietude and fixity of their being perplexed and estranged me.
+What to them was permanent, to me was transient.  They were
+inhabitants:  I was a visitor.
+
+The one in all the city of Saloma with whom was most at home
+was Ruamie, the little granddaughter of the old man with whom
+I lodged.  To her, a girl of thirteen, fair-eyed and full of
+joy, the wonted round of life had not yet grown to be a matter of
+course.  She was quick to feel and answer the newness of every
+day that dawned.  When a strange bird flew down from the
+mountains into the gardens, it was she that saw it and wondered
+at it.  It was she that walked with me most often in the path to
+the Source.  She went out with me to the fields in the morning
+and almost every day found wild-flowers that were new to me.
+At sunset she drew me to happy games of youths and children,
+where her fancy was never tired of weaving new turns to the
+familiar pastimes.  In the dusk she would sit beside me in an
+arbour of honeysuckle and question me about the flower that I
+was seeking,--for to her I had often spoken of my quest.
+
+"Is it blue," she asked, "as blue as the speedwell that
+grows beside the brook?"
+
+"Yes, it is as much bluer than the speedwell, as the river
+is deeper than the brook."
+
+"And is it she asked, "as bright as the drops of dew in
+the moonlight?"
+
+"Yes, it is brighter than the drops of dew as the sun is
+clearer than the moon."
+
+"And is it sweet," she asked, "as sweet as the honeysuckle
+when the day is warm and still?"
+
+"Yes, it is as much sweeter than the honeysuckle as the
+night is stiller and more sweet than the day."
+
+"Tell me again," she asked, "when you saw it, and why do
+you seek it?"
+
+"Once I saw it when I was a boy, no older than you.  Our
+house looked out toward the hills, far away and at sunset
+softly blue against the eastern sky.  It was the day that we
+laid my father to rest in the little burying-ground among the
+cedar-trees.  There was his father's grave, and his father's
+father's grave, and there were the places for my mother and
+for my two brothers and for my sister and for me.  I counted
+them all, when the others had gone back to the house.  I paced
+up and down alone, measuring the ground; there was
+room enough for us all; and in the western corner where a
+young elm-tree was growing,--that would be my place, for I was
+the youngest.  How tall would the elm-tree be then?  I had
+never thought of it before.  It seemed to make me sad and
+restless,--wishing for something, I knew not what,--longing to
+see the world and to taste happiness before I must sleep
+beneath the elm-tree.  Then I looked off to the blue hills,
+shadowy and dream-like, the boundary of the little world that
+I knew.  And there, in a cleft between the highest peaks I saw
+a wondrous thing: for the place at which I was looking seemed
+to come nearer and nearer to me; I saw the trees, the rocks,
+the ferns, the white road winding before me; the enfolding
+hills unclosed like leaves, and in the heart of them I saw a
+Blue Flower, so bright, so beautiful that my eyes filled with
+tears as I looked.  It was like a face that smiled at me and
+promised something.  Then I heard a call, like the note of a
+trumpet very far away, calling me to come.  And as I listened
+the flower faded into the dimness of the hills."
+
+"Did you follow it," asked Ruamie, "and did you go away from
+your home?  How could you do that?"
+
+"Yes, Ruamie, when the time came, as soon as I was free,
+I set out on my journey, and my home is at the end of the
+journey, wherever that may be."
+
+"And the flower," she asked, "you have seen it again?"
+
+"Once again, when I was a youth, I saw it.  After a long
+voyage upon stormy seas, we came into a quiet haven, and there
+the friend who was dearest to me, said good-by, for he was
+going back to his own country and his father's house, but I
+was still journeying onward.  So as I stood at the bow of the
+ship, sailing out into the wide blue water, far away among the
+sparkling waves I saw a little island, with shores of silver
+sand and slopes of fairest green, and in the middle of the
+island the Blue Flower was growing, wondrous tall and
+dazzling, brighter than the sapphire of the sea.  Then the
+call of the distant trumpet came floating across the water,
+and while it was sounding a shimmer of fog swept over the
+island and I could see it no more."
+
+"Was it a real island," asked Ruamie.  "Did you ever find
+it?"
+
+"Never; for the ship sailed another way.  But once again
+I saw the flower; three days before I came to Saloma.  It was
+on the edge of the desert, close under the shadow of the great
+mountains.  A vast loneliness was round about me; it seemed as
+if I was the only soul living upon earth; and I longed for the
+dwellings of men.  Then as I woke in the morning I looked up
+at the dark ridge of the mountains, and there against the
+brightening blue of the sky I saw the Blue Flower standing up
+clear and brave.  It shone so deep and pure that the sky grew
+pale around it.  Then the echo of the far-off trumpet drifted
+down the hillsides, and the sun rose, and the flower was
+melted away in light.  So I rose and travelled on till I came
+to Saloma."
+
+"And now," said the child, "you are at home with us.  Will
+you not stay for a long, long while?  You may find the Blue
+Flower here.  There are many kinds in the fields.  I find new
+ones every day."
+
+"I will stay while I can, Ruamie," I answered,
+taking her hand in mine as we walked back to the house at
+nightfall, "but how long that may be I cannot tell.  For with
+you I am at home, yet the place where I must abide is the
+place where the flower grows, and when the call comes I must
+follow it."
+
+"Yes," said she, looking at me half in doubt, "I think I
+understand.  But wherever you go I hope you will find the
+flower at last."
+
+In truth there were many things in the city that troubled
+me and made me restless, in spite of the sweet comfort of
+Ruamie's friendship and the tranquillity of the life in
+Saloma.  I came to see the meaning of what the old man had
+said about the shadow that rested upon his thoughts.  For
+there were some in the city who said that the hours of
+visitation were wasted, and that it would be better to employ
+the time in gathering water from the pools that formed among
+the mountains in the rainy season, or in sinking wells along
+the edge of the desert.  Others had newly come to the city and
+were teaching that there was no Source, and that the story of
+the poor man who reopened it was a fable, and that the hours of
+visitation were only hours of dreaming.  There were many who
+believed them, and many more who said that it did not matter
+whether their words were true or false, and that it was of small
+moment whether men went to visit the fountain or not, provided
+only that they worked in the gardens and kept the marble pools
+and basins in repair and opened new canals through the fields,
+since there always had been and always would be plenty of water.
+
+As I listened to these sayings it seemed to me doubtful
+what the end of the city would be.  And while this doubt was
+yet heavy upon me, I heard at midnight the faint calling of
+the trumpet, sounding along the crest of the mountains: and as
+I went out to look where it came from, I saw, through the
+glimmering veil of the milky way, the shape of a blossom of
+celestial blue, whose petals seemed to fall and fade as I
+looked.  So I bade farewell to the old man in whose house I
+had learned to love the hour of visitation and the Source and
+the name of him who opened it; and I kissed the hands and the
+brow of the little Ruamie who had entered my heart, and went
+forth sadly from the land of Koorma into other lands, to look for
+the Blue Flower.
+
+
+
+II
+
+In the Book of the Voyage without a Harbour is written the
+record of the ten years which passed before I came back again
+to the city of Saloma.
+
+It was not easy to find, for I came down through the
+mountains, and as I looked from a distant shoulder of the
+hills for the little bay full of greenery, it was not to be
+seen.  There was only a white town shining far off against the
+brown cliffs, like a flake of mica in a cleft of the rocks.
+Then I slept that night, full of care, on the hillside, and
+rising before dawn, came down in the early morning toward the
+city.
+
+The fields were lying parched and yellow under the
+sunrise, and great cracks gaped in the earth as if it were
+thirsty.  The trenches and channels were still there, but
+there was little water in them; and through the ragged fringes of
+the rusty vineyards I heard, instead of the cheerful songs of the
+vintagers, the creaking of dry windlasses and the hoarse throb of
+the pumps in sunken wells.  The girdle of gardens had shrunk like
+a wreath of withered flowers, and all the bright embroidery, of
+earth was faded to a sullen gray.
+
+At the foot of an ancient, leafless olive-tree I saw a
+group of people kneeling around a newly opened well.  I asked
+a man who was digging beside the dusty path what this might
+mean.  He straightened himself for a moment, wiping the sweat
+from his brow, and answered, sullenly, "They are worshipping
+the windlass: how else should they bring water into their
+fields?"  Then he fell furiously to digging again, and I
+passed on into the city.
+
+There was no sound of murmuring streams in the streets,
+and down the main bed of the river I saw only a few shallow
+puddles, joined together by a slowly trickling thread.  Even
+these were fenced and guarded so that no one might come near
+to them, and there were men going among to the houses with
+water-skins on their shoulders, crying "Water! Water to sell!"
+
+The marble pools in the open square were empty; and at one
+of them there was a crowd looking at a man who was being
+beaten with rods.  A bystander told me that the officers of
+the city had ordered him to be punished because he had said
+that the pools and the basins and the channels were not all of
+pure marble, without a flaw.  "For this," said he, "is the
+evil doctrine that has come in to take away the glory of our
+city, and because of this the water has failed."
+
+"It is a sad change," I answered, "and doubtless they who
+have caused it should suffer more than others.  But can you
+tell me at what hour and in what manner the people now observe
+the visitation of the Source?"
+
+He looked curiously at me and replied:  "I do not
+understand you.  There is no visitation save the inspection of
+the cisterns and the wells which the syndics of the city ,
+whom we call the Princes of Water, carry on daily at every
+hour.  What source is this of which you speak?"
+
+So I went on through the street, where all the passers-by
+seemed in haste and wore weary countenances, until I came to
+the house where I had lodged.  There was a little basin here
+against the wall, with a slender stream of water still flowing
+into it, and a group of children standing near with their
+pitchers, waiting to fill them.
+
+The door of the house was closed; but when I knocked, it
+opened and a maiden came forth.  She was pale and sad in
+aspect, but a light of joy dawned over the snow of her face,
+and I knew by the youth in her eyes that it was Ruamie, who
+had walked with me through the vineyards long ago.
+
+With both hands she welcomed me, saying:  "You are
+expected.  Have you found the Blue Flower?"
+
+"Not yet," I answered, "but something drew me back to you.
+I would know how it fares with you, and I would go again with
+you to visit the Source."
+
+At this her face grew bright, but with a tender, half-sad
+brightness.
+
+"The Source!" she said.  "Ah, yes, I was sure that you would
+remember it.  And this is the hour of the visitation.  Come, let
+us go up together."
+
+Then we went alone through the busy and weary multitudes
+of the city toward the mountain-path.  So forsaken was it and
+so covered with stones and overgrown with wire-grass that I
+could not have found it but for her guidance.  But as we
+climbed upward the air grew clearer, and more sweet, and I
+questioned her of the things that had come to pass in my
+absence.  I asked her of the kind old man who had taken me
+into his house when I came as a stranger.  She said, softly,
+"He is dead."
+
+"And where are the men and women, his friends, who once
+thronged this pathway?  Are they also dead?"
+
+"They also are dead."
+
+"But where are the younger ones who sang here so gladly as
+they marched upward?  Surely they, are living?"
+
+"They have forgotten."
+
+"Where then are the young children whose fathers taught
+them this way and bade them remember it.  Have they forgotten?"
+
+"They have forgotten."
+
+"But why have you alone kept the hour of visitation?  Why
+have you not turned back with your companions?  How have you
+walked here solitary day after day?"
+
+She turned to me with a divine regard, and laying her hand
+gently over mine, she said, "I remember always."
+
+Then I saw a few wild-flowers blossoming beside the path.
+
+We drew near to the Source, and entered into the chamber
+hewn in the rock.  She kneeled and bent over the sleeping
+spring.  She murmured again and again the beautiful name of
+him who had died to find it.  Her voice repeated the song that
+had once been sung by many voices.  Her tears fell softly on
+the spring, and as they fell it seemed as if the water stirred
+and rose to meet her bending face, and when she looked up it
+was as if the dew had fallen on a flower.
+
+We came very slowly down the path along the river Carita,
+and rested often beside it, for surely, I thought, the rising
+of the spring had sent a`little more water down its dry bed, and
+some of it must flow on to the city.  So it was almost evening
+when we came back to the streets.  The people were hurrying to
+and fro, for it was the day before the choosing of new Princes of
+Water; and there was much dispute about them, and strife over the
+building of new cisterns to hold the stores of rain which might
+fall in the next year.  But none cared for us, as we passed by
+like strangers, and we came unnoticed to the door of the house.
+
+Then a great desire of love and sorrow moved within my
+breast, and I said to Ruamie, "You are the life of the city,
+for you alone remember.  Its secret is in your heart, and your
+faithful keeping of the hours of visitation is the only cause
+why the river has not failed altogether and the curse of
+desolation returned.  Let me stay with you, sweet soul of all
+the flowers that are dead, and I will cherish you forever.
+Together we will visit the Source every day; and we shall turn
+the people, by our lives and by our words, back to that which
+they have forgotten."
+
+There was a smile in her eyes so deep that its meaning cannot
+be spoken, as she lifted my hand to her lips, and answered,
+
+"Not so, dear friend, for who can tell whether life or
+death will come to the city, whether its people will remember
+at last, or whether they will forget forever.  Its lot is
+mine, for I was born here, and here my life is rooted.  But
+you are of the Children of the Unquiet Heart, whose feet can
+never rest until their task of errors is completed and their
+lesson of wandering is learned to the end.  Until then go
+forth, and do not forget that I shall remember always."
+
+Behind her quiet voice I heard the silent call that
+compels us, and passed down the street as one walking in a
+dream.  At the place where the path turned aside to the ruined
+vineyards I looked back.  The low sunset made a circle of
+golden rays about her head and a strange twin blossom of
+celestial blue seemed to shine in her tranquil eyes.
+
+Since then I know not what has befallen the city, nor
+whether it is still called Saloma, or once more Ablis, which
+is Forsaken.  But if it lives at all, I know that it is
+because there is one there who remembers, and keeps the hour of
+visitation, and treads the steep way, and breathes the beautiful
+name over the spring, and sometimes I think that long before my
+seeking and journeying brings me to the Blue Flower, it will
+bloom for Ruamie beside the still waters of the Source.
+
+
+
+THE  MILL
+
+I
+
+How the Young Martimor would Become a Knight
+and Assay Great Adventure
+
+When Sir Lancelot was come out of the Red Launds where he did
+many deeds of arms, he rested him long with play and game in
+a land that is, called Beausejour.  For in that land there are
+neither castles nor enchantments, but many fair manors, with
+orchards and fields lying about them; and the people that
+dwell therein have good cheer continually.
+
+Of the wars and of the strange quests that are ever afoot
+in Northgalis and Lionesse and the Out Isles, they hear
+nothing; but are well content to till the earth in summer when
+the world is green; and when the autumn changes green to gold
+they pitch pavilions among the fruit-trees and the vineyards,
+making merry with song and dance while they gather harvest of
+corn and apples and grapes; and in the white days of winter for
+pastime they have music of divers instruments and the playing of
+pleasant games.
+
+But of the telling of tales in that land there is little
+skill, neither do men rightly understand the singing of
+ballads and romaunts.  For one year there is like another, and
+so their life runs away, and they leave the world to God.
+
+Then Sir Lancelot had great ease for a time in this quiet
+land, and often he lay under the apple-trees sleeping, and
+again he taught the people new games and feats of skill.  For
+into what place soever he came he was welcome, though the
+inhabitants knew not his name and great renown, nor the famous
+deeds that he had done in tournament and battle.  Yet for his
+own sake, because he was a very gentle knight, fair-spoken and
+full of courtesy and a good man of his hands withal, they
+doted upon him.
+
+So he began to tell them tales of many things that have
+been done in the world by clean knights and faithful squires.
+Of the wars against the Saracens and misbelieving men; of the
+discomfiture of the Romans when they came to take truage of King
+Arthur; of the strife with the eleven kings and the battle that
+was ended but never finished; of the Questing Beast and how King
+Pellinore and then Sir Palamides followed it; of Balin that
+gave the dolourous stroke unto King Pellam; of Sir Tor that
+sought the lady's brachet and by the way overcame two knights
+and smote off the head of the outrageous caitiff Abelleus,--of
+these and many like matters of pith and moment, full of blood
+and honour, told Sir Lancelot, and the people had marvel of
+his words.
+
+Now, among them that listened to him gladly, was a youth
+of good blood and breeding, very fair in the face and of great
+stature.  His name was Martimor.  Strong of arm was he, and
+his neck was like a pillar.  His legs were as tough as beams
+of ash-wood, and in his heart was the hunger of noble tatches
+and deeds.  So when he heard of Sir Lancelot these redoubtable
+histories he was taken with desire to assay his strength.  And
+he besought the knight that they might joust together.
+
+But in the land of Beausejour there were no arms of war save
+such as Sir Lancelot had brought with him.  Wherefore they made
+shift to fashion a harness out of kitchen gear, with a brazen
+platter for a breast-plate, and the cover of the greatest of all
+kettles for a shield, and for a helmet a round pot of iron,
+whereof the handle stuck down at Martimor's back like a tail.
+And for spear he got him a stout young fir-tree, the point
+hardened in the fire, and Sir Lancelot lent to him the sword that
+he had taken from the false knight that distressed all ladies.
+
+Thus was Martimor accoutred for the jousting, and when he
+had climbed upon his horse, there arose much laughter and
+mockage. Sir Lancelot laughed a little, though he was
+ever a grave man, and said, "Now must we call this knight, La
+Queue de Fer, by reason of the tail at his back."
+
+But Martimor was half merry and half wroth, and crying
+"'Ware!" he dressed his spear beneath his arm.  Right so he
+rushed upon Sir Lancelot, and so marvellously did his harness
+jangle and smite together as he came, that the horse of Sir
+Lancelot was frighted and turned aside.  Thus the point of
+the fir-tree caught him upon the shoulder and came near to
+unhorse him.  Then Martimor drew rein and shouted:  "Ha! ha!
+has Iron-Tail done well?"
+
+"Nobly hast thou done," said Lancelot, laughing, the while
+he amended his horse, "but let not the first stroke turn thy
+head, else will the tail of thy helmet hang down afore thee
+and mar the second stroke!"
+
+So he kept his horse in hand and guided him warily, making
+feint now on this side and now on that, until he was aware
+that the youth grew hot with the joy of fighting and sought to
+deal with him roughly and bigly.  Then he cast aside his spear
+and drew sword, and as Martimor walloped toward him, he
+lightly swerved, and with one stroke cut in twain the young
+fir-tree, so that not above an ell was left in the youth's
+hand.
+
+Then was the youth full of fire, and he also drew sword
+and made at Sir Lancelot, lashing heavily as, he would hew
+down a tree.  But the knight guarded and warded without
+distress, until the other breathed hard and was blind with
+sweat.  Then Lancelot smote him with a mighty stroke upon the
+head, but with the flat of his sword, so that Martimor's breath
+went clean out of him, and the blood gushed from his mouth, and
+he fell over the croup of his horse as he were a man slain.
+
+Then Sir Lancelot laughed no more, but grieved, for he
+weened that he had harmed the youth, and he liked him passing
+well.  So he ran to him and held him in his arms fast and
+tended him.  And when the breath came again into his body,
+Lancelot was glad, and desired the youth that he would pardon
+him of that unequal joust and of the stroke too heavy.
+
+At this Martimor sat up and took him by the hand.
+"Pardon?" he cried.  "No talk of pardon between thee and me,
+my Lord Lancelot!  Thou hast given me such joy of my life as
+never I had before.  It made me glad to feel thy might.  And
+now am I delibred and fully concluded that I also will become
+a knight, and thou shalt instruct me how and in what land I
+shall seek great adventure."
+
+
+
+II
+
+How Martimor was Instructed of Sir Lancelot to
+Set Forth Upon His Quest
+
+So right gladly did Sir Lancelot advise the young Martimor of
+all the customs and vows of the noble order of knighthood, and
+shew how he might become a well-ruled and a hardy knight to
+win good fame and renown.  For between these two from the
+first there was close brotherhood and affiance, though in
+years and in breeding they were so far apart, and this
+brotherhood endured until the last, as ye shall see, nor was
+the affiance broken.
+
+Thus willingly learned the youth of his master; being
+instructed first in the art and craft to manage and guide a
+horse; then to handle the shield and the spear, and both to
+cut and to foin with the sword; and last of all in the laws of
+honour and courtesy, whereby a man may rule his own spirit and
+so obtain grace of God, praise of princes, and favour of fair
+ladies.
+
+"For this I tell thee," said Sir Lancelot, as they sat
+together under an apple-tree, "there be many good fighters
+that are false knights, breaking faith with man and woman,
+envious, lustful and orgulous.  In them courage is cruel, and
+love is lecherous.  And in the end they shall come to shame
+and shall be overcome by a simpler knight than themselves; or
+else they shall win sorrow and despite by the slaying of
+better men than they be; and with their paramours they shall
+have weary dole and distress of soul and body; for he that is
+false, to him shall none be true, but all things shall be
+unhappy about him."
+
+"But how and if a man be true in heart," said Martimor,
+"yet by some enchantment, or evil fortune, he may do an ill
+deed and one that is harmful to his lord or to his friend,
+even as Balin and his brother Balan slew each the other
+unknown?"
+
+"That is in God's hand," said Lancelot.  "Doubtless he may
+pardon and assoil all such in their unhappiness, forasmuch as
+the secret of it is with him."
+
+"And how if a man be entangled in love," said Martimor, "Yet
+his love be set upon one that is not lawful for him to have?  For
+either he must deny his love, which is great shame, or else he
+must do dishonour to the law.  What shall he then do?"
+
+At this Sir Lancelot was silent, and heaved a great sigh.
+Then said he:  "Rest assured that this man shall have sorrow
+enough.  For out of this net he may not escape, save by
+falsehood on the one side, or by treachery on the other.
+Therefore say I that he shall not assay to escape, but rather
+right manfully to bear the bonds with which he is bound, and
+to do honour to them."'
+
+"How may this be?" said Martimor.
+
+"By clean living," said Lancelot, "and by keeping himself
+from wine which heats the blood, and by quests and labours and
+combats wherein the fierceness of the heart is spent and
+overcome, and by inward joy in the pure worship of his lady,
+whereat none may take offence."
+
+"How then shall a man bear himself in the following of a
+quest?" said Martimor.  "Shall he set his face ever forward,
+and turn not to right, or left, whatever meet him by the way?
+Or shall he hold himself ready to answer them that call to him,
+and to succour them that ask help of him, and to turn aside from
+his path for rescue and good service?"
+
+"Enough of questions!" said Lancelot.  "These are things
+whereto each man must answer for himself, and not for other.
+True knight taketh counsel of the time.  Every day his own
+deed.  And the winning of a quest is not by haste, nor by hap,
+but what needs to be done, that must ye do while ye are in the
+way."
+
+Then because of the love that Sir Lancelot bore to
+Martimor he gave him his own armour, and the good spear
+wherewith he had unhorsed many knights, and the sword that he
+took from Sir Peris de Forest Savage that distressed all
+ladies, but his shield he gave not, for therein his own
+remembrance was blazoned.  So he let make a new shield, and in
+the corner was painted a Blue Flower that was nameless, and this
+he gave to Martimor, saying:  "Thou shalt name it when thou
+hast found it, and so shalt thou have both crest and motto."
+
+"Now am I well beseen," cried Martimor, "and my adventures are
+before me.  Which way shall I ride, and where shall I find them?"
+
+"Ride into the wind," said Lancelot, "and what chance
+soever it blows thee, thereby do thy best, as it were the
+first and the last.  Take not thy hand from it until it be
+fulfilled.  So shalt thou most quickly and worthily achieve
+knighthood."
+
+Then they embraced like brothers; and each bade other keep
+him well; and Sir Lancelot in leather jerkin, with naked head,
+but with his shield and sword, rode to the south toward
+Camelot; and Martimor rode into the wind, westward, over the
+hill.
+
+
+
+III
+
+How Martimor Came to the Mill a
+Stayed in a Delay
+
+So by wildsome ways in strange countries and through many
+waters and valleys rode Martimor forty days, but adventure met
+him none, blow the wind never so fierce or fickle.  Neither
+dragons, nor giants, nor false knights, nor distressed ladies,
+nor fays, nor kings imprisoned could he find.
+
+"These are ill times for adventure," said he, "the world
+is full of meat and sleepy.  Now must I ride farther afield
+and undertake some ancient, famous quest wherein other knights
+have failed and fallen.  Either I shall follow the Questing
+Beast with Sir Palamides, or I shall find Merlin at the great
+stone whereunder the Lady of the Lake enchanted him and
+deliver him from that enchantment, or I shall assay the
+cleansing of the Forest Perilous, or I shall win the favour of
+La Belle Dame Sans Merci, or mayhap I shall adventure the
+quest of the Sangreal.  One or other of these will I achieve,
+or bleed the best blood of my body."  Thus pondering and
+dreaming he came by the road down a gentle hill with close
+woods on either hand; and so into a valley with a swift river
+flowing through it; and on the river a Mill.
+
+So white it stood among the trees, and so merrily whirred
+the wheel as the water turned it, and so bright blossomed the
+flowers in the garden, that Martimor had joy of the sight, for
+it minded him of his own country.  "But here is no adventure,"
+thought he, and made to ride by.
+
+Even then came a young maid suddenly through the garden
+crying and wringing her hands.  And when she saw him she cried
+him help.  At this Martimor alighted quickly and ran into the
+garden, where the young maid soon led him to the millpond,
+which was great and deep, and made him understand that her
+little hound was swept away by the water and was near to
+perishing.
+
+There saw he a red and white brachet, caught by the swift
+stream that ran into the race, fast swimming as ever he could
+swim, yet by no means able to escape.  Then Martimor stripped
+off his harness and leaped into the water and did marvellously
+to rescue the little hound.  But the fierce river dragged his
+legs, and buffeted him, and hurtled at him, and drew him down,
+as it were an enemy wrestling with him, so that he had much
+ado to come where the brachet was, and more to win back again,
+with the brachet in his arm, to the dry land.
+
+Which when he had done he was clean for-spent and fell
+upon the ground as a dead man.  At this the young maid wept
+yet more bitterly than she had wept for her hound, and cried
+aloud, "Alas, if so goodly a man should spend his life for my
+little brachet!"  So she took his head upon her knee and
+cherished him and beat the palms of his hands, and the hound
+licked his face.  And when Martimor opened his eyes he saw the
+face of the maid that it was fair as any flower.
+
+Then was she shamed, and put him gently from her knee, and
+began to thank him and to ask with what she might reward him
+for the saving of the brachet.
+
+"A night's lodging and a day's cheer," quoth Martimor.
+
+"As long as thee liketh," said she, "for my father, the
+miller, will return ere sundown, and right gladly will he have
+a guest so brave."
+
+"Longer might I like," said he, "but longer may I not
+stay, for I ride in a quest and seek great adventures to
+become a knight."
+
+So they bestowed the horse in the stable, and went into
+the Mill; and when the miller was come home they had such good
+cheer with eating of venison and pan-cakes, and drinking of
+hydromel, and singing of pleasant ballads, that Martimor clean
+forgot he was in a delay.  And going to his bed in a fair
+garret he dreamed of the Maid of the Mill, whose name was
+Lirette.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+How the Mill was in Danger and the Delay Endured
+
+
+In the morning Martimor lay late and thought large thoughts of
+his quest, and whither it might lead him, and to what honour
+it should bring him.  As he dreamed thus, suddenly he heard in
+the hall below a trampling of feet and a shouting, with the
+voice of Lirette crying and shrieking.  With that he sprang
+out of his bed, and caught up his sword and dagger, leaping
+lightly and fiercely down the stair.
+
+There he saw three foul churls, whereof two strove with
+the miller, beating him with great clubs, while the third
+would master the Maid and drag her away to do her shame, but
+she fought shrewdly.  Then Martimor rushed upon the churls,
+shouting for joy, and there was a great medley of  breaking
+chairs and tables and cursing and smiting, and with his sword he
+gave horrible strokes.
+
+One of the knaves that fought with the miller, he smote
+upon the shoulder and clave him to the navel.  And at the
+other he foined fiercely so that the point of the sword went
+through his back and stuck fast in the wall.  But the third
+knave, that was the biggest and the blackest, and strove to
+bear away the Maid, left bold of her, and leaped upon Martimor
+and caught him by the middle and crushed him so that his ribs
+cracked.
+
+Thus they weltered and wrung together, and now one of them
+was above and now the other; and ever as they wallowed
+Martimor smote him with his dagger, but there came forth no
+blood, only water.
+
+Then the black churl broke away from him and ran out at
+the door of the mill, and Martimor after.  So they ran through
+the garden to the river, and there the churl sprang into the
+water, and swept away raging and foaming.  And as he went he
+shouted, "Yet will I put thee to the worse, and mar the Mill,
+and have the Maid!"'
+
+Then Martimor cried, "Never while I live shalt
+thou mar the Mill or have the Maid, thou foul, black,
+misbegotten churl!" So he returned to the Mill, and there the
+damsel Lirette made him to understand that these three churls
+were long time enemies of the Mill, and sought ever to destroy
+it and to do despite to her and her father.  One of them was
+Ignis, and another was Ventus, and these were the twain that
+he had smitten.  But the third, that fled down the river (and
+he was ever the fiercest and the most outrageous), his name
+was Flumen, for he dwelt in the caves of the stream, and was
+the master of it before the Mill was built.
+
+"And now," wept the Maid, "he must have had his will with
+me and with the Mill, but for God's mercy, thanked be our Lord
+Jesus!"
+
+"Thank me too," said Mlartimor.
+
+"So I do," said Lirette, and she kissed him.  "Yet am I
+heavy at heart and fearful, for my father is sorely mishandled
+and his arm is broken, so that he cannot tend the Mill nor
+guard it.  And Flumen is escaped; surely he will harm us
+again.  Now I know not, where I shall look for help."
+
+"Why not here?" said Martimor.
+
+Then Lirette looked him in the face, smiling a little
+sorrily.  "But thou ridest in a quest," quoth she, "thou mayst
+not stay from thy adventures"
+
+"A month," said he.
+
+"Till my father be well?" said she.
+
+"A month," said he.
+
+"Till thou hast put Flumen to the worse?" said she.
+
+"Right willingly would I have to do with that base,
+slippery knave again" said he, "but more than a month I may
+not stay, for my quest calls me and I must win worship of men
+or ever I become a knight."
+
+So they bound up the miller's wounds and set the Mill in
+order.  But Martimor had much to do to learn the working of
+the Mill; and they were busied with the grinding of wheat and
+rye and barley and divers kinds of grain; and the millers
+hurts were mended every day; and at night there was merry rest
+and good cheer; and Martimor talked with the Maid of the great
+adventure that he must find; and thus the delay endured in
+pleasant wise.
+
+
+
+THE  MILL
+
+V
+
+Yet More of the Mill, and of the Same Delay, also of the Maid
+
+Now at the end of the third month, which was November,
+Martimor made Lirette to understand that it was high time he
+should ride farther to follow his quest.  For the miller was
+now recovered, and it was long that they had heard and seen
+naught of Flumen, and doubtless that black knave was well
+routed and dismayed that he would not come again.  Lirette
+prayed him and desired him that he would tarry yet one week.
+But Martimor said, No! for his adventures were before him, and
+that he could not be happy save in the doing of great deeds
+and the winning of knightly fame.  Then he showed her the Blue
+Flower in his shield that was nameless, and told her how Sir
+Lancelot had said that he must find it, then should he name it
+and have both crest and motto.
+
+"Does it grow in my garden?" said Lirette.
+
+"I have not seen it," said he, "and now the flowers are
+all faded."
+
+"Perhaps in the month of May?" said she.
+
+"In that month I will come again," said he, "for by that
+time it may fortune that I shall achieve my quest, but now
+forth must I fare."
+
+So there was sad cheer in the Mill that day, and at night
+there came a fierce storm with howling wind and plumping rain,
+and Martimor slept ill.  About the break of day he was wakened
+by a great roaring and pounding; then he looked out of window,
+and saw the river in flood, with black waves spuming and
+raving, like wood beasts, and driving before them great logs
+and broken trees.  Thus the river hurled and hammered at the
+mill-dam so that it trembled, and the logs leaped as they
+would spring over it, and the voice of Flumen shouted hoarsely
+and hungrily, "Yet will I mar the Mill and have the Maid!"
+
+Then Martimor ran with the miller out upon the dam, and
+they laboured at the gates that held the river back, and
+thrust away the logs that were heaped over them, and cut with
+axes, and fought with the river.  So at last two of the gates
+were lifted and one was broken, and the flood ran down
+ramping and roaring in great raundon, and as it ran the black
+face of Flumen sprang above it, crying, "Yet will I mar both
+Mill and Maid."
+
+"That shalt thou never do," cried Martimor, "by foul or
+fair, while the life beats in my body."
+
+So he came back with the miller into the Mill, and there
+was meat ready for them and they ate strongly and with good
+heart.  "Now," said the miller, "must I mend the gate.  But
+how it may be done, I know not, for surely this will be great
+travail for a man alone."
+
+"Why alone?" said Martimor.
+
+"Thou wilt stay, then?" said Lirette.
+
+"Yea," said he.
+
+"For another month?" said she.
+
+"Till the gate be mended," said he.
+
+But when the gate was mended there came another flood and
+brake the second gate.  And when that was mended there came
+another flood and brake the third gate.  So when all three
+were mended firm and fast, being bound with iron, still the
+grimly river hurled over the dam, and the voice of Flumen
+muttered in the dark of winter nights, "Yet will I
+mar--mar--mar--yet will I mar Mill and Maid."
+
+"Oho!" said Martimor, "this is a durable and dogged knave.
+Art thou feared of him Lirette?"
+
+"Not so," said she, "for thou art stronger.  But fear have
+I of the day when thou ridest forth in thy quest."
+
+"Well, as to that," said he, "when I have overcome this
+false devil Flumen, then will we consider and appoint that
+day."
+
+So the delay continued, and Martimor was both busy and
+happy at the Mill, for he liked and loved this damsel well,
+and was fain of her company.  Moreover the strife with Flumen
+was great joy to him.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+How the Month of May came to the Mill, and the Delay was Made Longer
+
+Now when the month of May came to the Mill it brought a plenty
+of sweet flowers, and Lirette wrought in the garden.  With
+her, when the day was spent and the sun rested upon the edge
+of the hill, went Martimor, and she showed him all her flowers
+that were blue.  But none of them was like the flower on his
+shield.
+
+"Is it this?" she cried, giving him a violet.  "Too dark,"
+said he.
+
+"Then here it is," she said, plucking a posy of
+forget-me-not.
+
+"Too light," said he.
+
+"Surely this is it," and she brought him a spray of
+blue-bells.
+
+"Too slender," said he, "and well I ween that I may not
+find that flower, till I ride farther in my quest and achieve
+great adventure."
+
+Then was the Maid cast down, and Martimor was fain to
+comfort her.
+
+So while they walked thus in the garden, the days were
+fair and still, and the river ran lowly and slowly, as it were
+full of gentleness, and Flumen had amended him of his evil
+ways.  But full of craft and guile was that false foe.  For
+now that the gates were firm and strong, he found a way down
+through the corner of the dam, where a water-rat had burrowed,
+and there the water went seeping and creeping, gnawing ever at
+the hidden breach.  Presently in the night came a mizzling rain,
+and far among the hills a cloud brake open, and the mill-pond
+flowed over and under, and the dam crumbled away, and the Mill
+shook, and the whole river ran roaring through the garden.
+
+Then was Martimor wonderly wroth, because the river had
+blotted out the Maid's flowers.  "And one day," she cried,
+holding fast to him and trembling, "one day Flumen will have
+me, when thou art gone."
+
+"Not so," said he, "by the faith of my body that foul
+fiend shall never have thee.  I will bind him, I will compel
+him, or die in the deed."
+
+So he went forth, upward along the river, till he came to
+a strait Place among the hills.  There was a great rock full
+of caves and hollows, and there the water whirled and burbled
+in furious wise.  "Here," thought he, "is the hold of the
+knave Flumen, and if I may cut through above this rock and
+make a dyke with a gate in it, to let down the water another
+way when the floods come, so shall I spoil him of his craft
+and put him to the worse."
+
+Then he toiled day and night to make the dyke, and ever by
+night Flumen came and strove with him, and did his power to
+cast him down and strangle him.  But Martimor stood fast and
+drave him back.
+
+And at last, as they wrestled and whapped together, they
+fell headlong in the stream.
+
+"Ho-o!" shouted Flumen, "now will I drown thee, and mar
+the Mill and the Maid."
+
+But Martimor gripped him by the neck and thrust his head
+betwixt the leaves of the gate and shut them fast, so that his
+eyes stood out like gobbets of foam, and his black tongue hung
+from his mouth like a water-weed.
+
+"Now shalt thou swear never to mar Mill nor Maid, but
+meekly to serve them," cried Martimor.  Then Flumen sware by
+wind and wave, by storm and stream, by rain and river, by pond
+and pool, by flood and fountain, by dyke and dam.
+
+"These be changeable things," said Martimor, swear by the
+Name of God."
+
+So he sware, and even as the Name passed his teeth, the
+gobbets of foam floated forth from the gate, and the water-weed
+writhed away with the stream, and the river flowed fair and
+softly, with a sound like singing.
+
+Then Martimor came back to the Mill, and told how Flumen
+was overcome and made to swear a pact.  Thus their hearts
+waxed light and jolly, and they kept that day as it were a
+love-day.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+How Martimor Bled for a Lady and Lived for a Maid,
+and how His Great Adventure Ended and Began at the Mill
+
+Now leave we of the Mill and Martimor and the Maid, and let us
+speak of a certain Lady, passing tall and fair and young.
+This was the Lady Beauvivante, that was daughter to King
+Pellinore.  And three false knights took her by craft from her
+father's court and led her away to work their will on her.
+But she escaped from them as they slept by a well, and came
+riding on a white palfrey, over hill and dale, as fast as ever
+she could drive.
+
+Thus she came to the Mill, and her palfrey was spent, and
+there she took refuge, beseeching Martimor that he would hide
+her, and defend her from those caitiff knights that must soon
+follow.
+
+"Of hiding," said he, "will I hear naught, but of
+defending am I full fain.  For this have I waited."
+
+Then he made ready his horse and his armour, and took both
+spear and sword, and stood forth in the bridge.  Now this
+bridge was strait, so that none could pass there but singly,
+and that not till Martimor yielded or was beaten down.
+
+Then came the three knights that followed the Lady, riding
+fiercely down the hill.  And when they came about ten
+spear-lengths from the bridge, they halted, and stood still as
+it had been a plump of wood.  One rode in black, and one rode
+in yellow, and the third rode in black and yellow.  So they
+cried Martimor that he should give them passage, for they
+followed a quest.
+
+"Passage takes, who passage makes!" cried Martimor.
+"Right well I know your quest, and it is a foul one."
+
+Then the knight in black rode at him lightly,
+but Martimor encountered him with the spear and smote him
+backward from his horse, that his head struck the coping of
+the bridge and brake his neck.  Then came the knight in
+yellow, walloping heavily, and him the spear pierced through
+the midst of the body and burst in three pieces: so he fell on
+his back and the life went out of him, but the spear stuck
+fast and stood up from his breast as a stake.
+
+Then the knight in black and yellow, that was as big as
+both his brethren, gave a terrible shout, and rode at Martimor
+like a wood lion.  But he fended with his shield that the
+spear went aside, and they clapped together like thunder, and
+both horses were overthrown.  And lightly they avoided their
+horses and rushed together, tracing, rasing, and foining.
+Such strokes they gave that great pieces were clipped away
+from their hauberks, and their helms, and they staggered to
+and fro like drunken men.  Then they hurtled together like
+rams and each battered other the wind out of his body.  So
+they sat either on one side of the bridge, to take their
+breath, glaring the one at the other as two owls.  Then they
+stepped together and fought freshly, smiting and thrusting,
+ramping and reeling, panting, snorting, and scattering blood, for
+the space of two hours.  So the knight in black and yellow,
+because he was heavier, drave Martimor backward step by step till
+he came to the crown of the bridge, and there fell grovelling.
+At this the Lady Beauvivante shrieked and wailed, but the damsel
+Lirette cried loudly, "Up! Martimor, strike again!"
+
+Then the courage came into his body, and with a great
+might he abraid upon his feet, and smote the black and yellow
+knight upon the helm by an overstroke so fierce that the sword
+sheared away the third part of his head, as it had been a
+rotten cheese.  So he lay upon the bridge, and the blood ran
+out of him.  And Martimor smote off the rest of his head
+quite, and cast it into the river.  Likewise did he with the
+other twain that lay dead beyond the bridge.  And he cried to
+Flumen, "Hide me these black eggs that hatched evil thoughts."
+So the river bore them away.
+
+Then Martimor came into the Mill, all for-bled;
+"Now are ye free, lady," he cried, and fell down in a swoon.
+Then the Lady and the Maid wept full sore and made great dole
+and unlaced his helm; and Lirette cherished him tenderly to
+recover his life.
+
+So while they were thus busied and distressed, came Sir
+Lancelot with a great company of knights and squires riding
+for to rescue the princess.  When he came to the bridge all
+bedashed with blood, and the bodies of the knights headless,
+"Now, by my lady's name," said he, "here has been good
+fighting, and those three caitiffs are slain!  By whose hand
+I wonder?"
+
+So he came into the Mill, and there he found Martimor
+recovered of his swoon, and had marvellous joy of him, when he
+heard how he had wrought.
+
+"Now are thou proven worthy of the noble order of
+knighthood," said Lancelot, and forthwith he dubbed him
+knight.
+
+Then he said that Sir Martimor should ride with him to the
+court of King Pellinore, to receive a castle and a fair lady
+to wife, for doubtless the King would deny him nothing to reward
+the rescue of his daughter.
+
+But Martimor stood in a muse; then said he, "May a knight
+have his free will and choice of castles, where he will
+abide?"
+
+"Within the law," said Lancelot, "and by the King's word
+he may."
+
+"Then choose I the Mill," said Martimor, "for here will I
+dwell."
+
+"Freely spoken," said Lancelot, laughing, "so art thou Sir
+Martimor of the Mill; no doubt the King will confirm it.  And
+now what sayest thou of ladies?"
+
+"May a knight have his free will and choice here also?"
+said he.
+
+"According to his fortune," said Lancelot, "and by the
+lady's favour, he may."
+
+"Well, then," said Sir Martimor, taking Lirette by the
+hand, "this Maid is to me liefer to have and to wield as my
+wife than any dame or princess that is christened."
+
+"What, brother," said Sir Lancelot, "is the wind in that
+quarter?  And will the Maid have thee?"
+
+"I will well," said Lirette.
+
+"Now are you well provided," said Sir Lancelot, "with
+knighthood, and a castle, and a lady.  Lacks but a motto and
+a name for the Blue Flower in thy shield."
+
+"He that names it shall never find it," said Sir Martimor,
+"and he that finds it needs no name."
+
+So Lirette rejoiced Sir Martimor and loved together during
+their life-days; and this is the end and the beginning of the
+Story of the Mill.
+
+
+
+
+
+SPY  ROCK
+
+I
+
+It must have been near Sutherland's Pond that I lost the way.
+For there the deserted road which I had been following through
+the Highlands ran out upon a meadow all abloom with purple
+loose-strife and golden Saint-John's wort.  The declining sun
+cast a glory over the lonely field, and far in the corner,
+nigh to the woods, there was a touch of the celestial colour:
+blue of the sky seen between white clouds: blue of the sea
+shimmering through faint drifts of silver mist.  The hope of
+finding that hue of distance and mystery embodied in a living
+form, the old hope of discovering the Blue Flower rose again
+in my heart.  But it was only for a moment, for when I came
+nearer I saw that the colour which had caught my eye came from
+a multitude of closed gentians--the blossoms which never open
+into perfection--growing so closely together that their
+blended promise had seemed like a single flower.
+
+So I harked back again, slanting across the meadow, to
+find the road.  But it had vanished.  Wandering among the
+alders and clumps of gray birches, here and there I found a
+track that looked like it; but as I tried each one, it grew
+more faint and uncertain and at last came to nothing in a
+thicket or a marsh.  While I was thus beating about the bush
+the sun dropped below the western rim of hills.  It was
+necessary to make the most of the lingering light, if I did
+not wish to be benighted in the woods.  The little village of
+Canterbury, which was the goal of my day's march, must lie
+about to the north just beyond the edge of the mountain, and
+in that direction I turned, pushing forward as rapidly as
+possible through the undergrowth.
+
+Presently I came into a region where the trees were larger
+and the travelling was easier.  It was not a primeval forest,
+but a second growth of chestnuts and poplars and maples.
+Through the woods there ran at intervals long lines of broken
+rock, covered with moss--the ruins, evidently, of ancient
+stone fences.  The land must have been, in former days, a
+farm, inhabited, cultivated, the home of human
+hopes and desires and labours, but now relapsed into solitude
+and wilderness.  What could the life have been among these
+rugged and inhospitable Highlands, on this niggard and
+reluctant soil?  Where was the house that once sheltered the
+tillers of this rude corner of the earth?
+
+Here, perhaps, in the little clearing into which I now
+emerged.  A couple of decrepit apple-trees grew on the edge of
+it, and dropped their scanty and gnarled fruit to feast the
+squirrels.  A little farther on, a straggling clump of ancient
+lilacs, a bewildered old bush of sweetbrier, the dark-green
+leaves of a cluster of tiger-lilies, long past blooming,
+marked the grave of the garden.  And here, above this square
+hollow in the earth, with the remains of a crumbling chimney
+standing sentinel beside it, here the house must have stood.
+What joys, what sorrows once centred around this cold and
+desolate hearth-stone?  What children went forth like birds
+from this dismantled nest into the wide world?  What guests
+found refuge----
+
+"Take care! stand back!  There is a rattlesnake in the old
+cellar."
+
+The voice, even more than the words, startled me.  I drew
+away suddenly, and saw, behind the ruins of the chimney, a man
+of an aspect so striking that to this day his face and figure
+are as vivid in my memory as if it were but yesterday that I
+had met him.
+
+He was dressed in black, the coat of a somewhat formal
+cut, a long cravat loosely knotted in his rolling collar.  His
+head was bare, and the coal-black hair, thick and waving, was
+in some disorder.  His face, smooth and pale, with high
+forehead, straight nose, and thin, sensitive lips--was it old
+or young?  Handsome it certainly was, the face of a man of
+mark, a man of power.  Yet there was something strange and
+wild about it.  His dark eyes, with the fine wrinkles about
+them, had a look of unspeakable remoteness, and at the same
+time an intensity that seemed to pierce me through and
+through.  It was as if he saw me in a dream, yet measured me,
+weighed me with a scrutiny as exact as it was at bottom
+indifferent.
+
+But his lips were smiling, and there was no fault to be
+found, at least, with his manner.  He had risen from the broad
+stone where he had evidently been sitting with his back against
+the chimney, and came forward to greet me.
+
+"You will pardon the abruptness of my greeting?  I thought
+you might not care to make acquaintance with the present
+tenant of this old house--at least not without an
+introduction."
+
+"Certainly not," I answered, "you have done me a real
+kindness, which is better than the outward form of courtesy.
+But how is it that you stay at such close quarters with this
+unpleasant tenant?  Have you no fear of him?"
+
+"Not the least in the world," he answered, laughing.  "I
+know the snakes too well, better than they know themselves.
+It is not likely that even an old serpent with thirteen
+rattles, like this one, could harm me.  I know his ways.
+Before he could strike I should be out of reach."
+
+"Well," said I, "it is a grim thought, at all events, that
+this house, once a cheerful home, no doubt, should have fallen
+at last to be the dwelling of such a vile creature."
+
+"Fallen!" he exclaimed.  Then he repeated the word with a
+questioning accent--"fallen?  Are you sure of that?  The snake,
+in his way, may be quite as honest as the people who lived here
+before him, and not much more harmful.  The farmer was a miser
+who robbed his mother, quarrelled with his brother, and starved
+his wife.  What she lacked in food, she made up in drink, when
+she could.  One of the children, a girl, was a cripple, lamed by
+her mother in a fit of rage.  The two boys were ne'er-do-weels
+who ran away from home as soon as they were old enough.  One of
+them is serving a life-sentence in the State prison for
+manslaughter.  When the house burned down some thirty years ago,
+the woman escaped.  The man's body was found with the head
+crushed in--perhaps by a falling timber.  The family of our
+friend the rattlesnake could hardly surpass that record, I think.
+
+But why should we blame them--any of them?  They were only acting
+out their natures.  To one who can see and understand, it is all
+perfectly simple, and interesting--immensely interesting."
+
+It is impossible to describe the quiet eagerness, the cool
+glow of fervour with which he narrated this little history.  It
+was the manner of the triumphant pathologist who lays bare some
+hidden seat of disease.  It surprised and repelled me a little;
+yet it attracted me, too, for I could see how evidently he
+counted on my comprehension and sympathy.
+
+"Well," said I, "it is a pitiful history.  Rural life is
+not all peace and innocence.  But how came you to know the
+story?"
+
+"I?  Oh, I make it my business to know a little of
+everything, and as much as possible of human life, not
+excepting the petty chronicles of the rustics around me.  It
+is my chief pleasure.  I earn my living by teaching boys.  I
+find my satisfaction in studying men.  But you are on a
+journey, sir, and night is falling.  I must not detain you.
+Or perhaps you will allow me to forward you a little by
+serving as a guide.  Which way were you going when you turned
+aside to look at this dismantled shrine?"
+
+"To Canterbury," I answered, "to find a night's, or a
+month's, lodging at the inn.  My journey is a ramble, it has
+neither terminus nor time-table."
+
+"Then let me commend to you something vastly better than
+the tender mercies of the Canterbury Inn.  Come with me to the
+school on Hilltop, where I am a teacher.  It is a thousand
+feet above the village--purer air, finer view, and pleasanter
+company.  There is plenty of room in the house, for it is
+vacation-time.  Master Isaac Ward is always glad to entertain
+guests."
+
+There was something so sudden and unconventional about the
+invitation that I was reluctant to accept it; but he gave it
+naturally and pressed it with earnest courtesy, assuring me
+that it was in accordance with Master Ward's custom, that he
+would be much disappointed to lose the chance of talking with
+an interesting traveller, that he would far rather let me pay
+him for my lodging than have me go by, and so on--so that at
+last I consented.
+
+Three minutes' walking from the deserted clearing brought
+us into a travelled road.  It circled the breast of the
+mountain, and as we stepped along it in the dusk I learned
+something of my companion.  His name was Edward Keene; he
+taught Latin and Greek in the Hilltop School; he had studied for
+the ministry, but had given it up, I gathered, on account of a
+certain loss of interest, or rather a diversion of interest in
+another direction.  He spoke of himself with an impersonal
+candour.
+
+"Preachers must be always trying to persuade men," he
+said.  "But what I care about is to know men.  I don't care
+what they do.  Certainly I have no wish to interfere with them
+in their doings, for I doubt whether anyone can really change
+them.  Each tree bears its own fruit, you see, and by their
+fruits you know them."
+
+"What do you say to grafting?  That changes the fruit,
+surely?"
+
+"Yes, but a grafted tree is not really one tree.  It is
+two trees growing together.  There is a double life in it, and
+the second life, the added life, dominates the other.  The
+stock becomes a kind of animate soil for the graft to grow
+in."
+
+Presently the road dipped into a little valley and rose
+again, breasting the slope of a wooded hill which thrust
+itself out from the steeper flank of the mountain-range.  Down
+the hill-side a song floated to meet us--that most noble lyric of
+old Robert Herrick:
+
+  Bid me to live, and I will live
+     Thy Protestant to be;
+  Or bid me love, and I will give
+     A loving heart to thee.
+
+
+It was a girl's voice, fresh and clear, with a note of
+tenderness in it that thrilled me.  Keene's pace quickened.
+And soon the singer came in sight, stepping lightly down the
+road, a shape of slender whiteness on the background of
+gathering night.  She was beautiful even in that dim light,
+with brown eyes and hair, and a face that seemed to breathe
+purity and trust.  Yet there was a trace of anxiety in it, or
+so I fancied, that gave it an appealing charm.
+
+"You have come at last, Edward," she cried, running
+forward and putting her hand in his.  "It is late.  You have
+been out all day; I began to be afraid."
+
+"Not too late," he answered; "there was no need for fear,
+Dorothy. I am not alone, you see." And keeping her hand, he
+introduced me to the daughter of Master Ward.
+
+It was easy to guess the relation between these two young
+people who walked beside me in the dusk.  It needed no words
+to say that they were lovers.  Yet it would have needed many
+words to define the sense, that came to me gradually, of
+something singular in the tie that bound them together.  On
+his part there was a certain tone of half-playful
+condescension toward her such as one might use to a lovely
+child, which seemed to match but ill with her unconscious
+attitude of watchful care, of tender solicitude for
+him--almost like the manner of an elder sister.  Lovers they
+surely were, and acknowledged lovers, for their frankness of
+demeanour sought no concealment; but I felt that there must be
+
+      A little rift within the lute,
+
+though neither of them might know it.  Each one's thought of
+the other was different from the other's thought of self.
+There could not be a complete understanding, a perfect accord.
+What was the secret, of which each knew half, but not the other
+half?
+
+Thus, with steps that kept time, but with thoughts how
+wide apart, we came to the door of the school.  A warm flood
+of light poured out to greet us.  The Master, an elderly,
+placid, comfortable man, gave me just the welcome that had
+been promised in his name.  The supper was waiting, and the
+evening passed in such happy cheer that the bewilderments and
+misgivings of the twilight melted away, and at bedtime I
+dropped into the nest of sleep as one who has found a shelter
+among friends.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The Hilltop School stood on a blessed site.  Lifted high above
+the village, it held the crest of the last gentle wave of the
+mountains that filled the south with crowding billows, ragged
+and tumultuous.  Northward, the great plain lay at our feet,
+smiling in the sun; meadows and groves, yellow fields of
+harvest and green orchards, white roads and clustering towns,
+with here and there a little city  on the bank of the mighty
+river which curved in a vast line of beauty toward the blue
+Catskill Range, fifty miles away.  Lines of filmy smoke, like
+vanishing footprints in the air, marked the passage of railway
+trains across the landscape--their swift flight reduced by
+distance to a leisurely transition.  The bright surface of the
+stream was furrowed by a hundred vessels; tiny rowboats creeping
+from shore to shore; knots of black barges following the lead of
+puffing tugs; sloops with languid motion tacking against the
+tide; white steamboats, like huge toy-houses, crowded with
+pygmy inhabitants, moving smoothly on their way to the great
+city, and disappearing suddenly as they turned into the
+narrows between Storm-King and the Fishkill Mountains.  Down
+there was life, incessant, varied, restless, intricate,
+many-coloured--down there was history, the highway of ancient
+voyagers since the days of Hendrik Hudson, the hunting-ground
+of Indian tribes, the scenes of massacre and battle, the last
+camp of the Army of the Revolution, the Head-quarters of
+Washington--down there were the homes of legend and
+poetry, the dreamlike hills of Rip van Winkle's sleep, the
+cliffs and caves haunted by the Culprit Fay, the solitudes
+traversed by the Spy--all outspread before us, and visible as
+in a Claude Lorraine glass, in the tranquil lucidity of
+distance.  And here, on the hilltop, was our own life; secluded,
+yet never separated from the other life; looking down
+upon it, yet woven of the same stuff; peaceful in
+circumstance, yet ever busy with its own tasks, and holding in
+its quiet heart all the elements of joy and sorrow and tragic
+consequence.
+
+The Master was a man of most unworldly wisdom.  In his
+youth a great traveller, he had brought home many
+observations, a few views, and at least one theory.  To him
+the school was the most important of human institutions--more
+vital even than the home, because it held the first real
+experience of social contact, of free intercourse with other
+minds and lives coming from different households and embodying
+different strains of blood.  "My school," said he, "is the
+world in miniature.  If I can teach these boys to study and
+play together freely and with fairness to one another, I shall
+make men fit to live and work together in society.  What they
+learn matters less than how they learn it.  The great thing is
+the bringing out of individual character so that it will find its
+place in social harmony."
+
+Yet never man knew less of character in the concrete than
+Master Ward.  To him each person represented a type--the
+scientific, the practical, the poetic.  From each one he
+expected, and in each one he found, to a certain degree, the
+fruit of the marked quality, the obvious, the characteristic.
+But of the deeper character, made up of a hundred traits,
+coloured and conditioned most vitally by something secret and
+in itself apparently of slight importance, he was placidly
+unconscious.  Classes he knew.  Individuals escaped him.  Yet
+he was a most companionable man, a social solitary, a friendly
+hermit.
+
+His daughter Dorothy seemed to me even more fair and
+appealing by daylight than when I first saw her in the dusk.
+There was a pure brightness in her brown eyes, a gentle
+dignity in her look and bearing, a soft cadence of expectant joy
+in her voice.  She was womanly in every tone and motion, yet by
+no means weak or uncertain.  Mistress of herself and of the
+house, she ruled her kingdom without an effort.  Busied with many
+little cares, she bore them lightly.  Her spirit overflowed into
+the lives around her with delicate sympathy and merry cheer.  But
+it was in music that her nature found its widest outlet.  In the
+lengthening evenings of late August she would play from Schumann,
+or Chopin, or Grieg, interpreting the vague feelings of
+gladness or grief which lie too deep for words.  Ballads she
+loved, quaint old English and Scotch airs, folk-songs of
+Germany, "Come-all-ye's" of Ireland, Canadian chansons.  She
+sang--not like an angel, but like a woman.
+
+Of the two under-masters in the school, Edward Keene was
+the elder.  The younger, John Graham, was his opposite in
+every respect.  Sturdy, fair-haired, plain in the face, he was
+essentially an every-day man, devoted to out-of-door sports,
+a hard worker, a good player, and a sound sleeper.  He came
+back to the school, from a fishing-excursion, a few days after my
+arrival.  I liked the way in which he told of his adventures,
+with a little frank boasting, enough to season but not to spoil
+the story.  I liked the way in which he took hold of his work,
+helping to get the school in readiness for the return of the boys
+in the middle of September.  I liked, more than all, his attitude
+to Dorothy Ward.  He loved her, clearly enough.  When she was in
+the room the other people were only accidents to him.  Yet there
+was nothing of the disappointed suitor in his bearing.  He was
+cheerful, natural, accepting the situation, giving her the
+best he had to give, and gladly taking from her the frank
+reliance, the ready comradeship which she bestowed upon him.
+If he envied Keene--and how could he help it--at least he
+never showed a touch of jealousy or rivalry.  The engagement
+was a fact which he took into account as something not to be
+changed or questioned.  Keene was so much more brilliant,
+interesting, attractive.  He answered so much more fully to
+the poetic side of Dorothy's nature.  How could she help
+preferring him?
+
+Thus the three actors in the drama stood, when
+I became an inmate of Hilltop, and accepted the master's
+invitation to undertake some of the minor classes in English,
+and stay on at the school indefinitely.  It was my wish to see
+the little play--a pleasant comedy, I hoped--move forward to
+a happy ending.  And yet--what was it that disturbed me now
+and then with forebodings?  Something, doubtless, in the
+character of Keene, for he was the dominant personality.  The
+key of the situation lay with him.  He was the centre of
+interest.  Yet he was the one who seemed not perfectly in
+harmony, not quite at home, as if something beckoned and urged
+him away.
+
+"I am glad you are to stay," said he, "yet I wonder at it.
+You will find the life narrow, after all your travels.
+Ulysses at Ithaca--you will surely be restless to see the
+world again."
+
+"If you find the life broad enough, I ought not to be
+cramped in it."
+
+"Ah, but I have compensations."
+
+"One you certainly have," said I, thinking of Dorothy,
+"and that one is enough to make a man happy anywhere."
+
+"Yes, yes," he answered, quickly, "but that is not what I
+mean.  It is not there that I look for a wider life.  Love--do
+you think that love broadens a man's outlook?  To me it seems
+to make him narrower--happier, perhaps, within his own little
+circle--but distinctly narrower.  Knowledge is the only thing
+that broadens life, sets it free from the tyranny of the
+parish, fills it with the sense of power.  And love is the
+opposite of knowledge.  Love is a kind of an illusion--a happy
+illusion, that is what love is.  Don't you see that?"
+
+"See it?" I cried.  "I don't know what you mean.  Do you
+mean that you don't really care for Dorothy Ward?  Do you mean
+that what you have won in her is an illusion?  If so, you are
+as wrong as a man can be."
+
+"No, no," he answered, eagerly, "you know I don't mean
+that.  I could not live without her.  But love is not the only
+reality.  There is something else, something broader,
+something----"
+
+"Come away," I said, "come away, man!  You are talking
+nonsense, treason.  You are not true to yourself.  You've been
+working too hard at your books.  There's a maggot in your brain.
+Come out for a long walk."
+
+That indeed was what he liked best.  He was a magnificent
+walker, easy, steady, unwearying.  He knew every road and lane
+in the valleys, every footpath and trail among the mountains.
+But he cared little for walking in company; one companion was
+the most that he could abide.  And, strange to say, it was not
+Dorothy whom he chose for his most frequent comrade.  With her
+he would saunter down the Black Brook path, or climb slowly to
+the first ridge of Storm-King.  But with me he pushed out to
+the farthest pinnacle that overhangs the river, and down
+through the Lonely Heart gorge, and over the pass of the White
+Horse, and up to the peak of Cro' Nest, and across the rugged
+summit of Black Rock.  At every wider outlook a strange
+exhilaration seemed to come upon him.  His spirit glowed like
+a live coal in the wind.  He overflowed with brilliant talk
+and curious stories of the villages and scattered houses that
+we could see from our eyries.
+
+But it was not with me that he made his longest expeditions.
+They were solitary.  Early on Saturday he would leave the rest of
+us, with some slight excuse, and start away on the mountain-road,
+to be gone all day.  Sometimes he would not return till long
+after dark.  Then I could see the anxious look deepen on
+Dorothy's face, and she would slip away down the road to meet
+him.  But he always came back in good spirits, talkable and
+charming.  It was the next day that the reaction came.  The black
+fit took him.  He was silent, moody, bitter.  Holding himself
+aloof, yet never giving utterance to any irritation, he seemed
+half-unconsciously to resent the claims of love and friendship,
+as if they irked him.  There was a look in his eyes as if he
+measured us, weighed us, analysed us all as strangers.
+
+Yes, even Dorothy.  I have seen her go to meet him with a
+flower in her hand that she had plucked for him, and turn away
+with her lips trembling, too proud to say a word, dropping the
+flower on the grass.  John Graham saw it, too.  He waited till
+she was gone; then he picked up the flower and kept it.
+
+There was nothing to take offence at, nothing on which one
+could lay a finger; only these singular alternations of mood
+which made Keene now the most delightful of friends, now an
+intimate stranger in the circle.  The change was inexplicable.
+But certainly it seemed to have some connection, as cause or
+consequence, with his long, lonely walks.
+
+Once, when he was absent, we spoke of his remarkable
+fluctuations of spirit.
+
+The master labelled him.  "He is an idealist, a dreamer.
+They are always uncertain."
+
+I blamed him.  "He gives way too much to his moods.  He
+lacks self-control.  He is in danger of spoiling a fine
+nature."
+
+I looked at Dorothy.  She defended him.  "Why should he be
+always the same?  He is too great for that.  His thoughts make
+him restless, and sometimes he is tired.  Surely you wouldn't
+have him act what he don't feel.  Why do you want him to do
+that?"
+
+"I don't know," said Graham, with a short laugh.  "None of
+us know.  But what we all want just now is music.  Dorothy, will
+you sing a little for us?"
+
+So she sang "The Coulin," and "The Days o' the Kerry
+Dancin'," and "The Hawthorn Tree," and "The Green Woods of
+Truigha," and "Flowers o' the Forest," and "A la claire
+Fontaine," until the twilight was filled with peace.
+
+The boys came back to the school.  The wheels of routine
+began to turn again, slowly and with a little friction at
+first, then smoothly and swiftly as if they had never stopped.
+Summer reddened into autumn; autumn bronzed into fall.  The
+maples and poplars were bare.  The oaks alone kept their
+rusted crimson glory, and the cloaks of spruce and hemlock on
+the shoulders of the hills grew dark with wintry foliage.
+Keene's transitions of mood became more frequent and more
+extreme.  The gulf of isolation that divided him from us when
+the black days came seemed wider and more unfathomable.
+Dorothy and John Graham were thrown more constantly together.
+Keene appeared to encourage their companionship.  He watched
+them curiously, sometimes, not as if he were jealous, but rather
+as if he were interested in some delicate experiment.  At other
+times he would be singularly indifferent to everything, remote,
+abstracted, forgetful.
+
+Dorothy's birthday, which fell in mid-October, was kept as
+a holiday.  In the morning everyone had some little birthday
+gift for her, except Keene.  He had forgotten the birthday
+entirely.  The shadow of disappointment that quenched the
+brightness of her face was pitiful.  Even he could not be
+blind to it.  He flushed as if surprised, and hesitated a
+moment, evidently in conflict with himself.  Then a look of
+shame and regret came into his eyes.  He made some excuse for
+not going with us to the picnic, at the Black Brook Falls,
+with which the day was celebrated.  In the afternoon, as we
+all sat around the camp-fire, he came swinging through the
+woods with his long, swift stride, and going at once to
+Dorothy laid a little brooch of pearl and opal in her hand.
+
+"Will you forgive me?" he said.  "I hope this is not too
+late.  But I lost the train back from Newburg and walked home.
+I pray that you may never know any tears but pearls, and that
+there may be nothing changeable about you but the opal."
+
+"Oh, Edward!" she cried, "how beautiful!  Thank you a
+thousand times.  But I wish you had been with us all day.  We
+have missed you so much!"
+
+For the rest of that day simplicity and clearness and joy
+came back to us.  Keene was at his best, a leader of friendly
+merriment, a master of good-fellowship, a prince of delicate
+chivalry.  Dorothy's loveliness unfolded like a flower in the
+sun.
+
+But the Indian summer of peace was brief.  It was hardly
+a week before Keene's old moods returned, darker and stranger
+than ever.  The girl's unconcealable bewilderment, her sense
+of wounded loyalty and baffled anxiety, her still look of hurt
+and wondering tenderness, increased from day to day.  John
+Graham's temper seemed to change, suddenly and completely.
+From the best-humoured and most careless fellow in the world,
+he became silent, thoughtful, irritable toward everyone except
+Dorothy.  With Keene he was curt and impatient, avoiding him
+as much as possible, and when they were together, evidently
+struggling to keep down a deep dislike and rising anger.  They
+had had sharp words when they were alone, I was sure, but
+Keene's coolness seemed to grow with Graham's heat.  There was
+no open quarrel.
+
+One Saturday evening, Graham came to me.  "You have seen
+what is going on here?" he said.
+
+"Something, at least," I answered, "and I am very sorry
+for it.  But I don't quite understand it."
+
+"Well, I do; and I'm going to put an end to it.  I'm going
+to have it out with Ned Keene.  He is breaking her heart."
+
+"But are you the right one to take the matter up?"
+
+"Who else is there to do it?"
+
+"Her father."
+
+"He sees nothing, comprehends nothing.  'Practical
+type--poetic type--misunderstandings sure to arise--come
+together after a while each supply the other's deficiencies.'
+Cursed folly!  And the girl so unhappy that she can't tell
+anyone.  It shall not go on, I say.  Keene is out on the road
+now, taking one of his infernal walks.  I'm going to meet him."
+
+"I'm afraid it will make trouble.  Let me go with you."
+
+"The trouble is made.  Come if you like.  I'm going now."
+
+The night lay heavy upon the forest.  Where the road
+dipped through the valley we could hardly see a rod ahead of
+us.  But higher up where the way curved around the breast of
+the mountain, the woods were thin on the left, and on the
+right a sheer precipice fell away to the gorge of the brook.
+In the dim starlight we saw Keene striding toward us.  Graham
+stepped out to meet him.
+
+"Where have you been, Ned Keene?" he cried.  The cry was
+a challenge.  Keene lifted his head and stood still.  Then he
+laughed and took a step forward.
+
+"Taking a long walk, Jack Graham,," he answered.  "It was
+glorious.  You should have been with me.  But why this sudden
+question?"
+
+"Because your long walk is a pretence.  You are playing false.
+There is some woman that you go to see at West Point, at Highland
+Falls, who knows where?"
+
+Keene laughed again.
+
+"Certainly you don't know, my dear fellow; and neither do
+I.  Since when has walking become a vice in your estimation?
+You seem to be in a fierce mood.  What's the matter?"
+
+"I will tell you what's the matter.  You have been acting
+like a brute to the girl you profess to love."
+
+"Plain words!  But between friends frankness is best.  Did
+she ask you to tell me?"
+
+"No!  You know too well she would die before she would
+speak.  You are killing her, that is what you are doing with
+your devilish moods and mysteries.  You must stop.  Do you
+hear?  You must give her up."
+
+"I hear well enough, and it sounds like a word for her and
+two for yourself.  Is that it?"
+
+"Damn you," cried the younger man, "let the words go!
+we'll settle it this way"----and he sprang at the other's
+throat.
+
+Keene, cool and well-braced, met him with a heavy blow in
+the chest.  He recoiled, and I rushed between them, holding
+Graham back, and pleading for self-control.  As we stood thus,
+panting and confused, on the edge of the cliff, a singing
+voice floated up to us from the shadows across the valley.  It
+was Herrick's song again:
+
+  A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
+     A heart as sound and free
+  Is in the whole world thou canst find,
+     That heart I'll give to thee.
+
+
+"Come, gentlemen," I cried, "this is folly, sheer madness.
+You can never deal with the matter in this way.  Think of the
+girl who is singing down yonder.  What would happen to her,
+what would she suffer, from scandal, from her own feelings, if
+either of you should be killed, or even seriously hurt by the
+other?  There must be no quarrel between you."
+
+"Certainly," said Keene, whose poise, if shaken at all,
+had returned, "certainly, you are right.  It is not of my
+seeking, nor shall I be the one to keep it up.  I am willing to
+let it pass.  It is but a small matter at most."
+
+I turned to Graham--"And you?"
+
+He hesitated a little, and then said, doggedly "On one
+condition."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Keene must explain.  He must answer my question."
+
+"Do you accept?" I asked Keene.
+
+"Yes and no!" he replied.  "No! to answering Graham's
+question.  He is not the person to ask it. I wonder that he
+does not see the impropriety, the absurdity of his meddling at
+all in this affair.  Besides, he could not understand my
+answer even if he believed it.  But to the explanation, I say,
+Yes!  I will give it, not to Graham, but to you.  I make you
+this proposition.  To-morrow is Sunday.  We shall be excused
+from service if we tell the master that we have important
+business to settle together.  You shall come with me on one of
+my long walks.  I will tell you all about them.  Then you can
+be the judge whether there is any harm in them."
+
+"Does that satisfy you?" I said to Graham.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "that seems fair enough.  I am content
+to leave it in that way for the present.  And to make it still
+more fair, I want to take back what I said awhile ago, and to
+ask Keene's pardon for it."
+
+"Not at all," said Keene, quickly, "it was said in haste,
+I bear no grudge.  You simply did not understand, that is
+all."
+
+So we turned to go down the hill, and as we turned,
+Dorothy met us, coming out of the shadows.
+
+"What are you men doing here?" she asked.  "I heard your
+voices from below.  What were you talking about?"
+
+"We were talking," said Keene, "my dear Dorothy, we were
+talking--about walking--yes, that was it--about walking, and
+about views.  The conversation was quite warm, almost a
+debate.  Now, you know all the view-points in this region.
+Which do you call the best, the most satisfying, the finest
+prospect?  But I know what you will say: the view from the
+little knoll in front of Hilltop.  For there, when you are tired
+of looking far away, you can turn around and see the old school,
+and the linden-trees, and the garden."
+
+"Yes," she answered gravely, "that is really the view that
+I love best.  I would give up all the others rather than lose
+that."
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+There was a softness in the November air that brought back
+memories of summer, and a few belated daisies were blooming in
+the old clearing, as Keene and I passed by the ruins of the
+farm-house again, early on Sunday morning.  He had been
+talking ever since we started, pouring out his praise of
+knowledge, wide, clear, universal knowledge, as the best of
+life's joys, the greatest of life's achievements.  The
+practical life was a blind, dull routine.  Most men were
+toiling at tasks which they did not like, by rules which they
+did not understand.  They never looked beyond the edge of
+their work.  The philosophical life was a spider's web--filmy
+threads of theory spun out of the inner consciousness--it touched
+the world only at certain chosen points of attachment.  There was
+nothing firm, nothing substantial in it.  You could look through
+it like a veil and see the real world lying beyond.  But the
+theorist could see only the web which he had spun.  Knowing did
+not come by speculating, theorising.  Knowing came by seeing.
+Vision was the only real knowledge.  To see the world, the whole
+world, as it is, to look behind the scenes, to read human life
+like a book, that was the glorious thing--most satisfying,
+divine.
+
+Thus he had talked as we climbed the hill.  Now, as we
+came by the place where we had first met, a new eagerness
+sounded in his voice.
+
+"Ever since that day I have inclined to tell you something
+more about myself.  I felt sure you would understand.  I am
+planning to write a book--a book of knowledge, in the true
+sense--a great book about human life.  Not a history, not a
+theory, but a real view of life, its hidden motives, its
+secret relations.  How different they are from what men dream
+and imagine and play that they are!  How much darker, how much
+smaller, and therefore how much more interesting and wonderful.
+No one has yet written--perhaps because no one has yet
+conceived--such a book as I have in mind.  I might call it a
+'Bionopsis.'"
+
+"But surely," said I, "you have chosen a strange place to
+write it--the Hilltop School--this quiet and secluded region!
+The stream of humanity is very slow and slender here--it
+trickles.  You must get out into the busy world.  You must be
+in the full current and feel its force.  You must take part in
+the active life of mankind in order really to know it."
+
+"A mistake!" he cried.  "Action is the thing that blinds
+men.  You remember Matthew Arnold's line:
+
+  In action's dizzying eddy whurled.
+
+To know the world you must stand apart from it and above it;
+you must look down on it."
+
+"Well, then," said I, "you will have to find some secret
+spring of inspiration, some point of vantage from which you
+can get your outlook and your insight."
+
+He stopped short and looked me full in the face.
+
+"And that," cried he, "is precisely what I have found!"
+
+Then he turned and pushed along the narrow trail so
+swiftly that I had hard work to follow him.  After a few
+minutes we came to a little stream, flowing through a grove of
+hemlocks.  Keene seated himself on the fallen log that served
+for a bridge and beckoned me to a place beside him.
+
+"I promised to give you an explanation to-day--to take you
+on one of my long walks.  Well, there is only one of them.  It
+is always the same.  You shall see where it leads, what it
+means.  You shall share my secret--all the wonder and glory of
+it!  Of course I know my conduct, has seemed strange to you.
+Sometimes it has seemed strange even to me.  I have been
+doubtful, troubled, almost distracted.  I have been risking a
+great deal, in danger of losing what I value, what most men
+count the best thing in the world.  But it could not be
+helped.  The risk was worth while.  A great discovery, the
+opportunity of a lifetime, yes, of an age, perhaps of many
+ages, came to me.  I simply could not throw it away.  I must
+use it, make the best of it, at any danger, at any cost.  You
+shall judge for yourself whether I was right or wrong.  But you
+must judge fairly, without haste, without prejudice.  I ask you
+to make me one promise.  You will suspend judgment, you will say
+nothing, you will keep my secret, until you have been with me
+three times at the place where I am now taking you."
+
+By this time it was clear to me that I had to do with a
+case lying far outside of the common routine of life;
+something subtle, abnormal, hard to measure, in which a clear
+and careful estimate would be necessary.  If Keene was
+labouring under some strange delusion, some disorder of mind,
+how could I estimate its nature or extent, without time and
+study, perhaps without expert advice?  To wait a little would
+be prudent, for his sake as well as for the sake of others.
+If there was some extraordinary, reality behind his mysterious
+hints, it would need patience and skill to test it.  I gave
+him the promise for which he asked.
+
+At once, as if relieved, he sprang up, and crying, "Come
+on, follow me!" began to make his way up the bed of the brook.
+It was one of the wildest walks that I have ever taken.  He
+turned aside for no obstacles; swamps, masses of interlacing
+alders, close-woven thickets of stiff young spruces,
+chevaux-de-frise of dead trees where wind-falls had mowed down
+the forest, walls of lichen-crusted rock, landslides where heaps
+of broken stone were tumbled in ruinous confusion--through
+everything he pushed forward.  I could see, here and there, the
+track of his former journeys: broken branches of witch-hazel and
+moose-wood, ferns trampled down, a faint trail across some
+deeper bed of moss.  At mid-day we rested for a half-hour to
+eat lunch.  But Keene would eat nothing, except a little
+pellet of some dark green substance that he took from a flat
+silver box in his pocket.  He swallowed it hastily, and
+stooping his face to the spring by which he had halted, drank
+long and eagerly.
+
+"An Indian trick," said he, shaking the drops of water
+from his face.  "On a walk, food is a hindrance, a delay.  But
+this tiny taste of bitter gum is a tonic; it spurs the courage
+and doubles the strength--if you are used to it.  Otherwise I
+should not recommend you to try it.  Faugh! the flavour is vile."
+
+He rinsed his mouth again with water, and stood up,
+calling me to come on.  The way, now tangled among the
+nameless peaks and ranges, bore steadily southward, rising all
+the time, in spite of many brief downward curves where a steep
+gorge must be crossed.  Presently we came into a hard-wood
+forest, open and easy to travel.  Breasting a long slope, we
+reached the summit of a broad, smoothly rounding ridge covered
+with a dense growth of stunted spruce.  The trees rose above
+our heads, about twice the height of a man, and so thick that
+we could not see beyond them.  But, from glimpses here and
+there, and from the purity and lightness of the air, I judged
+that we were on far higher ground than any we had yet
+traversed, the central comb, perhaps, of the mountain-system.
+
+A few yards ahead of us, through the crowded trunks of the
+dwarf forest, I saw a gray mass, like the wall of a fortress,
+across our path.  It was a vast rock, rising from the crest of
+the ridge, lifting its top above the sea of foliage.  At its
+base there were heaps of shattered stones, and deep crevices
+almost like caves.  One side of the rock was broken by a slanting
+gully.
+
+"Be careful," cried my companion, "there is a rattlers'
+den somewhere about here.  The snakes are in their winter
+quarters now, almost dormant, but they can still strike if you
+tread on them.  Step here!  Give me your hand--use that point
+of rock--hold fast by this bush; it is firmly rooted--so!
+Here we are on Spy Rock!  You have heard of it? I thought so.
+Other people have heard of it, and imagine that they have
+found it--five miles east of us--on a lower ridge.  Others
+think it is a peak just back of Cro' Nest.  All wrong!  There
+is but one real Spy Rock--here!  This earth holds no more
+perfect view-point.  It is one of the rare places from which
+a man may see the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of
+them.  Look!"
+
+The prospect was indeed magnificent; it was strange what
+a vast enlargement of vision resulted from the slight
+elevation above the surrounding peaks.  It was like being
+lifted up so that we could look over the walls.  The horizon
+expanded as if by magic.  The vast circumference of vision swept
+around us with a radius of a hundred miles.  Mountain and meadow,
+forest and field, river and lake, hill and dale, village and
+farmland, far-off city and shimmering water--all lay open to our
+sight, and over all the westering sun wove a transparent robe of
+gem-like hues.  Every feature of the landscape seemed alive,
+quivering, pulsating with conscious beauty.  You could almost
+see the world breathe.
+
+"Wonderful!" I cried.  "Most wonderful!  You have found a
+mount of vision."
+
+"Ah," he answered, "you don't half see the wonder yet, you
+don't begin to appreciate it.  Your eyes are new to it.  You
+have not learned the power of far sight, the secret of Spy
+Rock.  You are still shut in by the horizon."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you can look beyond it?"
+
+"Beyond yours--yes.  And beyond any that you would dream
+possible--See!  Your sight reaches to that dim cloud of smoke
+in the south?  And beneath it you can make out, perhaps, a
+vague blotch of shadow, or a tiny flash of brightness where the
+sun strikes it?  New York!  But I can see the great buildings,
+the domes, the spires, the crowded wharves, the tides of people
+whirling through the streets--and beyond that, the sea, with the
+ships coming and going!  I can follow them on their courses--and
+beyond that--Oh! when I am on Spy Rock I can see more than
+other men can imagine."
+
+For a moment, strange to say, I almost fancied could
+follow him.  The magnetism of his spirit imposed upon me,
+carried me away with him.  Then sober reason told me that he
+was talking of impossibilities.
+
+"Keene," said I, "you are dreaming.  The view and the air
+have intoxicated you.  This is a phantasy, a delusion!"
+
+"It pleases you to call it so," he said, "but I only tell
+you my real experience.  Why it should be impossible I do not
+understand.  There is no reason why the power of sight should
+not be cultivated, enlarged, expanded indefinitely."
+
+"And the straight rays of light?" I asked. "And the curvature
+of the earth which makes a horizon inevitable?"
+
+"Who knows what a ray of light is?" said he.  "Who can
+prove that it may not be curved, under certain conditions, or
+refracted in some places in a way that is not possible
+elsewhere?  I tell you there is something extraordinary about
+this Spy Rock.  It is a seat of power--Nature's observatory.
+More things are visible here than anywhere else--more than I
+have told you yet.  But come, we have little time left.  For
+half an hour, each of us shall enjoy what he can see.  Then
+home again to the narrower outlook, the restricted life."
+
+The downward journey was swifter than the ascent, but no
+less fatiguing.  By the time we reached the school, an hour
+after dark, I was very tired.  But Keene was in one of his
+moods of exhilaration.  He glowed like a piece of phosphorus
+that has been drenched with light.
+
+Graham took the first opportunity of speaking with me alone.
+
+"Well?" said he.
+
+"Well!" I answered.  "You were wrong.  There is no treason in
+Keene's walks, no guilt in his moods.  But there is something
+very strange.  I cannot form a judgment yet as to what we should
+do.  We must wait a few days.  It will do no harm to be patient.
+Indeed, I have promised not to judge, not to speak of it, until a
+certain time.  Are you satisfied?"
+
+"This is a curious story," said he, "and I am puzzled by
+it.  But I trust you, I agree to wait, though I am far from
+satisfied."
+
+Our second expedition was appointed for the following
+Saturday.  Keene was hungry for it, and I was almost as eager,
+desiring to penetrate as quickly as possible into the heart of
+the affair.  Already a conviction in regard to it was pressing
+upon me, and I resolved to let him talk, this time, as freely
+as he would, without interruption or denial.
+
+When we clambered up on Spy Rock, he was more subdued and
+reserved than he had been the first time.  For a while he
+talked little, but scanned view with wide, shining eyes.  Then
+he began to tell me stories of the places that we could
+see--strange stories of domestic calamity, and social conflict,
+and eccentric passion, and hidden crime.
+
+"Do you remember Hawthorne's story of 'The Minister's
+Black Veil?'  It is the best comment on human life that ever
+was written.  Everyone has something to hide.  The surface of
+life is a mask.  The substance of life is a secret.  All
+humanity wears the black veil.  But it is not impenetrable.
+No, it is transparent, if you find the right point of view.
+Here, on Spy Rock, I have found it.  I have learned how to
+look through the veil.  I can see, not by the light-rays only,
+but by the rays which are colourless, imperceptible,
+irresistible the rays of the unknown quantity, which penetrate
+everywhere.  I can see how men down in the great city are
+weaving their nets of selfishness and falsehood, and calling
+them industrial enterprises or political combinations.  I can
+see how the wheels of society are moved by the hidden springs
+of avarice and greed and rivalry.  I can see how children
+drink in the fables of religion, without understanding them,
+and how prudent men repeat them without believing them.  I can
+see how the illusions of love appear and vanish, and how men and
+women swear that their dreams are eternal, even while they fade.
+I can see how poor people blind themselves and deceive each
+other, calling selfishness devotion, and bondage contentment.
+Down at Hilltop yonder I can see how Dorothy Ward and John
+Graham, without knowing it,without meaning it--"
+
+"Stop, man!" I cried.  "Stop, before you say what can
+never be unsaid.  You know it is not true.  These are
+nightmare visions that ride you.  Not from Spy Rock nor from
+anywhere else can you see anything at Hilltop that is not
+honest and pure and loyal.  Come down, now, and let us go
+home.  You will see better there than here."
+
+"I think not," said he, "but I will come.  Yes, of course,
+I am bound to come.  But let me have a few minutes here alone.
+Go you down along the path a little way slowly.  I will follow
+you in a quarter of an hour.  And remember we are to be here
+together once more!"
+
+  Once more!  Yes, and then what must be done?
+
+
+How was this strange case to be dealt with so as to save all
+the actors, as far as possible, from needless suffering?  That
+Keene's mind was disordered at least three of us suspected
+already.  But to me alone was the nature and seat of the
+disorder known.  How make the others understand it?  They
+might easily conceive it to be something different from the
+fact, some actual lesion of the brain, an incurable insanity.
+But this it was not.  As yet, at least, he was no patient for
+a mad-house: it would be unjust, probably it would be
+impossible to have him committed.  But on the other hand they
+might take it too lightly, as the result of overwork, or
+perhaps of the use of some narcotic.  To me it was certain
+that the trouble went far deeper than this.  It lay in the
+man's moral nature, in the error of his central will.  It was
+the working out, in abnormal form, but with essential truth,
+of his chosen and cherished ideal of life.  Spy Rock was
+something more than the seat of his delusion. it was the
+expression of his temperament.  The solitary trail that led
+thither was the symbol of his search for happiness--alone,
+forgetful of life's lowlier ties, looking down upon the world in
+the cold abstraction of scornful knowledge.  How was such a man
+to be brought back to the real life whose first condition is the
+acceptance of a limited outlook, the willingness to live by
+trust as much as by sight, the power of finding joy and peace
+in the things that we feel are the best, even though we cannot
+prove them nor explain them?  How could he ever bring anything
+but discord and sorrow to those who were bound to him?
+
+This was what perplexed and oppressed me.  I needed all
+the time until the next Saturday to think the question
+through, to decide what should be done.  But the matter was
+taken out of my hands.  After our latest expedition Keene's
+dark mood returned upon him with sombre intensity.  Dull,
+restless, indifferent, half-contemptuous, he seemed to
+withdraw into himself, observing those around him with
+half-veiled glances, as if he had nothing better to do and yet
+found it a tiresome pastime.  He was like a man waiting
+wearily at a railway station for his train.  Nothing pleased
+him.  He responded to nothing.
+
+Graham controlled his indignation by a constant effort.
+A dozen times he was on the point of speaking out.  But he
+restrained himself and played fair.  Dorothy's suffering could
+not be hidden.  Her loyalty was strained to the breaking
+point.  She was too tender and true for anger, but she was
+wounded almost beyond endurance.
+
+Keene's restlessness increased.  The intervening Thursday
+was Thanksgiving Day; most of the boys had gone home; the
+school had holiday.  Early in the morning he came to me.
+
+"Let us take our walk to-day.  We have no work to do.
+Come!  In this clear, frosty air, Spy Rock will be glorious!"
+
+"No," I answered, "this is no day for such an expedition.
+This is the home day.  Stay here and be happy with us all.
+You owe this to love and friendship.  You owe it to Dorothy
+Ward."
+
+"Owe it?" said he.  "Speaking of debts, I think each man
+is his own preferred creditor.  But of course you can do as
+you like about to-day.  Tomorrow or Saturday will answer just
+as well for our third walk together."
+
+About noon he came down from his room and went to the
+piano, where Dorothy was sitting.  They talked together in low
+tones.  Then she stood up, with pale face and wide-open eyes.
+She laid her hand on his arm.
+
+"Do not go, Edward.  For the last time I beg you to stay
+with us to-day."
+
+He lifted her hand and held it for an instant.  Then he
+bowed, and let it fall.
+
+"You will excuse me, Dorothy, I am sure.  I feel the need
+of exercise.  Absolutely I must go; good-by--until the
+evening."
+
+The hours of that day passed heavily for all of us. There
+was a sense of disaster in the air.  Something irretrievable
+had fallen from our circle.  But no one dared to name it.
+Night closed in upon the house with a changing sky.  All the
+stars were hidden.  The wind whimpered and then shouted.  The
+rain swept down in spiteful volleys, deepening at last into a
+fierce, steady discharge.  Nine o'clock, ten o'clock passed,
+and Keene did not return.  By midnight we were certain that
+some accident had befallen him.
+
+It was impossible to go up into the mountains in that
+pitch-darkness of furious tempest.  But we could send down to
+the village for men to organise a search-party and to bring
+the doctor.  At daybreak we set out--some of the men going
+with the Master along Black Brook, others in different
+directions to make sure of a complete search--Graham and the
+doctor and I following the secret trail that I knew only too
+well.  Dorothy insisted that she must go.  She would bear no
+denial, declaring that it would be worse for her alone at
+home, than if we took her with us.
+
+It was incredible how the path seemed to lengthen.  Graham
+watched the girl's every step, helping her over the difficult
+places, pushing aside the tangled branches, his eyes resting
+upon her as frankly, as tenderly as a mother looks at her
+child.  In single file we marched through the gray morning,
+clearing cold after the storm, and the silence was seldom
+broken, for we had little heart to talk.
+
+At last we came to the high, lonely ridge, the dwarf
+forest, the huge, couchant bulk of Spy Rock.  There, on the back
+of it, with his right arm hanging over the edge, was the outline
+of Edward Keene's form.  It was as if some monster had seized him
+and flung him over its shoulder to carry away.
+
+We called to him but there was no answer.  The doctor
+climbed up with me, and we hurried to the spot where he was
+lying.  His face was turned to the sky, his eyes blindly
+staring; there was no pulse, no breath; he was already cold in
+death.  His right hand and arm, the side of his neck and face
+were horribly swollen and livid.  The doctor stooped down and
+examined the hand carefully.  "See!" he cried, pointing to a
+great bruise on his wrist, with two tiny punctures in the
+middle of it from which a few drops of blood had oozed, "a
+rattlesnake has struck him.  He must have fairly put his hand
+upon it, perhaps in the dark, when he was climbing.  And,
+look, what is this?"
+
+He picked up a flat silver box, that lay open on the rock.
+There were two olive-green pellets of a resinous paste in it.
+He lifted it to his face, and drew a long breath.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it is Gunjab, the most powerful form of
+Hashish, the narcotic hemp of India.  Poor fellow, it saved
+him from frightful agony.  He died in a dream."
+
+"You are right," I said, "in a dream, and for a dream."
+
+We covered his face and climbed down the rock.  Dorothy
+and Graham were waiting below.  He had put his coat around
+her.  She was shivering a little.  There were tear-marks on
+her face.
+
+"Well," I said, "you must know it.  We have lost him."
+
+"Ah!" said the girl, "I lost him long ago."
+
+
+
+WOOD-MAGIC
+
+There are three vines that belong to the ancient forest.
+Elsewhere they will not grow, though the soil prepared for
+them be never so rich, the shade of the arbour built for them
+never so closely and cunningly woven.  Their delicate,
+thread-like roots take no hold upon the earth tilled and
+troubled by the fingers of man.  The fine sap that steals
+through their long, slender limbs pauses and fails when they
+are watered by human hands.  Silently the secret of their life
+retreats and shrinks away and hides itself.
+
+But in the woods, where falling leaves and crumbling
+tree-trunks and wilting ferns have been moulded by Nature into
+a deep, brown humus, clean and fragrant--in the woods, where
+the sunlight filters green and golden through interlacing
+branches, and where pure moisture of distilling rains and
+melting snows is held in treasury by never-failing banks of
+moss--under the verdurous flood of the forest, like sea-weeds
+under the ocean waves, these three little creeping vines put
+forth their hands with joy, and spread over rock and hillock and
+twisted tree-root and mouldering log, in cloaks and scarves and
+wreaths of tiny evergreen, glossy leaves.
+
+One of them is adorned with white pearls sprinkled lightly
+over its robe of green.  This is Snowberry, and if you eat of
+it, you will grow wise in the wisdom of flowers.  You will
+know where to find the yellow violet, and the wake-robin, and
+the pink lady-slipper, and the scarlet sage, and the fringed
+gentian.  You will understand how the buds trust themselves to
+the spring in their unfolding, and how the blossoms trust
+themselves to the winter in their withering, and how the busy
+bands of Nature are ever weaving the beautiful garment of life
+out of the strands of death, and nothing is lost that yields
+itself to her quiet handling.
+
+Another of the vines of the forest is called Partridge-berry.
+Rubies are hidden among its foliage, and if you eat of this
+fruit, you will grow wise in the wisdom of birds. You will know
+where the oven-bird secretes her nest, and where the wood-cock
+dances in the air at night; the drumming-log of the ruffed grouse
+will be easy to find, and you will see the dark lodges of the
+evergreen thickets inhabited by hundreds of warblers.  There will
+be no dead silence for you in the forest, any longer, but you
+will hear sweet and delicate voices on every side, voices that
+you know and love; you will catch the key-note of the silver
+flute of the woodthrush, and the silver harp of the veery, and
+the silver bells of the hermit; and something in your heart will
+answer to them all.  In the frosty stillness of October nights
+you will see the airy tribes flitting across the moon, following
+the secret call that guides them southward.  In the calm
+brightness of winter sunshine, filling sheltered copses with
+warmth and cheer, you will watch the lingering blue-birds and
+robins and song-sparrows playing at summer, while the chickadees
+and the juncos and the cross-bills make merry in the windswept
+fields.  In the lucent mornings of April you will hear your old
+friends coming home to you, Phoebe, and Oriole, and
+Yellow-Throat, and Red-Wing, and Tanager, and Cat-Bird.  When
+they call to you and greet you, you will understand that Nature
+knows a secret for which man has never found a word--the secret
+that tells itself in song.
+
+The third of the forest-vines is Wood-Magic.  It bears neither
+flower nor fruit.  Its leaves are hardly to be distinguished
+from the leaves of the other vines.  Perhaps they are a little
+rounder than the Snowberry's, a little more pointed than the
+Partridge-berry's; sometimes you might mistake them for the
+one, sometimes for the other.  No marks of warning have been
+written upon them.  If you find them it is your fortune; if
+you taste them it is your fate.
+
+For as you browse your way through the forest, nipping
+here and there a rosy leaf of young winter-green, a fragrant
+emerald tip of balsam-fir, a twig of spicy birch, if by chance
+you pluck the leaves of Wood-Magic and eat them, you will not
+know what you have done, but the enchantment of the tree-land
+will enter your heart and the charm of the wildwood will flow
+through your veins.
+
+You will never get away from it.  The sighing of the wind
+through the pine-trees and the laughter of the stream in its
+rapids will sound through all your dreams.  On beds of silken
+softness you will long for the sleep-song of whispering leaves
+above your head, and the smell of a couch of balsam-boughs.  At
+tables spread with dainty fare you will be hungry for the joy of
+the hunt, and for the angler's sylvan feast.  In proud cities you
+will weary for the sight of a mountain trail; in great cathedrals
+you will think of the long, arching aisles of the woodland; and
+in the noisy solitude of crowded streets you will hone after the
+friendly forest.
+
+This is what will happen to you if you eat the leaves of
+that little vine, Wood-Magic.  And this is what happened to
+Luke Dubois.
+
+
+
+I
+
+The Cabin by the Rivers
+
+Two highways meet before the door, and a third reaches away to
+the southward, broad and smooth and white.  But there are no
+travellers passing by.  The snow that has fallen during the
+night is unbroken.  The pale February sunrise makes blue shadows
+on it, sharp and jagged, an outline of the fir-trees on the
+mountain-crest quarter of, a mile away.
+
+In summer the highways are dissolved into three wild
+rivers--the River of Rocks, which issues from the hills; the
+River of Meadows, which flows from the great lake; and the
+River of the Way Out, which runs down from their meeting-place
+to the settlements and the little world.  But in winter, when
+the ice is firm under the snow, and the going is fine, there
+are no tracks upon the three broad roads except the paths of
+the caribou, and the footprints of the marten and the mink and
+the fox, and the narrow trails made by Luke Dubois on his way
+to and from his cabin by the rivers.
+
+He leaned in the door-way, looking out.  Behind him in the
+shadow, the fire was still snapping in the little stove where
+he had cooked his breakfast.  There was a comforting smell of
+bacon and venison in the room; the tea-pot stood on the table
+half-empty.  Here in the corner were his rifle and some of his
+traps.  On the wall hung his snowshoes.  Under the bunk was a
+pile of skins.  Half-open on the bench lay the book that he had
+been reading the evening before, while the snow was falling.  It
+was a book of veritable fairy-tales, which told how men had made
+their way in the world, and achieved great fortunes, and won
+success, by toiling hard at first, and then by trading and
+bargaining and getting ahead of other men.
+
+"Well," said Luke, to himself, as he stood at the door, "I
+could do that too.  Without doubt I also am one of the men who
+can do things.  They did not work any harder than I do.  But
+they got better pay.  I am twenty-five.  For ten years I have
+worked hard, and what have I got for it?  This!"
+
+He stepped out into the morning, alert and vigorous,
+deep-chested and straight-hipped.  The strength of the hills
+had gone into him, and his eyes were bright with health.  His
+kingdom was spread before him.  There along the River of
+Meadows were the haunts of the moose and the caribou where he
+hunted in the fall; and yonder on the burnt hills around the
+great lake were the places where he watched for the bears; and
+up beside the River of Rocks ran his line of traps, swinging back
+by secret ways to many a nameless pond and hidden
+beaver-meadow; and all along the streams, when the ice went
+out in the spring, the great trout would be leaping in rapid
+and pool.  Among the peaks and valleys of that forest-clad
+kingdom he could find his way as easily as a merchant walks
+from his house to his office.  The secrets of bird and beast
+were known to him; every season of the year brought him its
+own tribute; the woods were his domain, vast, inexhaustible,
+free.
+
+Here was his home, his cabin that he had built with his
+own hands.  The roof was tight, the walls were well chinked
+with moss.  It was snug and warm.  But small--how pitifully
+small it looked to-day--and how lonely!
+
+His hand-sledge stood beside the door, and against it
+leaned the axe.  He caught it up and began to split wood for
+the stove.  "No!" he cried, throwing down the axe, "I'm tired
+of this.  It has lasted long enough.  I'm going out to make my
+way in the world."
+
+A couple of hours later, the sledge was packed with camp-gear
+and bundles of skins.  The door of the cabin was shut; a
+ghostlike wreath of blue smoke curled from the chimney.  Luke
+stood, in his snowshoes, on the white surface of the River of the
+Way Out.  He turned to look back for a moment, and waved his
+hand.
+
+"Good-bye, old cabin! Good-bye, the rivers!  Good-bye, the
+woods!"
+
+
+
+II
+
+The House on the Main Street
+
+All the good houses in Scroll-Saw City were different, in the
+number and shape of the curious pinnacles that rose from their
+roofs and in the trimmings of their verandas.  Yet they were
+all alike, too, in their general expression of putting their
+best foot foremost and feeling quite sure that they made a
+brave show.  They had lace curtains in their front parlour
+windows, and outside of the curtains were large red and yellow
+pots of artificial flowers and indestructible palms and
+vulcanised rubber-plants.  It was a gay sight.
+
+But by far the bravest of these houses was the residence
+of Mr. Matthew Wilson, the principal merchant of Scroll-Saw
+City.  It stood on a corner of Main Street, glancing slyly out
+of the tail of one eye, side-ways down the street, toward the
+shop and the business, but keeping a bold, complacent front
+toward the street-cars and the smaller houses across the way.
+It might well be satisfied with itself, for it had three more
+pinnacles than any of its neighbours, and the work of the
+scroll-saw was looped and festooned all around the eaves and
+porticoes and bay-windows in amazing richness.  Moreover, in
+the front yard were cast-iron images painted white: a stag
+reposing on a door-mat; Diana properly dressed and returning
+from the chase; a small iron boy holding over his head a
+parasol from the ferrule of which a fountain squirted.  The
+paths were of asphalt, gray and gritty in winter, but now, in
+the summer heat, black and pulpy to the tread.
+
+There were many feet passing over them this afternoon, for
+Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Wilson were giving a reception to
+celebrate the official entrance of their daughter Amanda into a
+social life which she had permeated unofficially for several
+years.  The house was sizzling full of people.  Those who were
+jammed in the parlour tried to get into the dining-room, and
+those who were packed in the dining-room struggled to escape,
+holding plates of stratified cake and liquefied ice-cream high
+above their neighbours' heads like signals of danger and
+distress.  Everybody was talking at the same time, in a loud,
+shrill voice, and nobody listened to what anybody else was
+saying. But it did not matter, for they all said the same things.
+
+"Elegant house for a party, so full of--"  "How perfectly
+lovely Amanda Wilson looks in that--"  "Awfully warm day!
+Were you at the Tompkins' last--"  "Wilson's Emporium must be
+doing good business to keep up all this--"  "Hear he's going
+to enlarge the store and take Luke Woods into the--"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if there might be a wedding here before
+next--"
+
+The tide of chatter rose and swelled and ebbed and
+suddenly sank away.  At six o'clock, the minister and two
+maiden ladies in black silk with lilac ribbons, laid down their
+last plates of ice-cream and said they thought they must be
+going.  Amanda and her mother preened their dresses and patted
+their hair.  Come into the study," said Mr. Wilson to Luke.  "I
+want to have a talk with you."
+
+The little bookless room, called the study, was the one
+that kept its eye on the shop and the business, away down the
+street.  You could see the brick front, and the plate-glass
+windows, and part of the gilt sign.
+
+"Pretty good store," said Mr. Wilson, jingling the keys in
+his pocket, "does the biggest trade in the county, biggest but
+one in the whole state, I guess.  And I must say, Luke Woods,
+you've done your share, these last five years, in building it
+up.  Never had a clerk work so hard and so steady.  You've got
+good business sense, I guess."
+
+"I'm glad you think so," said Luke.  "I did as well as I
+could."
+
+"Yes," said the elder man, "and now I'm about ready to
+take you in with me, give you a share in the business.  I want
+some one to help me run it, make it larger.  We can double it,
+easy, if we stick to it and spread out.  No reason why you
+shouldn't make a fortune out of it, and have a house just like
+this on the other corner, when you're my age."
+
+Luke's thoughts were wandering a little.  They went out
+from the stuffy room, beyond the dusty street, and the
+jangling cars, and the gilt sign, and the shop full of
+dry-goods and notions, and the high desks in the office--out
+to the dim, cool forest, where Snowberry and Partridge-berry
+and Wood-Magic grow.  He heard the free winds rushing over the
+tree-tops, and saw the trail winding away before him in the
+green shade.
+
+"You are very kind," said he, "I hope you will not be
+disappointed in me.  Sometimes I think, perhaps--"
+
+"Not at all, not at all," said the other.  "It's all
+right.  You're well fitted for it.  And then, there's another
+thing.  I guess you like my daughter Amanda pretty well.  Eh?
+I've watched you, young man.  I've had my eye on you!  Now, of
+course, I can't say much about it--never can be sure of these
+kind of things, you know--but if you and she--"
+
+The voice went on rolling out words complacently.  But
+something strange was working in Luke's blood,
+and other voices were sounding faintly in his ears.  He heard
+the lisping of the leaves on the little poplar-trees, the
+whistle of the black duck's wings as he circled in the air,
+the distant drumming of the grouse on his log, the rumble of
+the water-fall in the River of Rocks.  The spray cooled his
+face.  He saw the fish rising along the pool, and a stag
+feeding among the lily-pads.
+
+"I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Wilson," said he at
+last, when the elder man stopped talking.  "You have certainly
+treated me most generously.  The only question is, whether--
+But to-morrow night, I think, with your consent, I will speak
+to your daughter.  To-night I am going down to the store;
+there is a good deal of work to do on the books."
+
+But when Luke came to the store, he did not go in.  He
+walked along the street till he came to the river.
+
+The water-side was strangely deserted.  Everybody was at
+supper.  A couple of schooners were moored at the wharf.  The
+Portland steamer had gone out.  The row-boats hung idle at their
+little dock.  Down the river, drifting and dancing lightly over
+the opalescent ripples, following the gentle turns of the current
+which flowed past the end of the dock where Luke was standing,
+came a white canoe, empty and astray.
+
+
+
+III
+
+The White Canoe
+
+"That looks just like my old canoe," said he.  "Somebody must
+have left it adrift up the river.  I wonder how it floated
+down here without being picked up."  He put out his hand and
+caught it, as it touched the dock.
+
+In the stern a good paddle of maple-wood was lying; in the
+middle there was a roll of blankets and a pack of camp-stuff; in
+the bow a rifle.
+
+"All ready for a trip," he laughed.  "Nobody going but me?
+Well, then, au large!"  And stepping into the canoe he
+pushed out on the river.
+
+The saffron and golden lights in the sky diffused
+themselves over the surface of the water, and spread from the bow
+of the canoe in deeper waves of purple and orange, as he paddled
+swiftly up stream.  The pale yellow gas-lamps of the town faded
+behind him.  The lumber-yards and factories and disconsolate
+little houses of the outskirts seemed to melt away.  In a little
+while he was floating between dark walls of forest, through the
+heart of the wilderness.
+
+The night deepened around him and the sky hung out its
+thousand lamps.  Odours of the woods floated on the air: the
+spicy fragrance of the firs; the breath of hidden banks of
+twin-flower.  Muskrats swam noiselessly in the shadows, diving
+with a great commotion as the canoe ran upon them suddenly.
+A horned owl hooted from the branch of a dead pine-tree; far
+back in the forest a fox barked twice.  The moon crept up
+behind the wall of trees and touched the stream with silver.
+
+Presently the forest receded: the banks of the river grew
+broad and open; the dew glistened on the tall grass; it was
+surely the River of Meadows.  Far ahead of him in a bend of
+the stream, Luke's ear caught a new sound: SLOSH, SLOSH, SLOSH,
+as if some heavy animal were crossing the wet meadow.  Then a
+great splash!  Luke swung the canoe into the shadow of the bank
+and paddled fast.  As he turned the point a black bear came out
+of the river, and stood on the shore, shaking the water around
+him in glittering spray.  Ping! said the rifle, and the bear
+fell.  "Good luck!" said Luke.  "I haven't forgotten how,
+after all.  I'll take him into the canoe, and dress him up at
+the camp."
+
+Yes, there was the little cabin at the meeting of the
+rivers.  The door was padlocked, but Luke knew how to pry off
+one of the staples.  Squirrels had made a litter on the floor,
+but that was soon swept out, and a fire crackled in the stove.
+There was tea and ham and bread in the pack in the canoe.
+Supper never tasted better.  "One more night in the old camp,"
+said Luke as he rolled himself in the blanket and dropped
+asleep in a moment.
+
+The sun shone in at the door and woke him.  "I must have
+a trout for breakfast," he cried, "there's one waiting for me
+at the mouth of Alder Brook, I suppose."  So he caught up his
+rod from behind the door, and got into the canoe and paddled
+up the River of Rocks.  There was the broad, dark pool, like a
+little lake, with a rapid running in at the head, and close
+beside the rapid, the mouth of the brook.  He sent his fly out by
+the edge of the alders.  There was a huge swirl on the water, and
+the great-grandfather of all the trout in the river was
+hooked.  Up and down the pool he played for half an hour,
+until at last the fight was over, and for want of a net Luke
+beached him on the gravel bank at the foot of the pool.
+
+"Seven pounds if it's an ounce," said he.  "This is my
+lucky day.  Now all I need is some good meat to provision the
+camp."
+
+He glanced down the river, and on the second point below
+the pool he saw a great black bullmoose with horns five feet
+wide.
+
+Quietly, swiftly, the canoe went gliding down the stream;
+and ever as it crept along, the moose loped easily before it,
+from point to point, from bay to bay, past the little cabin,
+down the River of the Way Out, now rustling unseen through a
+bank of tall alders, now standing out for a moment bold and
+black on a beach of white sand--so all day long the moose loped
+down the stream and the white canoe followed.  Just as the
+setting sun was poised above the trees, the great bull stopped
+and stood with head lifted.  Luke pushed the canoe as near as he
+dared, and looked down for the rifle.  He had left it at the
+cabin!  The moose tossed his huge antlers, grunted, and stepped
+quietly over the bushes into the forest.
+
+Luke paddled on down the stream.  It occurred to him,
+suddenly, that it was near evening.  He wondered a little how
+he should reach home in time for his engagement.  But it did
+not seem strange, as he went swiftly on with the river, to see
+the first houses of the town, and the lumber-yards, and the
+schooners at the wharf.
+
+He made the canoe fast at the dock, and went up the Main
+Street.  There was the old shop, but the sign over it read,
+"Wilson and Woods Company, The Big Store."  He went on to the
+house with the white iron images in the front yard.  Diana was
+still returning from the chase.  The fountain still squirted
+from the point of the little boy's parasol.
+
+On the veranda sat a stout man in a rocking chair, reading the
+newspaper.  At the side of the house two little girls with
+pig-tails were playing croquet.  Some one in the parlour was
+executing "After the Ball is Over" on a mechanical piano.
+
+Luke accosted a stranger who passed him.  "Excuse me, but
+can you tell me whether this is Mr. Matthew Wilson's house?"
+
+"It used to be," said the stranger, "but old man Wilson
+has been dead these ten years."
+
+"And who lives here now?" asked Luke.
+
+"Mr. Woods: he married Wilson's daughter," said the
+stranger, and went on his way.
+
+"Well," said Luke to himself, "this is just a little
+queer.  Woods was my name for a while, when I lived here, but
+now, I suppose, I'm Luke Dubois again.  Dashed if I can
+understand it.  Somebody must have been dreaming."
+
+So he went back to the white canoe, and paddled away up
+the river, and nobody in Scroll-Saw City ever set eyes on him
+again.
+
+
+
+
+THE OTHER WISE MAN
+
+You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East, and how
+they travelled from far away to offer their gifts at the
+manger-cradle in Bethlehem.  But have you ever heard the story
+of the Other Wise Man, who also saw the star in its rising,
+and set out to follow it, yet did not arrive with his brethren
+in the presence of the young child Jesus?  Of the great desire
+of this fourth pilgrim, and how it was denied, yet
+accomplished in the denial; of his many wanderings and the
+probations of his soul; of the long way of his seeking and the
+strange way of his finding the One whom he sought--I would
+tell the tale as I have heard fragments of it in the Hall of
+Dreams, in the palace of the Heart of Man.
+
+
+I
+
+In the days when Augustus Caesar was master of many kings and
+Herod reigned in Jerusalem, there lived in the city of
+Ecbatana, among the mountains of Persia, a certain man named
+Artaban.  His house stood close to the outermost of the walls
+which encircled the royal treasury.  From his roof he could look
+over the seven-fold battlements of black and white and crimson
+and blue and red and silver and gold, to the hill where the
+summer palace of the Parthian emperors glittered like a jewel in
+a crown.
+
+Around the dwelling of Artaban spread a fair garden, a
+tangle of flowers and fruit-trees, watered by a score of
+streams descending from the slopes of Mount Orontes, and made
+musical by innumerable birds.  But all colour was lost in the
+soft and odorous darkness of the late September night, and all
+sounds were hushed in the deep charm of its silence, save the
+plashing of the water, like a voice half-sobbing and
+half-laughing under the shadows.  High above the trees a dim
+glow of light shone through the curtained arches of the upper
+chamber, where the master of the house was holding council
+with his friends.
+
+He stood by the doorway to greet his guests--a tall, dark
+man of about forty years, with brilliant eyes set near together
+under his broad brow, and firm lines graven around his fine, thin
+lips; the brow of a dreamer and the mouth of a soldier, a man of
+sensitive feeling but inflexible will--one of those who, in
+whatever age they may live, are born for inward conflict and a
+life of quest.
+
+His robe was of pure white wool, thrown over a tunic of
+silk; and a white, pointed cap, with long lapels at the sides,
+rested on his flowing black hair.  It was the dress of the
+ancient priesthood of the Magi, called the fire-worshippers.
+
+"Welcome!" he said, in his low, pleasant voice, as one
+after another entered the room--"welcome, Abdus; peace be with
+you, Rhodaspes and Tigranes, and with you my father, Abgarus.
+You are all welcome.  This house grows bright with the joy of
+your presence."
+
+There were nine of the men, differing widely in age, but
+alike in the richness of their dress of many-coloured silks,
+and in the massive golden collars around their necks, marking
+them as Parthian nobles, and in the winged circles of gold
+resting upon their breasts, the sign of the followers of
+Zoroaster.
+
+They took their places around a small black altar at the
+end of the room, where a tiny flame was burning.  Artaban,
+standing beside it, and waving a barsom of thin tamarisk
+branches above the fire, fed it with dry sticks of pine and
+fragrant oils.  Then he began the ancient chant of the Yasna,
+and the voices of his companions joined in the hymn to
+Ahura-Mazda:
+
+
+  We worship the Spirit Divine,
+         all wisdom and goodness possessing,
+  Surrounded by Holy Immortals,
+         the givers of bounty and blessing;
+  We joy in the work of His hands,
+         His truth and His power confessing.
+
+  We praise all the things that are pure,
+         for these are His only Creation
+  The thoughts that are true, and the words
+         and the deeds that have won approbation;
+  These are supported by Him,
+         and for these we make adoration.
+  Hear us, O Mazda!  Thou livest
+         in truth and in heavenly gladness;
+  Cleanse us from falsehood, and keep us
+         from evil and bondage to badness,
+  Pour out the light and the joy of Thy life
+             on our darkness and sadness.
+
+  Shine on our gardens and fields,
+         shine on our working and waving;
+  Shine on the whole race of man,
+             believing and  unbelieving;
+  Shine on us now through the night,
+  Shine on us now in Thy might,
+  The flame of our holy love
+      and the song of our worship receiving.
+
+
+
+The fire rose with the chant, throbbing as if the flame
+responded to the music, until it cast a bright illumination
+through the whole apartment, revealing its simplicity and
+splendour.
+
+The floor was laid with tiles of dark blue veined with
+white; pilasters of twisted silver stood out against the blue
+walls; the clear-story of round-arched windows above them was
+hung with azure silk; the vaulted ceiling was a pavement of
+blue stones, like the body of heaven in its clearness, sown with
+silver stars.  From the four corners of the roof hung four
+golden magic-wheels, called the tongues of the gods.  At the
+eastern end, behind the altar, there were two dark-red pillars
+of porphyry; above them a lintel of the same stone, on which
+was carved the figure of a winged archer, with his arrow set
+to the string and his bow drawn.
+
+The doorway between the pillars, which opened upon the
+terrace of the roof, was covered with a heavy curtain of the
+colour of a ripe pomegranate, embroidered with innumerable
+golden rays shooting upward from the floor.  In effect the
+room was like a quiet, starry night, all azure and silver,
+flushed in the cast with rosy promise of the dawn.  It was, as
+the house of a man should be, an expression of the character
+and spirit of the master.
+
+He turned to his friends when the song was ended, and
+invited them to be seated on the divan at the western end of
+the room.
+
+"You have come to-night," said he, looking around the
+circle, "at my call, as the faithful scholars of Zoroaster, to
+renew your worship and rekindle your faith in the God of Purity,
+even as this fire has been rekindled on the altar.  We worship
+not the fire, but Him of whom it is the chosen symbol, because it
+is the purest of all created things.  It speaks to us of one who
+is Light and Truth.  Is it not so, my father?"
+
+"It is well said, my son," answered the venerable Abgarus.
+"The enlightened are never idolaters.  They lift the veil of
+form and go in to the shrine of reality, and new light and
+truth are coming to them continually through the old symbols."
+  "Hear me, then, my father and my friends," said Artaban,
+"while I tell you of the new light and truth that have come to
+me through the most ancient of all signs.  We have searched
+the secrets of Nature together, and studied the healing virtues
+of water and fire and the plants.  We have read also the
+books of prophecy in which the future is dimly foretold in
+words that are hard to understand.  But the highest of all
+learning is the knowledge of the stars.  To trace their course
+is to untangle the threads of the mystery of life from the
+beginning to the end.  If we could follow them perfectly, nothing
+would be hidden from us.  But is not our knowledge of them still
+incomplete?  Are there not many stars still beyond our
+horizon--lights that are known only to the dwellers in the far
+south-land, among the spice-trees of Punt and the gold mines of
+Ophir?"
+
+There was a murmur of assent among the listeners.
+
+"The stars," said Tigranes, "are the thoughts of the
+Eternal.  They are numberless.  But the thoughts of man can be
+counted, like the years of his life.  The wisdom of the Magi
+is the greatest of all wisdoms on earth, because it knows its
+own ignorance.  And that is the secret of power.  We keep men
+always looking and waiting for a new sunrise.  But we
+ourselves understand that the darkness is equal to the light,
+and that the conflict between them will never be ended."
+
+"That does not satisfy me," answered Artaban, "for, if the
+waiting must be endless, if there could be no fulfilment of
+it, then it would not be wisdom to look and wait.  We should
+become like those new teachers of the Greeks, who say that
+there is no truth, and that the only wise men are those who
+spend their lives in discovering and exposing the lies that
+have been believed in the world.  But the new sunrise will
+certainly appear in the appointed time.  Do not our own books
+tell us that this will come to pass, and that men will see the
+brightness of a great light?"
+
+"That is true," said the voice of Abgarus; "every faithful
+disciple of Zoroaster knows the prophecy of the Avesta, and
+carries the word in his heart.  `In that day Sosiosh the
+Victorious shall arise out of the number of the prophets in
+the east country.  Around him shall shine a mighty brightness,
+and he shall make life everlasting, incorruptible, and
+immortal, and the dead shall rise again.'"
+
+"This is a dark saying," said Tigranes, "and it may be
+that we shall never understand it.  It is better to consider
+the things that are near at hand, and to increase the
+influence of the Magi in their own country, rather than to
+look for one who may be a stranger, and to whom we must resign
+our power."
+
+The others seemed to approve these words.  There was a
+silent feeling of agreement manifest among them; their looks
+responded with that indefinable expression which always
+follows when a speaker has uttered the thought that has been
+slumbering in the hearts of his listeners.  But Artaban turned
+to Abgarus with a glow on his face, and said:
+
+"My father, I have kept this prophecy in the secret place
+of my soul.  Religion without a great hope would be like an
+altar without a living fire.  And now the flame has burned
+more brightly, and by the light of it I have read other words
+which also have come from the fountain of Truth, and speak yet
+more clearly of the rising of the Victorious One in his
+brightness."
+
+He drew from the breast of his tunic two small rolls of
+fine parchment, with writing upon them, and unfolded them
+carefully upon his knee.
+
+"In the years that are lost in the past, long before our
+fathers came into the land of Babylon, there were wise men in
+Chaldea, from whom the first of the Magi learned the secret of
+the heavens. And of these Balaam the son of Beor was one of the
+mightiest.  Hear the words of his prophecy:  'There shall come a
+star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel.'"
+
+The lips of Tigranes drew downward with contempt, as he
+said:
+
+"Judah was a captive by the waters of Babylon, and the
+sons of Jacob were in bondage to our kings.  The tribes of
+Israel are scattered through the mountains like lost sheep,
+and from the remnant that dwells in Judea under the yoke of
+Rome neither star nor sceptre shall arise."
+
+ "And yet," answered Artaban, "it was the Hebrew Daniel,
+the mighty searcher of dreams, the counsellor of kings, the
+wise Belteshazzar, who was most honoured and beloved of our
+great King Cyrus.  A prophet of sure things and a reader of
+the thoughts of the Eternal, Daniel proved himself to our
+people.  And these are the words that he wrote."  (Artaban
+read from the second roll:)  " 'Know, therefore, and understand
+that from the going forth of the commandment to restore
+Jerusalem, unto the Anointed One, the Prince, the time shall be
+seven and threescore and two weeks."'
+
+"But, my son," said Abgarus, doubtfully, "these are
+mystical numbers.  Who can interpret them, or who can find the
+key that shall unlock their meaning?"
+
+Artaban answered:  "It has been shown to me and to my
+three companions among the Magi--Caspar, Melchior, and
+Balthazar.  We have searched the ancient tablets of Chaldea
+and computed the time.  It falls in this year.  We have
+studied the sky, and in the spring of the year we saw two of
+the greatest planets draw near together in the sign of the
+Fish, which is the house of the Hebrews.  We also saw a new
+star there, which shone for one night and then vanished.  Now
+again the two great planets are meeting.  This night is their
+conjunction.  My three brothers are watching by the ancient
+Temple of the Seven Spheres, at Borsippa, in Babylonia, and I
+am watching here.  If the star shines again, they will wait
+ten days for me at the temple, and then we will set out
+together for Jerusalem, to see and worship the promised one who
+shall be born King of Israel.  I believe the sign will come.  I
+have made ready for the journey.  I have sold my possessions, and
+bought these three jewels--a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl--to
+carry them as tribute to the King.  And I ask you to go with me
+on the pilgrimage, that we may have joy together in finding the
+Prince who is worthy to be served."
+
+While he was speaking he thrust his hand into the inmost
+fold of his, girdle and drew out three great gems--one blue as
+a fragment of the night sky, one redder than a ray of sunrise,
+and one as pure as the peak of a snow-mountain at
+twilight--and laid them on the outspread scrolls before him.
+
+But his friends looked on with strange and alien eyes.  A
+veil of doubt and mistrust came over their faces, like a fog
+creeping up from the marshes to hide the hills.  They glanced
+at each other with looks of wonder and pity, as those who have
+listened to incredible sayings, the story of a wild vision, or
+the proposal of an impossible enterprise.
+
+At last Tigranes said:  "Artaban, this is a vain dream.
+It comes from too much looking upon the stars and the
+cherishing of lofty thoughts.  It would be wiser to spend the
+time in gathering money for the new fire-temple at Chala.  No
+king will ever rise from the broken race of Israel, and no end
+will ever come to the eternal strife of light and darkness.
+He who looks for it is a chaser of shadows.  Farewell."
+
+And another said:  "Artaban, I have no knowledge of these
+things, and my office as guardian of the royal treasure binds
+me here.  The quest is not for me.  But if thou must follow
+it, fare thee well."
+
+And another said:  "In my house there sleeps a new bride,
+and I cannot leave her nor take her with me on this strange
+journey.  This quest is not for me.  But may thy steps be
+prospered wherever thou goest.  So, farewell."
+
+And another said:  "I am ill and unfit for hardship, but
+there is a man among my servants whom I will send with thee
+when thou goest, to bring me word how thou farest."
+
+So, one by one, they left the house of Artaban.  But
+Abgarus, the oldest and the one who loved him the best,
+lingered after the others had gone, and said, gravely:  "My
+son, it may be that the light of truth is in this sign that
+has appeared in the skies, and then it will surely lead to the
+Prince and the mighty brightness.  Or it may be that it is
+only a shadow of the light, as Tigranes has said, and then he
+who follows it will have a long pilgrimage and a fruitless
+search.  But it is better to follow even the shadow of the
+best than to remain content with the worst.  And those who
+would see wonderful things must often be ready to travel
+alone.  I am too old for this journey, but my heart shall be
+a companion of thy pilgrimage day and night, and I shall know
+the end of thy quest.  Go in peace."
+
+Then Abgarus went out of the azure chamber with its silver
+stars, and Artaban was left in solitude.
+
+He gathered up the jewels and replaced them in his girdle.
+For a long time he stood and watched the flame that flickered
+and sank upon the altar. Then he crossed the hall, lifted the
+heavy curtain, and passed out between the pillars of porphyry to
+the terrace on the roof.
+
+The shiver that runs through the earth ere she rouses from
+her night-sleep had already begun, and the cool wind that
+heralds the daybreak was drawing downward from the lofty
+snow-traced ravines of Mount Orontes.  Birds, half-awakened,
+crept and chirped among the rustling leaves, and the smell of
+ripened grapes came in brief wafts from the arbours.
+
+Far over the eastern plain a white mist stretched like a
+lake.  But where the distant peaks of Zagros serrated the
+western horizon the sky was clear.  Jupiter and Saturn rolled
+together like drops of lambent flame about to blend in one.
+
+As Artaban watched them, a steel-blue spark was born out
+of the darkness beneath, rounding itself with purple
+splendours to a crimson sphere, and spiring upward through
+rays of saffron and orange into a point of white radiance.
+Tiny and infinitely remote, yet perfect in every part, it
+pulsated in the enormous vault as if the three jewels in the
+Magian's girdle had mingled and been transformed into a living
+heart of light.
+
+He bowed his head.  He covered his brow with his hands.
+
+"It is the sign," he said.  "The King is coming, and I
+will go to meet him."
+
+
+
+II
+
+All night long, Vasda, the swiftest of Artaban's horses, had
+been waiting, saddled and bridled, in her stall, pawing the
+ground impatiently, and shaking her bit as if she shared the
+eagerness of her master's purpose, though she knew not its
+meaning.
+
+Before the birds had fully roused to their strong, high,
+joyful chant of morning song, before the white mist had begun
+to lift lazily from the plain, the Other Wise Man was in the
+saddle, riding swiftly along the high-road, which skirted the
+base of Mount Orontes, westward.
+
+How close, how intimate is the comradeship between a man
+and his favourite horse on a long journey.  It is a silent,
+comprehensive friendship, an intercourse beyond the need of
+words.
+
+They drink at the same way-side springs, and sleep under
+the same guardian stars.  They are conscious together of the
+subduing spell of nightfall and the quickening joy of
+daybreak.  The master shares his evening meal with his hungry
+companion, and feels the soft, moist lips caressing the palm
+of his hand as they close over the morsel of bread.  In the
+gray dawn he is roused from his bivouac by the gentle stir of
+a warm, sweet breath over his sleeping face, and looks up into
+the eyes of his faithful fellow-traveller, ready and waiting
+for the toil of the day.  Surely, unless he is a pagan and an
+unbeliever, by whatever name he calls upon his God, he will
+thank Him for this voiceless sympathy, this dumb affection,
+and his morning prayer will embrace a double blessing--God
+bless us both, the horse and the rider, and keep our feet from
+falling and our souls from death!
+
+Then, through the keen morning air, the swift hoofs beat
+their tattoo along the road, keeping time to the pulsing of
+two hearts that are moved with the same eager desire--to
+conquer space, to devour the distance, to attain the goal of
+the journey.
+
+Artaban must indeed ride wisely and well if he would keep
+the appointed hour with the other Magi; for the route was a
+hundred and fifty parasangs, and fifteen was the utmost that
+he could travel in a day.  But he knew Vasda's strength, and
+pushed forward without anxiety, making the fixed distance
+every day, though he must travel late into the night, and in
+the morning long before sunrise.
+
+He passed along the brown slopes of Mount Orontes,
+furrowed by the rocky courses of a hundred torrents.
+
+He crossed the level plains of the Nisaeans, where the
+famous herds of horses, feeding in the wide pastures, tossed
+their heads at Vasda's approach, and galloped away with a
+thunder of many hoofs, and flocks of wild birds rose suddenly
+from the swampy meadows, wheeling in great circles with a
+shining flutter of innumerable wings and shrill cries of
+surprise.
+
+He traversed the fertile fields of Concabar, where the
+dust from the threshing-floors filled the air with a golden
+mist, half hiding the huge temple of Astarte with its four
+hundred pillars.
+
+At Baghistan, among the rich gardens watered by fountains
+from the rock, he looked up at the mountain thrusting its
+immense rugged brow out over the road, and saw the figure of
+King Darius trampling upon his fallen foes, and the proud list
+of his wars and conquests graven high upon the face of the
+eternal cliff.
+
+Over many a cold and desolate pass, crawling painfully
+across the wind-swept shoulders of the hills; down many a
+black mountain-gorge, where the river roared and raced before
+him like a savage guide; across many a smiling vale, with
+terraces of yellow limestone full of vines and fruit-trees;
+through the oak-groves of Carine and the dark Gates of Zagros,
+walled in by precipices; into the ancient city of Chala, where
+the people of Samaria had been kept in captivity long ago; and
+out again by the mighty portal, riven through the encircling
+hills, where he saw the image of the High Priest of the Magi
+sculptured on the wall of rock, with hand uplifted as if to bless
+the centuries of pilgrims; past the entrance of the narrow
+defile, filled from end to end with orchards of peaches and figs,
+through which the river Gyndes foamed down to meet him; over
+the broad rice-fields, where the autumnal vapours spread their
+deathly mists; following along the course of the river, under
+tremulous shadows of poplar and tamarind, among the lower
+hills; and out upon the flat plain, where the road ran
+straight as an arrow through the stubble-fields and parched
+meadows; past the city of Ctesiphon, where the Parthian
+emperors reigned, and the vast metropolis of Seleucia which
+Alexander built; across the swirling floods of Tigris and the
+many channels of Euphrates, flowing yellow through the
+corn-lands--Artaban pressed onward until he arrived, at
+nightfall on the tenth day, beneath the shattered walls of
+populous Babylon.
+
+Vasda was almost spent, and Artaban would gladly have
+turned into the city to find rest and refreshment for himself
+and for her.  But he knew that it was three hours' journey yet
+to the Temple of the Seven Spheres, and he must reach the
+place by midnight if he would find his comrades waiting.  So
+he did not halt, but rode steadily across the stubble-fields.
+
+A grove of date-palms made an island of gloom in the pale
+yellow sea.  As she passed into the shadow Vasda slackened her
+pace, and began to pick her way more carefully.
+
+Near the farther end of the darkness an access of caution
+seemed to fall upon her.  She scented some danger or
+difficulty; it was not in her heart to fly from it--only to be
+prepared for it, and to meet it wisely, as a good horse should
+do.  The grove was close and silent as the tomb; not a leaf
+rustled, not a bird sang.
+
+She felt her steps before her delicately, carrying her
+head low, and sighing now and then with apprehension.  At last
+she gave a quick breath of anxiety and dismay, and stood
+stock-still, quivering in every muscle, before a dark object in
+the shadow of the last palm-tree.
+
+Artaban dismounted.  The dim starlight revealed the form
+of a man lying across the road.  His humble dress and the
+outline of his haggard face showed that he was probably one of
+the Hebrews who still dwelt in great numbers around the city.
+His pallid skin, dry and yellow as parchment, bore the mark of
+the deadly fever which ravaged the marsh-lands in autumn.  The
+chill of death was in his lean hand, and, as Artaban released
+it, the arm fell back inertly upon the motionless breast.
+
+He turned away with a thought of pity, leaving the body to
+that strange burial which the Magians deemed most fitting--the
+funeral of the desert, from which the kites and vultures rise
+on dark wings, and the beasts of prey slink furtively away.
+When they are gone there is only a heap of white bones on the
+sand.
+
+But, as he turned, a long, faint, ghostly sigh came from
+the man's lips.  The bony fingers gripped the hem of the
+Magian's robe and held him fast.
+
+Artaban's heart leaped to his throat, not with fear, but
+with a dumb resentment at the importunity of this blind delay.
+
+How could he stay here in the darkness to minister to a
+dying stranger?  What claim had this unknown fragment of human
+life upon his compassion or his service?  If he lingered but
+for an hour he could hardly reach Borsippa at the appointed
+time.  His companions would think he had given up the journey.
+They would go without him.  He would lose his quest.
+
+But if he went on now, the man would surely die.  If
+Artaban stayed, life might be restored.  His spirit throbbed
+and fluttered with the urgency of the crisis.  Should he risk
+the great reward of his faith for the sake of a single deed of
+charity?  Should he turn aside, if only for a moment, from the
+following of the star, to give a cup of cold water to a poor,
+perishing Hebrew?
+
+"God of truth and purity," he prayed, "direct me in the
+holy path, the way of wisdom which Thou only knowest."
+
+Then he turned back to the sick man.  Loosening
+the grasp of his hand, he carried him to a little mound at the
+foot of the palm-tree.
+
+He unbound the thick folds of the turban and opened the
+garment above the sunken breast.  He brought water from one of
+the small canals near by, and moistened the sufferer's brow
+and mouth.  He mingled a draught of one of those simple but
+potent remedies which he carried always in his girdle--for the
+Magians were physicians as well as astrologers--and poured it
+slowly between the colourless lips.  Hour after hour he
+laboured as only a skilful healer of disease can do.  At last
+the man's strength returned; he sat up and looked about him.
+
+ "Who art thou?" he said, in the rude dialect of the
+country, "and why hast thou sought me here to bring back my
+life?"
+
+"I am Artaban the Magian, of the city of Ecbatana, and I
+am going to Jerusalem in search of one who is to be born King
+of the Jews, a great Prince and Deliverer of all men.  I dare
+not delay any longer upon my journey, for the caravan that has
+waited for me may depart without me.  But see, here is all that I
+have left of bread and wine, and here is a potion of healing
+herbs.  When thy strength is restored thou canst find the
+dwellings of the Hebrews among the houses of Babylon."
+
+The Jew raised his trembling hand solemnly to heaven.
+
+"Now may the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob bless and
+prosper the journey of the merciful, and bring him in peace to
+his desired haven.  Stay!  I have nothing to give thee in
+return--only this: that I can tell thee where the Messiah must
+be sought.  For our prophets have said that he should be born
+not in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem of Judah.  May the Lord
+bring thee in safety to that place, because thou hast had pity
+upon the sick."
+
+It was already long past midnight.  Artaban rode in haste,
+and Vasda, restored by the brief rest, ran eagerly through the
+silent plain and swam the channels of the river.  She put
+forth the remnant of her strength, and fled over the ground
+like a gazelle.
+
+But the first beam of the rising sun sent a long shadow before
+her as she entered upon the final stadium of the journey, and the
+eyes of Artaban, anxiously scanning the great mound of Nimrod and
+the Temple of the Seven Spheres, could discern no trace of his
+friends.
+
+The many-coloured terraces of black and orange and red and
+yellow and green and blue and white, shattered by the
+convulsions of nature, and crumbling under the repeated blows
+of human violence, still glittered like a ruined rainbow in
+the morning light.
+
+Artaban rode swiftly around the hill.  He dismounted and
+climbed to the highest terrace, looking out toward the west.
+
+The huge desolation of the marshes stretched away to the
+horizon and the border of the desert.  Bitterns stood by the
+stagnant pools and jackals skulked through the low bushes; but
+there was no sign of the caravan of the Wise Men, far or near.
+
+At the edge of the terrace he saw a little cairn of broken
+bricks, and under them a piece of papyrus.  He caught it up
+and read:  "We have waited past the midnight, and can delay no
+longer.  We go to find the King.  Follow us across the desert."
+
+Artaban sat down upon the ground and covered his head in
+despair.
+
+"How can I cross the desert," said he, "with no food and
+with a spent horse?  I must return to Babylon, sell my
+sapphire, and buy a train of camels, and provision for the
+journey.  I may never overtake my friends.  Only God the
+merciful knows whether I shall not lose the sight of the King
+because I tarried to show mercy."
+
+
+
+III
+
+There was a silence in the Hall of Dreams, where I was
+listening to the story of the Other Wise Man.  Through this
+silence I saw, but very dimly, his figure passing over the
+dreary undulations of the desert, high upon the back of his
+camel, rocking steadily onward like a ship over the waves.
+
+The land of death spread its cruel net around him.  The
+stony waste bore no fruit but briers and thorns.  The dark
+ledges of rock thrust themselves above the surface here and
+there, like the bones of perished monsters.  Arid and
+inhospitable mountain-ranges rose before him, furrowed with dry
+channels of ancient torrents, white and ghastly as scars on the
+face of nature.  Shifting hills of treacherous sand were heaped
+like tombs along the horizon.  By day, the fierce heat pressed
+its intolerable burden on the quivering air.  No living creature
+moved on the dumb, swooning earth, but tiny jerboas scuttling
+through the parched bushes, or lizards vanishing in the clefts of
+the rock.  By night the jackals prowled and barked in the
+distance, and the lion made the black ravines echo with his
+hollow roaring, while a bitter, blighting chill followed the
+fever of the day.  Through heat and cold, the Magian moved
+steadily onward.
+
+Then I saw the gardens and orchards of Damascus, watered
+by the streams of Abana and Pharpar, with their sloping swards
+inlaid with bloom, and their thickets of myrrh and roses.  I
+saw the long, snowy ridge of Hermon, and the dark groves of
+cedars, and the valley of the Jordan, and the blue waters of
+the Lake of Galilee, and the fertile plain of Esdraelon, and the
+hills of Ephraim, and the highlands of Judah.  Through all these
+I followed the figure of Artaban moving steadily onward, until he
+arrived at Bethlehem.  And it was the third day after the three
+Wise Men had come to that place and had found Mary and Joseph,
+with the young child, Jesus, and had laid their gifts of gold and
+frankincense and myrrh at his feet.
+
+Then the Other Wise Man drew near, weary, but full of
+hope, bearing his ruby and his pearl to offer to the King.
+"For now at last," he said, "I shall surely find him, though
+I be alone, and later than my brethren.  This is the place of
+which the Hebrew exile told me that the prophets had spoken,
+and here I shall behold the rising of the great light.  But I
+must inquire about the visit of my brethren, and to what house
+the star directed them, and to whom they presented their
+tribute."
+
+The streets of the village seemed to be deserted, and
+Artaban wondered whether the men had all gone up to the
+hill-pastures to bring down their sheep.  From the open door of a
+cottage he heard the sound of a woman's voice singing softly.  He
+entered and found a young mother hushing her baby to rest.  She
+told him of the strangers from the far East who had appeared in
+the village three days ago, and how they said that a star had
+guided them to the place where Joseph of Nazareth was lodging
+with his wife and her new-born child, and how they had paid
+reverence to the child and given him many rich gifts.
+
+"But the travellers disappeared again," she continued, "as
+suddenly as they had come.  We were afraid at the strangeness
+of their visit.  We could not understand it.  The man of
+Nazareth took the child and his mother, and fled away that
+same night secretly, and it was whispered that they were going
+to Egypt.  Ever since, there has been a spell upon the
+village; something evil hangs over it.  They say that the
+Roman soldiers are coming from Jerusalem to force a new tax
+from us, and the men have driven the flocks and herds far back
+among the hills, and hidden themselves to escape it."
+
+Artaban listened to her gentle, timid speech, and the
+child in her arms looked up in his face and smiled, stretching
+out its rosy hands to grasp at the winged circle of gold on
+his breast.  His heart warmed to the touch.  It seemed like a
+greeting of love and trust to one who had journeyed long in
+loneliness and perplexity, fighting with his own doubts and
+fears, and following a light that was veiled in clouds.
+
+"Why might not this child have been the promised Prince?"
+he asked within himself, as he touched its soft cheek.  "Kings
+have been born ere now in lowlier houses than this, and the
+favourite of the stars may rise even from a cottage.  But it
+has not seemed good to the God of wisdom to reward my search
+so soon and so easily.  The one whom I seek has gone before
+me; and now I must follow the King to Egypt."
+
+The young mother laid the baby in its cradle, and rose to
+minister to the wants of the strange guest that fate had
+brought into her house.  She set food before him, the plain
+fare of peasants, but willingly offered, and therefore full of
+refreshment for the soul as well as for the body.  Artaban
+accepted it gratefully; and, as he ate, the child fell into a
+happy slumber, and murmured sweetly in its dreams, and a great
+peace filled the room.
+
+But suddenly there came the noise of a wild confusion in
+the streets of the village, a shrieking and wailing of women's
+voices, a clangour of brazen trumpets and a clashing of
+swords, and a desperate cry:  "The soldiers! the soldiers of
+Herod!  They are killing our children."
+  The young mother's face grew white with terror.  She
+clasped her child to her bosom, and crouched motionless in the
+darkest corner of the room, covering him with the folds of her
+robe, lest he should wake and cry.
+
+But Artaban went quickly and stood in the doorway of the
+house.  His broad shoulders filled the portal from side to
+side, and the peak of his white cap all but touched the
+lintel.
+
+The soldiers came hurrying down the street with bloody
+hands and dripping swords.  At the sight of the stranger in
+his imposing dress they hesitated with surprise.  The captain
+of the band approached the threshold to thrust him aside.  But
+Artaban did not stir.  His face was as calm as though he were
+watching the stars, and in his eyes there burned that steady
+radiance before which even the half-tamed hunting leopard
+shrinks, and the bloodhound pauses in his leap.  He held the
+soldier silently for an instant, and then said in a low voice:
+  "I am all alone in this place, and I am waiting to give
+this jewel to the prudent captain who will leave me in peace."
+
+He showed the ruby, glistening in the hollow of his hand
+like a great drop of blood.
+
+The captain was amazed at the splendour of the gem.  The
+pupils of his eyes expanded with desire, and the hard lines of
+greed wrinkled around his lips.  He stretched out his hand and
+took the ruby.
+
+"March on!" he cried to his men, "there is no child here.
+The house is empty."
+
+The clamor and the clang of arms passed down the street
+as the headlong fury of the chase sweeps by the secret covert
+where the trembling deer is hidden.  Artaban re-entered the
+cottage.  He turned his face to the east and prayed:
+
+ "God of truth, forgive my sin!  I have said the thing that
+is not, to save the life of a child.  And two of my gifts are
+gone.  I have spent for man that which was meant for God.
+Shall I ever be worthy to see the face of the King?"
+
+But the voice of the woman, weeping for joy in the shadow
+behind him, said very gently:
+
+"Because thou hast saved the life of my little one, may
+the Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make His face to
+shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up
+His countenance upon thee and give thee peace."
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Again there was a silence in the Hall of Dreams, deeper and
+more mysterious than the first interval, and I understood that
+the years of Artaban were flowing very swiftly under the
+stillness, and I caught only a glimpse, here and there, of the
+river of his life shining through the mist that concealed its
+course.
+
+I saw him moving among the throngs of men in populous
+Egypt, seeking everywhere for traces of the household that had
+come down from Bethlehem, and finding them under the spreading
+sycamore-trees of Heliopolis, and beneath the walls of the
+Roman fortress of New Babylon beside the Nile--traces so faint
+and dim that they vanished before him continually, as
+footprints on the wet river-sand glisten for a moment with
+moisture and then disappear.
+
+I saw him again at the foot of the pyramids, which lifted
+their sharp points into the intense saffron glow of the sunset
+sky, changeless monuments of the perishable glory and the
+imperishable hope of man.  He looked up into the face of the
+crouching Sphinx and vainly tried to read the meaning of the
+calm eyes and smiling mouth.  Was it, indeed, the mockery of
+all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes had said--the cruel
+jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that never can
+succeed?  Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in
+that inscrutable smile--a promise that even the defeated
+should attain a victory, and the disappointed should discover a
+prize, and the ignorant should be made wise, and the blind should
+see, and the wandering should come into the haven at last?
+
+I saw him again in an obscure house of Alexandria, taking
+counsel with a Hebrew rabbi.  The venerable man, bending over
+the rolls of parchment on which the prophecies of Israel were
+written, read aloud the pathetic words which foretold the
+sufferings of the promised Messiah--the despised and rejected
+of men, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
+
+"And remember, my son," said he, fixing his eyes upon the
+face of Artaban, "the King whom thou seekest is not to be
+found in a palace, nor among the rich and powerful.  If the
+light of the world and the glory of Israel had been appointed
+to come with the greatness of earthly splendour, it must have
+appeared long ago.  For no son of Abraham will ever again
+rival the power which Joseph had in the palaces of Egypt, or
+the magnificence of Solomon throned between the lions in
+Jerusalem.  But the light for which the world is waiting is a new
+light, the glory that shall rise out of patient and triumphant
+suffering.  And the kingdom which is to be established forever is
+a new kingdom, the royalty of unconquerable love.
+
+"I do not know how this shall come to pass, nor how the
+turbulent kings and peoples of earth shall be brought to
+acknowledge the Messiah and pay homage to him.  But this I
+know.  Those who seek him will do well to look among the poor
+and the lowly, the sorrowful and the oppressed."
+
+So I saw the Other Wise Man again and again, travelling
+from place to place, and searching among the people of the
+dispersion, with whom the little family from Bethlehem might,
+perhaps, have found a refuge.  He passed through countries
+where famine lay heavy upon the land, and the poor were crying
+for bread.  He made his dwelling in plague-stricken cities
+where the sick were languishing in the bitter companionship of
+helpless misery.  He visited the oppressed and the afflicted
+in the gloom of subterranean prisons, and the crowded
+wretchedness of slave-markets, and the weary toil of
+galley-ships.  In all this populous and intricate world of
+anguish, though he found none to worship, he found many to help.
+He fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and healed the sick,
+and comforted the captive; and his years passed more swiftly than
+the weaver's shuttle that flashes back and forth through the loom
+while the web grows and the pattern is completed.
+
+It seemed almost as if he had forgotten his quest.  But
+once I saw him for a moment as he stood alone at sunrise,
+waiting at the gate of a Roman prison.  He had taken from a
+secret resting-place in his bosom the pearl, the last of his
+jewels.  As he looked at it, a mellower lustre, a soft and
+iridescent light, full of shifting gleams of azure and rose,
+trembled upon its surface.  It seemed to have absorbed some
+reflection of the lost sapphire and ruby.  So the secret
+purpose of a noble life draws into itself the memories of past
+joy and past sorrow.  All that has helped it, all that has
+hindered it, is transfused by a subtle magic into its very
+essence.  It becomes more luminous and precious the longer it
+is carried close to the warmth of the beating heart.
+
+Then, at last, while I was thinking of this pearl, and of
+its meaning, I heard the end of the story of the Other Wise
+Man.
+
+
+
+V
+
+Three-and-thirty years of the life of Artaban had passed away,
+and he was still a pilgrim and a seeker after light.  His
+hair, once darker than the cliffs of Zagros, was now white as
+the wintry snow that covered them.  His eyes, that once
+flashed like flames of fire, were dull as embers smouldering
+among the ashes.
+
+Worn and weary and ready to die, but still looking for the
+King, he had come for the last time to Jerusalem.  He had
+often visited the holy city before, and had searched all its
+lanes and crowded bevels and black prisons without finding any
+trace of the family of Nazarenes who had fled from Bethlehem
+long ago.  But now it seemed as if he must make one more
+effort, and something whispered in his heart that, at last, he
+might succeed.
+
+It was the season of the Passover.  The city was thronged
+with strangers.  The children of Israel, scattered in far lands,
+had returned to the Temple for the great feast, and there had
+been a confusion of tongues in the narrow streets for many days.
+
+But on this day a singular agitation was visible in the
+multitude.  The sky was veiled with a portentous gloom.
+Currents of excitement seemed to flash through the crowd.  A
+secret tide was sweeping them all one way.  The clatter of
+sandals and the soft, thick sound of thousands of bare feet
+shuffling over the stones, flowed unceasingly along the street
+that leads to the Damascus gate.
+
+Artaban joined a group of people from his own country,
+Parthian Jews who had come up to keep the Passover, and
+inquired of them the cause of the tumult, and where they were
+going.
+
+"We are going," they answered, "to the place called
+Golgotha, outside the city walls, where there is to be an
+execution.  Have you not heard what has happened?  Two famous
+robbers are to be crucified, and with them another, called
+Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done many wonderful works
+among the people, so that they love him greatly.  But the priests
+and elders have said that he must die, because he gave himself
+out to be the Son of God.  And Pilate has sent him to the cross
+because he said that he was the `King of the Jews.'
+
+How strangely these familiar words fell upon the tired
+heart of Artaban!  They had led him for a lifetime over land
+and sea.  And now they came to him mysteriously, like a
+message of despair.  The King had arisen, but he had been
+denied and cast out.  He was about to perish.  Perhaps he was
+already dying.  Could it be the same who had been born in
+Bethlehem thirty-three years ago, at whose birth the star had
+appeared in heaven, and of whose coming the prophets had
+spoken?
+
+Artaban's heart beat unsteadily with that troubled,
+doubtful apprehension which is the excitement of old age.  But
+he said within himself:  "The ways of God are stranger than
+the thoughts of men, and it may be that I shall find the King,
+at last, in the hands of his enemies, and shall come in time
+to offer my pearl for his ransom before he dies."
+
+So the old man followed the multitude with slow and
+painful steps toward the Damascus gate of the city.  Just
+beyond the entrance of the guardhouse a troop of Macedonian
+soldiers came down the street, dragging a young girl with torn
+dress and dishevelled hair.  As the Magian paused to look at
+her with compassion, she broke suddenly from the hands of her
+tormentors, and threw herself at his feet, clasping him around
+the knees.  She had seen his white cap and the winged circle
+on his breast.
+
+"Have pity on me," she cried, "and save me, for the sake
+of the God of Purity!  I also am a daughter of the true
+religion which is taught by the Magi.  My father was a
+merchant of Parthia, but he is dead, and I am seized for his
+debts to be sold as a slave.  Save me from worse than death!"
+
+Artaban trembled.
+
+It was the old conflict in his soul, which had come to him
+in the palm-grove of Babylon and in the cottage at
+Bethlehem--the conflict between the expectation of faith and
+the impulse of love.  Twice the gift which he had consecrated
+to the worship of religion had been drawn to the service of
+humanity. This was the third trial, the ultimate probation, the
+final and irrevocable choice.
+
+Was it his great opportunity, or his last temptation?  He
+could not tell.  One thing only was clear in the darkness of
+his mind--it was inevitable.  And does not the inevitable come
+from God?
+
+One thing only was sure to his divided heart--to rescue
+this helpless girl would be a true deed of love.  And is not
+love the light of the soul?
+
+He took the pearl from his bosom.  Never had it seemed so
+luminous, so radiant, so full of tender, living lustre.  He
+laid it in the hand of the slave.
+
+"This is thy ransom, daughter!  It is the last of my
+treasures which I kept for the King."
+
+While he spoke, the darkness of the sky deepened, and
+shuddering tremors ran through the earth heaving convulsively
+like the breast of one who struggles with mighty grief.
+
+The walls of the houses rocked to and fro.  Stones were
+loosened and crashed into the street. Dust clouds filled the air.
+The soldiers fled in terror, reeling like drunken men.  But
+Artaban and the girl whom he had ransomed crouched helpless
+beneath the wall of the Praetorium.
+
+What had he to fear?  What had he to hope?  He had given
+away the last remnant of his tribute for the King.  He had
+parted with the last hope of finding him.  The quest was over,
+and it had failed.  But, even in that thought, accepted and
+embraced, there was peace.  It was not resignation.  It was
+not submission.  It was something more profound and searching.
+He knew that all was well, because he had done the best that
+he could from day to day.  He had been true to the light that
+had been given to him.  He had looked for more.  And if he had
+not found it, if a failure was all that came out of his life,
+doubtless that was the best that was possible.  He had not
+seen the revelation of "life everlasting, incorruptible and
+immortal."  But he knew that even if he could live his earthly
+life over again, it could not be otherwise than it had been.
+
+One more lingering pulsation of the earthquake quivered
+through the ground.  A heavy tile, shaken from the roof, fell and
+struck the old man on the temple.  He lay breathless and pale,
+with his gray head resting on the young girl's shoulder, and the
+blood trickling from the wound.  As she bent over him, fearing
+that he was dead, there came a voice through the twilight, very
+small and still, like music sounding from a distance, in which
+the notes are clear but the words are lost.  The girl turned to
+see if some one had spoken from the window above them, but she
+saw no one.
+
+Then the old man's lips began to move, as if in answer,
+and she heard him say in the Parthian tongue:
+
+"Not so, my Lord!  For when saw I thee an hungered and fed
+thee?  Or thirsty, and gave thee drink?  When saw I thee a
+stranger, and took thee in?  Or naked, and clothed thee?  When
+saw I thee sick or in prison, and came unto thee?  Three-and--
+thirty years have I looked for thee; but I have never seen thy
+face, nor ministered to thee, my King."
+
+He ceased, and the sweet voice came again.  And
+again the maid heard it, very faint and far away.  But now it
+seemed as though she understood the words:
+
+"Verily I say unto thee, Inasmuch as thou hast done it
+unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it
+unto me."
+
+A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the pale face of
+Artaban like the first ray of dawn, on a snowy mountain-peak.
+A long breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips.
+
+His journey was ended.  His treasures were accepted.  The
+Other Wise Man had found the King.
+
+
+
+A HANDFUL OF CLAY
+
+There was a handful of clay in the bank of a river.  It was
+only common clay, coarse and heavy; but it had high thoughts
+of its own value, and wonderful dreams of the great place
+which it was to fill in the world when the time came for its
+virtues to be discovered.
+
+Overhead, in the spring sunshine, the trees whispered
+together of the glory which descended upon them when the
+delicate blossoms and leaves began to expand, and the forest
+glowed with fair, clear colours, as if the dust of thousands
+of rubies and emeralds were hanging, in soft clouds, above the
+earth.
+
+The flowers, surprised with the joy of beauty, bent their
+heads to one another, as the wind caressed them, and said:
+"Sisters, how lovely you have become.  You make the day
+bright."
+
+The river, glad of new strength and rejoicing in the
+unison of all its waters, murmured to the shores in music,
+telling of its release from icy fetters, its swift flight from
+the snow-clad mountains, and the mighty work to which it was
+hurrying--the wheels of many mills to be turned, and great ships
+to be floated to the sea.
+
+Waiting blindly in its bed, the clay comforted itself with
+lofty hopes.  "My time will come," it said.  "I was not made
+to be hidden forever.  Glory and beauty and honour are coming
+to me in due season."
+
+One day the clay felt itself taken from the place where it
+had waited so long.  A flat blade of iron passed beneath it,
+and lifted it, and tossed it into a cart with other lumps of
+clay, and it was carried far away, as it seemed, over a rough
+and stony road.  But it was not afraid, nor discouraged, for
+it said to itself:  "This is necessary.  The path to glory is
+always rugged.  Now I am on my way to play a great part in the
+world."
+
+But the hard journey was nothing compared with the
+tribulation and distress that came after it.  The clay was put
+into a trough and mixed and beaten and stirred and trampled.
+It seemed almost unbearable.  But there was consolation in the
+thought that something very fine and noble was certainly
+coming out of all this trouble.  The clay felt sure that, if
+it could only wait long enough, a wonderful reward was in
+store for it.
+
+Then it was put upon a swiftly turning wheel, and whirled
+around until it seemed as if it must fly into a thousand
+pieces.  A strange power pressed it and moulded it, as it
+revolved, and through all the dizziness and pain it felt that
+it was taking a new form.
+
+Then an unknown hand put it into an oven, and fires were
+kindled about it--fierce and penetrating--hotter than all the
+heats of summer that had ever brooded upon the bank of the
+river.  But through all, the clay held itself together and
+endured its trials, in the confidence of a great future.
+"Surely," it thought, "I am intended for something very
+splendid, since such pains are taken with me.  Perhaps I am
+fashioned for the ornament of a temple, or a precious vase for
+the table of a king."
+
+At last the baking was finished.  The clay was taken from
+the furnace and set down upon a board, in the cool air, under the
+blue sky.  The tribulation was passed.  The reward was at hand.
+
+Close beside the board there was a pool of water, not very
+deep, nor very clear, but calm enough to reflect, with
+impartial truth, every image that fell upon it.  There, for
+the first time, as it was lifted from the board, the clay saw
+its new shape, the reward of all its patience and pain, the
+consummation of its hopes--a common flower-pot, straight and
+stiff, red and ugly.  And then it felt that it was not
+destined for a king's house, nor for a palace of art, because
+it was made without glory or beauty or honour; and it murmured
+against the unknown maker, saying, "Why hast thou made me
+thus?"
+
+Many days it passed in sullen discontent.  Then it was
+filled with earth, and something--it knew not what--but
+something rough and brown and dead-looking, was thrust into
+the middle of the earth and covered over.  The clay rebelled
+at this new disgrace.  "This is the worst of all that has
+happened to me, to be filled with dirt and rubbish.  Surely I
+am a failure."
+
+But presently it was set in a greenhouse, where the
+sunlight fell warm upon it, and water was sprinkled over it,
+and day by day as it waited, a change began to come to it.
+Something was stirring within it--a new hope.  Still it was
+ignorant, and knew not what the new hope meant.
+
+One day the clay was lifted again from its place, and
+carried into a great church.  Its dream was coming true after
+all.  It had a fine part to play in the world.  Glorious music
+flowed over it.  It was surrounded with flowers.  Still it
+could not understand.  So it whispered to another vessel of
+clay, like itself, close beside it, "Why have they set me
+here?  Why do all the people look toward us?"  And the other
+vessel answered, "Do you not know?  You are carrying a royal
+sceptre of lilies.  Their petals are white as snow, and the
+heart of them is like pure gold.  The people look this way
+because the flower is the most wonderful in the world.  And
+the root of it is in your heart."
+
+Then the clay was content, and silently thanked its maker,
+because, though an earthen vessel, it held so great a
+treasure.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE  LOST WORD
+
+
+"Come down, Hermas, come down!  The night is past.  It is time
+to be stirring.  Christ is born today.  Peace be with you in
+His name.  Make haste and come down!"
+
+ A little group of young men were standing in a street of
+Antioch, in the dusk of early morning, fifteen hundred years
+ago--a class of candidates who had nearly finished their years
+of training for the Christian church.  They had come to call
+their fellow-student Hermas from his lodging.
+
+Their voices rang out cheerily through the cool air.  They
+were full of that glad sense of life which the young feel when
+they have risen early and come to rouse one who is still
+sleeping.  There was a note of friendly triumph in their call,
+as if they were exulting unconsciously in having begun the
+adventure of the new day before their comrade.
+
+But Hermas was not asleep.  He had been waking for hours,
+and the walls of his narrow lodging had been a prison to his
+heart.  A nameless sorrow and discontent had fallen upon him, and
+he could find no escape from the heaviness of his own thoughts.
+
+There is a sadness of youth into which the old cannot
+enter.  It seems unreal and causeless.  But it is even more
+bitter and burdensome than the sadness of age.  There is a
+sting of resentment in it, a fever of angry surprise that the
+world should so soon be a disappointment, and life so early
+take on the look of a failure.  It has little reason in it,
+perhaps, but it has all the more weariness and gloom, because
+the man who is oppressed by it feels dimly that it is an
+unnatural thing that he should be tired of living before he
+has fairly begun to live.
+
+Hermas had fallen into the very depths of this strange
+self-pity.  He was out of tune with everything around him.  He
+had been thinking, through the dead night, of all that he had
+given up when he left the house of his father, the wealthy
+pagan Demetrius, to join the company of the Christians.  Only
+two years ago he had been one of the richest young men in
+Antioch.  Now he was one of the poorest.  The worst of it was
+that, though he had made the choice willingly and with a kind of
+enthusiasm, he was already dissatisfied with it.
+
+The new life was no happier than the old.  He was weary of
+vigils and fasts, weary of studies and penances, weary of
+prayers and sermons.  He felt like a slave in a treadmill.  He
+knew that he must go on.  His honour, his conscience, his
+sense of duty, bound him.  He could not go back to the old
+careless pagan life again; for something had happened within
+him which made a return impossible.  Doubtless he had found
+the true religion, but he had found it only as a task and a
+burden; its joy and peace had slipped away from him.
+
+He felt disillusioned and robbed.  He sat beside his hard
+couch, waiting without expectancy for the gray dawn of another
+empty day, and hardly lifting his head at the shouts of his
+friends.
+
+"Come down, Hermas, you sluggard!  Come down!  It is
+Christmas morn.  Awake, and be glad with us!"
+
+"I am coming," he answered listlessly; "only have patience
+a moment.  I have been awake since midnight, and waiting for
+the day."
+
+"You hear him!" said his friends one to another.  "How he
+puts us all to shame!  He is more watchful, more eager, than
+any of us.  Our master, John the Presbyter, does well to be
+proud of him.  He is the best man in our class."
+
+While they were talking the door opened and Hermas stepped
+out.  He was a figure to be remarked in any company--tall,
+broad-shouldered, straight-hipped, with a head proudly poised
+on the firm column of the neck, and short brown curls
+clustering over the square forehead.  It was the perpetual
+type of vigorous and intelligent young manhood, such as may be
+found in every century among the throngs of ordinary men, as
+if to show what the flower of the race should be.  But the
+light in his eyes was clouded and uncertain; his smooth cheeks
+were leaner than they should have been at twenty; and there
+were downward lines about his mouth which spoke of desires
+unsatisfied and ambitions repressed.  He joined his
+companions with brief greetings,--a nod to one, a word to
+another,--and they passed together down the steep street.
+
+Overhead the mystery of daybreak was silently
+transfiguring the sky.  The curtain of darkness had lifted
+along the edge of the horizon.  The ragged crests of Mount
+Silpius were outlined with pale saffron light.  In the central
+vault of heaven a few large stars twinkled drowsily.  The
+great city, still chiefly pagan, lay more than half-asleep.
+But multitudes of the Christians, dressed in white and carrying
+lighted torches in their hands, were hurrying toward the
+Basilica of Constantine to keep the new holy-day of the
+church, the festival of the birthday of their Master.
+
+The vast, bare building was soon crowded, and the younger
+converts, who were not yet permitted to stand among the
+baptised, found it difficult to come to their appointed place
+between the first two pillars of the house, just within the
+threshold.  There was some good-humoured pressing and jostling
+about the door; but the candidates pushed steadily forward.
+
+"By your leave, friends, our station is beyond you.  Will
+you let us pass?  Many thanks."
+
+A touch here, a courteous nod there, a little patience, a
+little persistence, and at last they stood in their place.
+Hermas was taller than his companions; he could look easily
+over their heads and survey the sea of people stretching away
+through the columns, under the shadows of the high roof, as
+the tide spreads on a calm day into the pillared cavern of
+Staffa, quiet as if the ocean hardly dared to breathe.  The
+light of many flambeaux fell, in flickering, uncertain rays,
+over the assembly.  At the end of the vista there was a circle
+of clearer, steadier radiance.  Hermas could see the bishop in
+his great chair, surrounded by the presbyters, the lofty desks
+on either side for the readers of the Scripture, the
+communion-table and the table of offerings in the middle of
+the church.
+
+The call to prayer sounded down the long aisle.  Thousands
+of hands were joyously lifted in the air, as if the sea had
+blossomed into waving lilies, and the "Amen" was like the
+murmur of countless ripples in an echoing place.
+
+Then the singing began, led by the choir of a hundred
+trained voices which the Bishop Paul had founded in Antioch.
+Timidly, at first, the music felt its way, as the people
+joined with a broken and uncertain cadence: the mingling of
+many little waves not yet gathered into rhythm and harmony.
+Soon the longer, stronger billows of song rolled in, sweeping
+from side to side as the men and the women answered in the
+clear antiphony.
+
+Hermas had often been carried on those
+
+      Tides of music's golden sea
+      Selling toward eternity.
+
+But to-day his heart was a rock that stood motionless.  The
+flood passed by and left him unmoved.
+
+Looking out from his place at the foot of the pillar, he
+saw a man standing far off in the lofty bema.  Short and
+slender, wasted by sickness, gray before his time, with pale
+cheeks and wrinkled brow, he seemed at first like a person of
+no significance--a reed shaken in the wind.  But there was a
+look in his deep-set, poignant eyes, as he gathered all the
+glances of the multitude to himself, that belied his mean
+appearance and prophesied power.  Hermas knew very well who it
+was: the man who had drawn him from his father's house, the
+teacher who was instructing him as a son in the Christian faith,
+the guide and trainer of his soul--John of Antioch, whose fame
+filled the city and began to overflow Asia, and who was called
+already Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed preacher.
+
+Hermas had felt the magic of his eloquence many a time;
+and to-day, as the tense voice vibrated through the stillness,
+and the sentences moved onward, growing fuller and stronger,
+bearing argosies of costly rhetoric and treasures of homely
+speech in their bosom, and drawing the hearts of men with a
+resistless magic, Hermas knew that the preacher had never been
+more potent, more inspired.
+
+He played on that immense congregation as a master on an
+instrument.  He rebuked their sins, and they trembled.  He
+touched their sorrows, and they wept.  He spoke of the
+conflicts, the triumphs, the glories of their faith, and they
+broke out in thunders of applause.  He hushed them into reverent
+silence, and led them tenderly, with the wise men of the East, to
+the lowly birthplace of Jesus.
+
+"Do thou, therefore, likewise leave the Jewish people, the
+troubled city, the bloodthirsty tyrant, the pomp of the world,
+and hasten to Bethlehem, the sweet house of spiritual bread.
+For though thou be but a shepherd, and come hither, thou shalt
+behold the young Child in an inn.  Though thou be a king, and
+come not hither, thy purple robe shall profit thee nothing.
+Though thou be one of the wise men, this shall be no hindrance
+to thee.  Only let thy coming be to honour and adore, with
+trembling joy, the Son of God, to whose name be glory, on this
+His birthday, and forever and forever."
+
+The soul of Hermas did not answer to the musician's touch.
+The strings of his heart were slack and soundless; there was
+no response within him.  He was neither shepherd, nor king,
+nor wise man; only an unhappy, dissatisfied, questioning
+youth.  He was out of sympathy with the eager preacher,
+the joyous hearers.  In their harmony he had no part.  Was it
+for this that he had forsaken his inheritance and narrowed his
+life to poverty and hardship?  What was it all worth?
+
+The gracious prayers with which the young converts were
+blessed and dismissed before the sacrament sounded hollow in
+his ears.  Never had he felt so utterly lonely as in that
+praying throng.  He went out with his companions like a man
+departing from a banquet where all but he had been fed.
+
+"Farewell, Hermas," they cried, as he turned from them at
+the door.  But he did not look back, nor wave his hand.  He
+was already alone in his heart.
+
+
+When he entered the broad Avenue of the Colonnades, the
+sun had already topped the eastern hills, and the ruddy light
+was streaming through the long double row of archways and over
+the pavements of crimson marble.  But Hermas turned his back
+to the morning, and walked with his shadow before him.
+
+The street began to swarm and whirl and quiver with the
+motley life of a huge city: beggars and jugglers, dancers and
+musicians, gilded youths in their chariots, and daughters of
+joy looking out from their windows, all intoxicated with the
+mere delight of living and the gladness of a new day.  The
+pagan populace of Antioch--reckless, pleasure-loving,
+spendthrift--were preparing for the Saturnalia.  But all this
+Hermas had renounced.  He cleft his way through the crowd
+slowly, like a reluctant swimmer weary of breasting the tide.
+
+At the corner of the street where the narrow, populous
+Lane of the Camel-drivers crossed the Colonnades, a
+storyteller had bewitched a circle of people around him.  It
+was the same old tale of love and adventure that many
+generations have listened to; but the lively fancy of the
+hearers rent it new interest, and the wit of the improviser
+drew forth sighs of interest and shouts of laughter.
+
+A yellow-haired girl on the edge of the throng turned, as
+Hermas passed, and smiled in his face.  She put out her hand
+and caught him by the sleeve.
+
+"Stay," she said, "and laugh a bit with us.  I know who
+you are--the son of Demetrius.  You must have bags of gold.
+Why do you look so black?  Love is alive yet."
+
+Hermas shook off her hand, but not ungently.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," he said.  "You are mistaken
+in me.  I am poorer than you are."
+
+But as he passed on, he felt the warm touch of her fingers
+through the cloth on his arm.  It seemed as if she had plucked
+him by the heart.
+
+He went out by the Western Gate, under the golden cherubim
+that the Emperor Titus had stolen from the ruined Temple of
+Jerusalem and fixed upon the arch of triumph.  He turned to
+the left, and climbed the hill to the road that led to the
+Grove of Daphne.
+
+In all the world there was no other highway as beautiful.
+It wound for five miles along the foot of the mountains, among
+gardens and villas, plantations of myrtles and mulberries,
+with wide outlooks over the valley of Orontes and the distant,
+shimmering sea.
+
+The richest of all the dwellings was the House
+of the Golden Pillars, the mansion of Demetrius.  He had won
+the favor of the apostate Emperor Julian, whose vain efforts
+to restore the worship of the heathen gods, some twenty years
+ago, had opened an easy way to wealth and power for all who
+would mock and oppose Christianity.  Demetrius was not a
+sincere fanatic like his royal master; but he was bitter
+enough in his professed scorn of the new religion, to make him
+a favourite at the court where the old religion was in
+fashion.  He had reaped a rich reward of his policy, and a
+strange sense of consistency made him more fiercely loyal to
+it than if it had been a real faith.  He was proud of being
+called "the friend of Julian"; and when his son joined himself
+to the Christians, and acknowledged the unseen God, it seemed
+like an insult to his father's success.  He drove the boy from
+his door and disinherited him.
+
+The glittering portico of the serene, haughty house, the
+repose of the well-ordered garden, still blooming with belated
+flowers, seemed at once to deride and to invite the young
+outcast plodding along the dusty road.  "This is your
+birthright," whispered the clambering rose-trees by the gate; and
+the closed portals of carven bronze said:  "You have sold it for
+a thought--a dream."'
+
+
+
+II
+
+Hermas found the Grove of Daphne quite deserted.  There was no
+sound in the enchanted vale but the rustling of the light
+winds chasing each other through the laurel thickets, and the
+babble of innumerable streams.  Memories of the days and
+nights of delicate pleasure that the grove had often seen
+still haunted the bewildered paths and broken fountains.  At
+the foot of a rocky eminence, crowned with the ruins of
+Apollo's temple, which had been mysteriously destroyed by fire
+just after Julian had restored and reconsecrated it, Hermas
+sat down beside a gushing spring, and gave himself up to
+sadness.
+
+"How beautiful the world would be, how joyful, how easy to
+live in, without religion!  These questions about unseen
+things, perhaps about unreal things, these restraints and
+duties and sacrifices-if I were only free from them all, and
+could only forget them all, then I could live my life as I
+pleased, and be happy."
+
+"Why not?" said a quiet voice at his back.
+
+He turned, and saw an old man with a long beard and a
+threadbare cloak (the garb affected by the pagan philosophers)
+standing behind him and smiling curiously.
+
+"How is it that you answer that which has not been
+spoken?" said Hermas; "and who are you that honour me with
+your company?"
+
+"Forgive the intrusion," answered the stranger; "it is not
+ill meant.  A friendly interest is as good as an introduction."
+
+"But to what singular circumstance do I owe this interest?"
+
+"To your face," said the old man, with a courteous
+inclination.  "Perhaps also a little to the fact that I am the
+oldest inhabitant here, and feel as if all visitors were my
+guests, in a way."
+
+"Are you, then, one of the keepers of the grove?  And have
+you given up your work with the trees to take a holiday as a
+philosopher?
+
+"Not at all.  The robe of philosophy is a mere
+affectation, I must confess.  I think little of it.  My
+profession is the care of altars.  In fact, I am the solitary
+priest of Apollo whom the Emperor Julian found here when he
+came to revive the worship of the grove, some twenty years
+ago.  You have heard of the incident?"
+
+"Yes," said Hermas, beginning to be interested; "the whole
+city must have heard of it, for it is still talked of.  But
+surely it was a strange sacrifice that you brought to
+celebrate the restoration of Apollo's temple?"
+
+"You mean the ancient goose?" said the old man laughing.
+"Well, perhaps it was not precisely what the emperor expected.
+But it was all that I had, and it seemed to me not
+inappropriate.  You will agree to that if you are a Christian,
+as I guess from your dress."
+
+"You speak lightly for a priest of Apollo."
+
+"Oh, as for that, I am no bigot.  The priesthood is a
+professional matter, and the name of Apollo is as good as any
+other.  How many altars do you think there have been in this
+grove?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"Just four-and-twenty, including that of the martyr
+Babylas, whose ruined chapel you see just beyond us.  I have
+had something to do with most of them in my time.  They are
+transitory.  They give employment to care-takers for a while.
+But the thing that lasts, and the thing that interests me, is
+the human life that plays around them.  The game has been
+going on for centuries.  It still disports itself very
+pleasantly on summer evenings through these shady walks.
+Believe me, for I know.  Daphne and Apollo are shadows.  But
+the flying maidens and the pursuing lovers, the music and the
+dances, these are realities.  Life is a game, and the world
+keeps it up merrily.  But you?  You are of a sad countenance
+for one so young and so fair.  Are you a loser in the game?"
+  The words and tone of the speaker fitted Hermas' mood as
+a key fits the lock.  He opened his heart to the old man, and
+told him the story of his life: his luxurious boyhood in his
+father's house; the irresistible spell which compelled him to
+forsake it when he heard John's preaching of the new religion;
+his lonely year with the anchorites among the mountains; the
+strict discipline in his teacher's house at Antioch; his
+weariness of duty, his distaste for poverty, his discontent with
+worship.
+
+"And to-day," said he, "I have been thinking that I am a
+fool.  My life is swept as bare as a hermit's cell.  There is
+nothing in it but a dream, a thought of God, which does not
+satisfy me."
+
+The singular smile deepened on his companion's face.  "You
+are ready, then," he suggested, "to renounce your new religion
+and go back to that of your father?"
+
+"No; I renounce nothing, I accept nothing.  I do not wish
+to think about it.  I only wish to live."
+
+"A very reasonable wish, and I think you are about to see
+its accomplishment.  Indeed, I may even say that I can put you
+in the way of securing it.  Do you believe in magic?"
+
+"I do not know whether I believe in anything.  This is not
+a day on which I care to make professions of faith.  I believe
+in what I see.  I want what will give me pleasure."
+
+"Well," said the old man, soothingly, as he plucked a leaf
+from the laurel-tree above them and dipped it in the spring, "let
+us dismiss the riddles of belief.  I like them as little as you
+do.  You know this is a Castalian fountain.  The Emperor Hadrian
+once read his fortune here from a leaf dipped in the water.  Let
+us see what this leaf tells us.  It is already turning yellow.
+How do you read that?"
+
+"Wealth," said Hermas, laughing, as he looked at his mean
+garments.
+
+"And here is a bud on the stem that seems to be swelling.
+What is that?"
+
+"Pleasure," answered Hermas, bitterly.
+
+"And here is a tracing of wreaths upon the surface.  What
+do you make of that?"
+
+"What you will," said Hermas, not even taking the trouble
+to look.  "Suppose we say success and fame?"
+
+"Yes," said the stranger; "it is all written here.  I
+promise that you shall enjoy it all.  But you do not need to
+believe in my promise.  I am not in the habit of requiring
+faith of those whom I would serve.  No such hard conditions
+for me!  There is only one thing that I ask.  This is the season
+that you Christians call the Christmas, and you have taken up the
+pagan custom of exchanging gifts.  Well, if I give to you, you
+must give to me.  It is a small thing, and really the thing you
+can best afford to part with: a single word--the name of Him you
+profess to worship.  Let me take that word and all that
+belongs to it entirely out of your life, so that you shall
+never hear it or speak it again.  You will be richer without
+it.  I promise you everything, and this is all I ask in
+return.  Do you consent?"
+
+"Yes.  I consent," said Hermas, mocking.  "If you can take
+your price, a word, you can keep your promise, a dream."
+
+The stranger laid the long, cool, wet leaf softly across
+the young man's eyes.  An icicle of pain darted through them;
+every nerve in his body was drawn together there in a knot of
+agony.
+
+Then all the tangle of pain seemed to be lifted out of
+him.  A cool languor of delight flowed back through every
+vein, and he sank into a profound sleep.
+
+
+III
+
+There is a slumber so deep that it annihilates time.  It is
+like a fragment of eternity.  Beneath its enchantment of
+vacancy, a day seems like a thousand years, and a thousand
+years might well pass as one day.
+
+It was such a sleep that fell upon Hermas in the Grove of
+Daphne.  An immeasurable period, an interval of life so blank
+and empty that he could not tell whether it was long or short,
+had passed over him when his senses began to stir again.  The
+setting sun was shooting arrows of gold under the glossy
+laurel-leaves.  He rose and stretched his arms, grasping a
+smooth branch above him and shaking it, to make sure that he
+was alive.  Then he hurried back toward Antioch, treading
+lightly as if on air.
+
+The ground seemed to spring beneath his feet.  Already his
+life had changed, he knew not how.  Something that did not
+belong to him had dropped away; he had returned to a former
+state of being. He felt as if anything might happen to him, and
+he was ready for anything.  He was a new man, yet curiously
+familiar to himself--as if he had done with playing a tiresome
+part and returned to his natural state.  He was buoyant and free,
+without a care, a doubt, a fear.
+
+As he drew near to his father's house he saw a confusion
+of servants in the porch, and the old steward ran down to meet
+him at the gate.
+
+"Lord, we have been seeking you everywhere.  The master is
+at the point of death, and has sent for you.  Since the sixth
+hour he calls your name continually.  Come to him quickly,
+lord, for I fear the time is short."
+
+Hermas entered the house at once; nothing could amaze him
+to-day.  His father lay on an ivory couch in the inmost
+chamber, with shrunken face and restless eyes, his lean
+fingers picking incessantly at the silken coverlet.
+
+"My son!" he murmured; "Hermas, my son!  It is good that
+you have come back to me.  I have missed you.  I was wrong to
+send you away.  You shall never leave me again.  You are my
+son, my heir.  I have changed everything.  Hermas, my son, come
+nearer--close beside me.  Take my hand, my son!"
+
+The young man obeyed, and, kneeling by the couch, gathered
+his father's cold, twitching fingers in his firm, warm grasp.
+
+"Hermas, life is passing--long, rich, prosperous; the last
+sands, I cannot stay them.  My religion, a good policy--Julian
+was my friend.  But now he is gone--where?  My soul is
+empty--nothing beyond--very dark--I am afraid.  But you know
+something better.  You found something that made you willing
+to give up your life for it--it, must have been almost like
+dying--yet you were happy.  What was it you found?  See, I am
+giving you everything.  I have forgiven you.  Now forgive me.
+Tell me, what is it?  Your secret, your faith--give it to me
+before I go."
+
+At the sound of this broken pleading a strange passion of
+pity and love took the young man by the throat.  His voice
+shook a little as he answered eagerly:
+
+"Father, there is nothing to forgive.  I am your son; I will
+gladly tell you all that I know.  I will give you the secret.
+Father, you must believe with all your heart, and soul, and
+strength in--"
+
+Where was the word--the word that he had been used to
+utter night and morning, the word that had meant to him more
+than he had ever known?  What had become of it?
+
+He groped for it in the dark room of his mind.  He had
+thought he could lay his hand upon it in a moment, but it was
+gone.  Some one had taken it away.  Everything else was most
+clear to him: the terror of death; the lonely soul appealing
+from his father's eyes; the instant need of comfort and help.
+But at the one point where he looked for help he could find
+nothing; only an empty space.  The word of hope had vanished.
+He felt for it blindly and in desperate haste.
+
+"Father, wait!  I have forgotten something--it has slipped
+away from me.  I shall find it in a moment.  There is hope--I
+will tell you presently--oh, wait!"
+
+The bony hand gripped his like a vice; the glazed eyes opened
+wider.  "Tell me," whispered the old man; "tell me quickly, for I
+must go."
+
+The voice sank into a dull rattle.  The fingers closed
+once more, and relaxed.  The light behind the eyes went out.
+
+Hermas, the master of the House of the Golden Pillars, was
+keeping watch by the dead.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+The break with the old life was as clean as if it had been cut
+with a knife.  Some faint image of a hermit's cell, a bare
+lodging in a back street of Antioch, a class-room full of
+earnest students, remained in Hermas' memory.  Some dull echo
+of the voice of John the Presbyter, and the measured sound of
+chanting, and the murmur of great congregations, still
+lingered in his ears; but it was like something that had
+happened to another person, something that he had read long
+ago, but of which he had lost the meaning.
+
+His new life was full and smooth and rich--too rich for
+any sense of loss to make itself felt.  There were a hundred
+affairs to busy him, and the days ran swiftly by as if they were
+shod with winged sandals.
+
+Nothing needed to be considered, prepared for, begun.
+Everything was ready and waiting for him.  All that he had to
+do was to go on.
+
+The estate of Demetrius was even greater than the world
+had supposed.  There were fertile lands in Syria which the
+emperor had given him, marble-quarries in Phrygia, and forests
+of valuable timber in Cilicia; the vaults of the villa
+contained chests of gold and silver; the secret cabinets in
+the master's room were full of precious stones.  The stewards
+were diligent and faithful.  The servants of the household
+rejoiced at the young master's return.  His table was spread;
+the rose-garland of pleasure was woven for his head; his cup
+was overflowing with the spicy wine of power.
+
+The period of mourning for his father came at a fortunate
+moment to seclude and safeguard him from the storm of
+political troubles and persecutions that fell upon Antioch
+after the insults offered by the people to the imperial
+statues in the year 387.  The friends of Demetrius, prudent and
+conservative persons, gathered around Hermas and made him welcome
+to their circle.  Chief among them was Libanius, the sophist, his
+nearest neighbour, whose daughter Athenais had been the playmate
+of Hermas in the old days.
+
+He had left her a child.  He found her a beautiful woman.
+What transformation is so magical, so charming, as this?  To
+see the uncertain lines of youth rounded into firmness and
+symmetry, to discover the half-ripe, merry, changing face of
+the girl matured into perfect loveliness, and looking at you
+with calm, clear, serious eyes, not forgetting the past, but
+fully conscious of the changed present--this is to behold a
+miracle in the flesh.
+
+"Where have you been, these two years?" said Athenais, as
+they walked together through the garden of lilies where they
+had so often played.
+
+"In a land of tiresome dreams," answered Hermas; "but you
+have wakened me, and I am never going back again."
+
+It was not to be supposed that the sudden disappearance of
+Hermas from among his former associates could long remain
+unnoticed.  At first it was a mystery.  There was a fear, for two
+or three days, that he might be lost.  Some of his more intimate
+companions maintained that his devotion had led him out into the
+desert to join the anchorites.  But the news of his return to the
+House of the Golden Pillars, and of his new life as its
+master, filtered quickly through the gossip of the city.
+
+Then the church was filled with dismay and grief and
+reproach.  Messengers and letters were sent to Hermas.  They
+disturbed him a little, but they took no hold upon him.  It
+seemed to him as if the messengers spoke in a strange
+language.  As he read the letters there were words blotted out
+of the writing which made the full sense unintelligible.
+
+His old companions came to reprove him for leaving them,
+to warn him of the peril of apostasy, to entreat him to
+return.  It all sounded vague and futile.  They spoke as if he
+had betrayed or offended some one; but when they came to name
+the object of his fear--the one whom he had displeased, and to
+whom he should return--he heard nothing; there was a blur of
+silence in their speech.  The clock pointed to the hour, but the
+bell did not strike.  At last Hermas refused to see them any
+more.
+
+One day John the Presbyter stood in the atrium.  Hermas
+was entertaining Libanius and Athenais in the banquet-hall.
+When the visit of the Presbyter was announced, the young
+master loosed a collar of gold and jewels from his neck, and
+gave it to his scribe.
+
+"Take this to John of Antioch, and tell him it is a gift
+from his former pupil--as a token of remembrance, or to spend
+for the poor of the city.  I will always send him what he
+wants, but it is idle for us to talk together any more.  I do
+not understand what he says.  I have not gone to the temple,
+nor offered sacrifice, nor denied his teaching.  I have simply
+forgotten.  I do not think about those things any longer.  I
+am only living.  A happy man wishes him all happiness and
+farewell."
+
+But John let the golden collar fall on the marble floor.
+"Tell your master that we shall talk together again, in due
+time," said he, as he passed sadly out of
+the hall.
+
+The love of Athenais and Hermas was like a tiny rivulet
+that sinks out of sight in a cavern, but emerges again a
+bright and brimming stream.  The careless comradery of
+childhood was mysteriously changed into a complete
+companionship.
+
+When Athenais entered the House of the Golden Pillars as
+a bride, all the music of life came with her.  Hermas called
+the feast of her welcome "the banquet of the full chord."  Day
+after day, night after night, week after week, month after
+month, the bliss of the home unfolded like a rose of a
+thousand leaves.  When a child came to them, a strong,
+beautiful boy, worthy to be the heir of such a house, the
+heart of the rose was filled with overflowing fragrance.
+Happiness was heaped upon happiness.  Every wish brought its
+own accomplishment.  Wealth, honour, beauty, peace, love--it
+was an abundance of felicity so great that the soul of Hermas
+could hardly contain it.
+
+Strangely enough, it began to press upon him, to trouble
+him with the very excess of joy.  He felt as if there were
+something yet needed to complete and secure it all.  There was an
+urgency within him, a longing to find some outlet for his
+feelings, he knew not how--some expression and culmination of his
+happiness, he knew not what.
+
+Under his joyous demeanour a secret fire of restlessness
+began to burn--an expectancy of something yet to come which
+should put the touch of perfection on his life.  He spoke of
+it to Athenais, as they sat together, one summer evening, in
+a bower of jasmine, with their boy playing at their feet.
+There had been music in the garden; but now the singers and
+lute-players had withdrawn, leaving the master and mistress
+alone in the lingering twilight, tremulous with inarticulate
+melody of unseen birds.  There was a secret voice in the hour
+seeking vainly for utterance a word waiting to be spoken.
+
+"How deep is our happiness, my beloved!" said Hermas;
+"deeper than the sea that slumbers yonder, below the city.
+And yet it is not quite full and perfect.  There is a depth of
+joy that we have not yet known--a repose of happiness that is
+still beyond us.  What is it?  I have no superstitions, like the
+king who cast his signet-ring into the sea because he dreaded
+that some secret vengeance would fall on his unbroken good
+fortune.  That was an idle terror.  But there is something
+that oppresses me like an invisible burden.  There is
+something still undone, unspoken, unfelt--something that we
+need to complete everything.  Have you not felt it, too?  Can
+you not lead me to it?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, lifting her eyes to his face; "I,
+too, have felt it, Hermas, this burden, this need, this
+unsatisfied longing.  I think I know what it means.  It is
+gratitude--the language of the heart, the music of happiness.
+There is no perfect joy without gratitude.  But we have never
+learned it, and the want of it troubles us.  It is like being
+dumb with a heart full of love.  We must find the word for it,
+and say it together.  Then we shall be perfectly joined in
+perfect joy.  Come, my dear lord, let us take the boy with us,
+and give thanks."
+
+Hermas lifted the child in his arms, and turned with
+Athenais into the depth of the garden.  There was a dismantled
+shrine of some forgotten fashion of worship half-hidden among the
+luxuriant flowers.  A fallen image lay beside it, face downward
+in the grass.  They stood there, hand in hand, the boy drowsily
+resting on his father's shoulder.
+
+Silently the roseate light caressed the tall spires of the
+cypress-trees; silently the shadows gathered at their feet;
+silently the tranquil stars looked out from the deepening arch
+of heaven.  The very breath of being paused.  It was the hour
+of culmination, the supreme moment of felicity waiting for its
+crown.  The tones of Hermas were clear and low as he began,
+half-speaking and half-chanting, in the rhythm of an ancient
+song:
+
+"Fair is the world, the sea, the sky, the double kingdom
+of day and night, in the glow of morning, in the shadow of
+evening, and under the dripping light of stars.
+
+"Fairer still is life in our breasts, with its manifold
+music and meaning, with its wonder of seeing and hearing and
+feeling and knowing and being.
+
+"Fairer and still more fair is love, that draws us together,
+mingles our lives in its flow, and bears them along like a river,
+strong and clear and swift, reflecting the stars in its bosom.
+
+"Wide is our world; we are rich; we have all things.  Life
+is abundant within us--a measureless deep.  Deepest of all is
+our love, and it longs to speak.
+
+"Come, thou final word; Come, thou crown of speech!  Come,
+thou charm of peace!  Open the gates of our hearts.  Lift the
+weight of our joy and bear it upward.
+
+"For all good gifts, for all perfect gifts, for love, for
+life, for the world, we praise, we bless, we thank--"
+
+
+As a soaring bird, struck by an arrow, falls headlong from
+the sky, so the song of Hermas fell.  At the end of his flight
+of gratitude there was nothing--a blank, a hollow space.
+
+
+He looked for a face, and saw a void.  He sought for a
+hand, and clasped vacancy.  His heart was throbbing and
+swelling with passion; the bell swung to and fro within him,
+beating from side to side as if it would burst; but not a
+single note came from it.  All the fulness of his feeling,
+that had risen upward like a fountain, fell back from the empty
+sky, as cold as snow, as hard as hail, frozen and dead.  There
+was no meaning in his happiness.  No one had sent it to him.
+There was no one to thank for it.  His felicity was a closed
+circle, a wall of ice.
+
+"Let us go back," he said sadly to Athenais; "the child is
+heavy upon my shoulder.  We will lay him to sleep, and go into
+the library.  The air grows chilly.  We were mistaken.  The
+gratitude of life is only a dream.  There is no one to thank."
+
+And in the garden it was already night.
+
+
+
+V
+
+No outward change came to the House of the Golden Pillars.
+Everything moved as smoothly, as delicately, as prosperously,
+as before.  But inwardly there was a subtle, inexplicable
+transformation.  A vague discontent, a final and inevitable
+sense of incompleteness, overshadowed existence from that
+night when Hermas realised that his joy could never go beyond
+itself.
+
+The next morning the old man whom he had seen in the Grove
+of Daphne, but never since, appeared mysteriously at the door
+of the house, as if he had been sent for, and entered like an
+invited guest.
+
+Hermas could not but make him welcome, and at first he
+tried to regard him with reverence and affection as the one
+through whom fortune had come.  But it was impossible.  There
+was a chill in the inscrutable smile of Marcion, as he called
+himself, that seemed to mock at reverence.  He was in the
+house as one watching a strange experiment--tranquil,
+interested, ready to supply anything that might be needed for
+its completion, but thoroughly indifferent to the feelings of
+the subject; an anatomist of life, looking curiously to see
+how long it would continue, and how it would act, after the
+heart had been removed.
+
+In his presence Hermas was conscious of a certain
+irritation, a resentful anger against the calm, frigid
+scrutiny of the eyes that followed him everywhere, like a pair
+of spies, peering out over the smiling mouth and the long
+white beard.
+
+"Why do you look at me so curiously?" asked Hermas, one
+morning, as they sat together in the library.  "Do you see
+anything strange in me?"
+
+"No," answered  Marcion; "something familiar."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"A singular likeness to a discontented young man that I
+met some years ago in the Grove of Daphne."
+
+"But why should that interest you?  Surely it was to be
+expected."
+
+"A thing that we expect often surprises us when we see it.
+Besides, my curiosity is piqued.  I suspect you of keeping a
+secret from me."
+
+"You are jesting with me.  There is nothing in my life
+that you do not know.  What is the secret?"
+
+"Nothing more than the wish to have one.  You are growing
+tired of your bargain.  The play wearies you.  That is
+foolish.  Do you want to try a new part?"
+
+The question was like a mirror upon which one comes
+suddenly in a half-lighted room.  A quick illumination falls on
+it, and the passer-by is startled by the look of his own face.
+
+"You are right," said Hermas.  "I am tired.  We have been
+going on stupidly in this house, as if nothing were possible
+but what my father had done before me.  There is nothing
+original in being rich, and well-fed, and well-dressed.
+Thousands of men have tried it, and have not been satisfied.  Let
+us do something new.  Let us make a mark in the world."
+
+"It is well said," nodded the old man; "you are speaking
+again like a man after my own heart.  There is no folly but
+the loss of an opportunity to enjoy a new sensation."
+
+From that day Hermas seemed to be possessed with a
+perpetual haste, an uneasiness that left him no repose.  The
+summit of life had been attained, the highest possible point
+of felicity.  Henceforward the course could only be at a
+level--perhaps downward.  It might be brief; at the best it
+could not be very long.  It was madness to lose a day, an
+hour.  That would be the only fatal mistake: to forfeit
+anything of the bargain that he had made. He would have it, and
+hold it, and enjoy it all to the full.  The world might have
+nothing better to give than it had already given; but surely it
+had many things that were new, and Marcion should help him to
+find them.
+
+Under his learned counsel the House of the Golden Pillars
+took on a new magnificence.  Artists were brought from Corinth
+and Rome and Alexandria to adorn it with splendour.  Its fame
+glittered around the world.  Banquets of incredible luxury
+drew the most celebrated guests into its triclinium, and
+filled them with envious admiration.  The bees swarmed and
+buzzed about the golden hive.  The human insects, gorgeous
+moths of pleasure and greedy flies of appetite, parasites and
+flatterers and crowds of inquisitive idlers, danced and
+fluttered in the dazzling light that surrounded Hermas.
+
+Everything that he touched prospered.  He bought a tract
+of land in the Caucasus, and emeralds were discovered among
+the mountains.  He sent a fleet of wheat-ships to Italy, and
+the price of grain doubled while it was on the way.  He sought
+political favour with the emperor, and was rewarded with the
+governorship of the city.  His name was a word to conjure with.
+
+The beauty of Athenais lost nothing with the passing
+seasons, but grew more perfect, even under the inexplicable
+shade of dissatisfaction that sometimes veiled it.  "Fair as
+the wife of Hermas" was a proverb in Antioch; and soon men
+began to add to it, "Beautiful as the son of Hermas"; for the
+child developed swiftly in that favouring clime.  At nine
+years of age he was straight and strong, firm of limb and
+clear of eye.  His brown head was on a level with his father's
+heart.  He was the jewel of the House of the Golden Pillars;
+the pride of Hermas, the new Fortunatus.
+
+That year another drop of success fell into his brimming
+cup.  His black Numidian horses, which he had been training
+for the world-renowned chariot-races of Antioch, won the
+victory over a score of rivals.  Hermas received the prize
+carelessly from the judge's hands, and turned to drive once
+more around the circus, to show himself to the people.  He
+lifted the eager boy into the chariot beside him to share his
+triumph.
+
+Here, indeed, was the glory of his life--this matchless
+son, his brighter counterpart carved in breathing ivory,
+touching his arm, and balancing himself proudly on the swaying
+floor of the chariot.  As the horses pranced around the ring,
+a great shout of applause filled the amphitheatre, and
+thousands of spectators waved their salutations of praise:
+"Hail, fortunate Hermas, master of success!  Hail, little
+Hermas, prince of good luck!"
+
+The, sudden tempest of acclamation, the swift fluttering
+of innumerable garments in the air, startled the horses.  They
+dashed violently forward, and plunged upon the bits.  The left
+rein broke.  They swerved to the right, swinging the chariot
+sideways with a grating noise, and dashing it against the
+stone parapet of the arena.  In an instant the wheel was
+shattered.  The axle struck the ground, and the chariot was
+dragged onward, rocking and staggering.
+
+By a strenuous effort Hermas kept his place on the frail
+platform, clinging to the unbroken rein.  But the boy was
+tossed lightly from his side at the first shock.  His head struck
+the wall.  And when Hermas turned to look for him, he was lying
+like a broken flower on the sand.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+They carried the boy in a litter to the House of the Golden
+Pillars, summoning the most skilful physician of Antioch to
+attend him.  For hours the child was as quiet as death.
+Hermas watched the white eyelids, folded close like lily-buds
+at night, even as one watches for the morning.  At last they
+opened; but the fire of fever was burning in the eyes, and the
+lips were moving in a wild delirium.
+
+Hour after hour that sweet childish voice rang through the
+halls and chambers of the splendid, helpless house, now rising
+in shrill calls of distress and senseless laughter, now
+sinking in weariness and dull moaning.  The stars shone and
+faded; the sun rose and set; the roses bloomed and fell in the
+garden; the birds sang and slept among the jasmine-bowers.
+But in the heart of Hermas there was no song, no bloom, no
+light--only speechless anguish, and a certain fearful looking-for
+of desolation.
+
+He was like a man in a nightmare.  He saw the shapeless
+terror that was moving toward him, but he was impotent to stay
+or to escape it.  He had done all that he could.  There was
+nothing left but to wait.
+
+He paced to and fro, now hurrying to the boy's bed as if
+he could not bear to be away from it, now turning back as if
+he could not endure to be near it.  The people of the house,
+even Athenais, feared to speak to him, there was something so
+vacant and desperate in his face.
+
+At nightfall on the second of those eternal days he shut
+himself in the library.  The unfilled lamp had gone out,
+leaving a trail of smoke in the air.  The sprigs of mignonette
+and rosemary, with which the room was sprinkled every day,
+were unrenewed, and scented the gloom with close odours of
+decay.  A costly manuscript of Theocritus was tumbled in
+disorder on the floor.  Hermas sank into a chair like a man in
+whom the very spring of being is broken.  Through the darkness
+some one drew near.  He did not even lift his head.  A hand
+touched him; a soft arm was laid over his shoulders.  It was
+Athenais, kneeling beside him and speaking very low:
+
+"Hermas--it is almost over--the child!  His voice grows
+weaker hour by hour.  He moans and calls for some one to help
+him; then he laughs.  It breaks my heart.  He has just fallen
+asleep.  The moon is rising now.  Unless a change comes he
+cannot last till sunrise.  Is there nothing we can do?  Is
+there no power that can save him?  Is there no one to pity us
+and spare us?  Let us call, let us beg for compassion and
+help; let us pray for his life!"
+
+Yes; this was what he wanted--this was the only thing that
+could bring relief: to pray; to pour out his sorrow somewhere;
+to find a greater strength than his own and cling to it and
+plead for mercy and help.  To leave this undone was to be
+false to his manhood; it was to be no better than the dumb
+beasts when their young perish.  How could he let his boy
+suffer and die, without an effort, a cry, a prayer?
+
+He sank on his knees beside Athenais.
+
+"Out of the depths--out of the depths we call for pity.
+The, light of our eyes is fading--the child is dying.  Oh, the
+child, the child!  Spare the child's life, thou merciful--"
+
+Not a word; only that deathly blank.  The hands of Hermas,
+stretched out in supplication, touched the marble table.  He
+felt the cool hardness of the polished stone beneath his
+fingers.  A roll of papyrus, dislodged by his touch, fell
+rustling to the floor.  Through the open door, faint and far
+off, came the footsteps of the servants, moving cautiously.
+The heart of Hermas was like a lump of ice in his bosom.  He
+rose slowly to his feet, lifting Athenais with him.
+
+"It is in vain," he said; "there is nothing for us to do.
+Long ago I knew something.  I think it would have helped us.
+But I have forgotten it.  It is all gone.  But I would give
+all that I have, if I could bring it back again now, at this
+hour, in this time of our bitter trouble."
+
+A slave entered the room while he was speaking, and
+approached hesitatingly.
+
+"Master," he said, "John of Antioch, whom we were
+forbidden to admit to the house, has come again.  He would
+take no denial.  Even now he waits in the peristyle; and the
+old man Marcion is with him, seeking to turn him away."
+
+"Come," said Hermas to his wife, "let us go to him."
+
+In the central hall the two men were standing; Marcion,
+with disdainful eyes and sneering lips, taunting the unbidden
+guest; John, silent, quiet, patient, while the wondering
+slaves looked on in dismay.  He lifted his searching gaze to
+the haggard face of Hermas.
+
+"My son, I knew that I should see you again, even though
+you did not send for me.  I have come to you because I have
+heard that you are in trouble."
+
+"It is true," answered Hermas, passionately; "we are in
+trouble, desperate trouble, trouble accursed.  Our child is
+dying.  We are poor, we are destitute, we are afflicted.  In
+all this house, in all the world, there is no one that can
+help us.  I knew something long ago, when I was with you,--a
+word, a name,--in which we might have found hope.  But I have
+lost it.  I gave it to this man.  He has taken it away from me
+forever."
+
+He pointed to Marcion.  The old man's lips curled
+scornfully.  "A word, a name!" he sneered.  "What is that, O
+most wise man and holy Presbyter?  A thing of air, a thing
+that men make to describe their own dreams and fancies.  Who
+would go about to rob any one of such a thing as that?  It is
+a prize that only a fool would think of taking.  Besides, the
+young man parted with it of his own free will.  He bargained
+with me cleverly.  I promised him wealth and pleasure and
+fame.  What did he give in return?  An empty name, which was
+a burden--"
+
+"Servant of demons, be still!"  The voice of John rang
+clear, like a trumpet, through the hall.  "There is a name
+which none shall dare to take in vain.  There is a name which
+none can lose without being lost.  There is a name at which
+the devils tremble.  Go quickly, before I speak it!"
+
+Marcion shrank into the shadow of one of the pillars.  A
+lamp near him tottered on its pedestal and fell with a crash.  In
+the confusion he vanished, as noiselessly as a shade.
+
+John turned to Hermas, and his tone softened as he said:
+"My son, you have sinned deeper than you know.  The word with
+which you parted so lightly is the keyword of all life.
+Without it the world has no meaning, existence no peace, death
+no refuge.  It is the word that purifies love, and comforts
+grief, and keeps hope alive forever.  It is the most precious
+word that ever ear has heard, or mind has known, or heart has
+conceived.  It is the name of Him who has given us life and
+breath and all things richly to enjoy; the name of Him who,
+though we may forget Him, never forgets us; the name of Him
+who pities us as you pity your suffering child; the name of
+Him who, though we wander far from Him, seeks us in the
+wilderness, and sent His Son, even as His Son has sent me this
+night, to breathe again that forgotten name in the heart that
+is perishing without it.  Listen, my son, listen with all your
+soul to the blessed name of God our Father."
+
+The cold agony in the breast of Hermas dissolved like a
+fragment of ice that melts in the summer sea.  A sense of sweet
+release spread through him from head to foot.  The lost was
+found.  The dew of peace fell on his parched soul, and the
+withering flower of human love raised its head again.  He stood
+upright, and lifted his hands high toward heaven.
+
+"Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord!  O my
+God, be merciful to me, for my soul trusteth in Thee.  My God,
+Thou hast given; take not Thy gift away from me, O my God!
+Spare the life of this my child, O Thou God, my Father, my
+Father!"
+
+A deep hush followed the cry.  "Listen!" whispered
+Athenais, breathlessly.
+
+Was it an echo?  It could not be, for it came again--the
+voice of the child, clear and low, waking from sleep, and
+calling:  "Father!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST CHRISTMAS-TREE
+
+I
+
+The day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722.
+
+Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the
+river Moselle; steep hill-sides blooming with mystic
+forget-me-not where the glow of the setting sun cast long
+shadows down their eastern slope; an arch of clearest, deepest
+gentian bending overhead; in the centre of the aerial garden
+the walls of the cloister of Pfalzel, steel-blue to the east,
+violet to the west; silence over all,--a gentle, eager,
+conscious stillness, diffused through the air, as if earth and
+sky were hushing themselves to hear the voice of the river
+faintly murmuring down the valley.
+
+In the cloister, too, there was silence at the sunset
+hour.  All day long there had been a strange and joyful stir
+among the nuns.  A breeze of curiosity and excitement had
+swept along the corridors and through every quiet cell.  A famous
+visitor had come to the convent.
+
+It was Winfried of England, whose name in the Roman tongue
+was Boniface, and whom men called the Apostle of Germany.  A
+great preacher; a wonderful scholar; but, more than all, a
+daring traveller, a venturesome pilgrim, a priest of romance.
+
+He had left his home and his fair estate in Wessex; he
+would not stay in the rich monastery of Nutescelle, even
+though they had chosen him as the abbot; he had refused a
+bishopric at the court of King Karl.  Nothing would content
+him but to go out into the wild woods and preach to the
+heathen.
+
+Through the forests of Hesse and Thuringia, and along the
+borders of Saxony, he had wandered for years, with a handful
+of companions, sleeping under the trees, crossing mountains
+and marshes, now here, now there, never satisfied with ease
+and comfort, always in love with hardship and danger.
+
+What a man he was!  Fair and slight, but straight as a
+spear and strong as an oaken staff. His face was still young; the
+smooth skin was bronzed by wind and sun.  His gray eyes, clean
+and kind, flashed like fire when he spoke of his adventures, and
+of the evil deeds of the false priests with whom he contended.
+
+What tales he had told that day!  Not of miracles wrought
+by sacred relics; not of courts and councils and splendid
+cathedrals; though he knew much of these things.  But to-day
+he had spoken of long journeyings by sea and land; of perils
+by fire and flood; of wolves and bears, and fierce snowstorms,
+and black nights in the lonely forest; of dark altars of
+heathen gods, and weird, bloody sacrifices, and narrow escapes
+from murderous bands of wandering savages.
+
+The little novices had gathered around him, and their
+faces had grown pale and their eyes bright as they listened
+with parted lips, entranced in admiration, twining their arms
+about one another's shoulders and holding closely together,
+half in fear, half in delight.  The older nuns had turned from
+their tasks and paused, in passing by, to bear the pilgrim's
+story.  Too well they knew the truth of what he spoke.  Many a
+one among them had seen the smoke rising from the ruins of her
+father's roof.  Many a one had a brother far away in the wild
+country to whom her heart went out night and day, wondering if he
+were still among the living.
+
+But now the excitements of that wonderful day were over;
+the hour of the evening meal had come; the inmates of the
+cloister were assembled in the refectory.
+
+On the dais sat the stately Abbess Addula, daughter of
+King Dagobert, looking a princess indeed, in her purple tunic,
+with the hood and cuffs of her long white robe trimmed with
+ermine, and a snowy veil resting like a crown on her silver
+hair.  At her right hand was the honoured guest, and at her
+left hand her grandson, the young Prince Gregor, a big, manly
+boy, just returned from school.
+
+The long, shadowy hall, with its dark-brown rafters and
+beams; the double row of nuns, with their pure veils and fair
+faces; the ruddy glow of the slanting sunbeams striking upward
+through the tops of the windows and painting a pink glow
+high up on the walls,--it was all as beautiful as a picture,
+and as silent.  For this was the rule of the cloister, that at
+the table all should sit in stillness for a little while, and
+then one should read aloud, while the rest listened.
+
+"It is the turn of my grandson to read to-day," said the
+abbess to Winfried; "we shall see how much he has learned in
+the school.  Read, Gregor; the place in the book is marked."
+
+The lad rose from his seat and turned the pages of the
+manuscript.  It was a copy of Jerome's version of the
+Scriptures in Latin, and the marked place was in the letter of
+St. Paul to the Ephesians,--the passage where he describes the
+preparation of the Christian as a warrior arming for battle.
+The young voice rang out clearly, rolling the sonorous words,
+without slip or stumbling, to the end of the chapter.
+
+Winfried listened smiling.  "That was bravely read, my
+son," said he, as the reader paused.  "Understandest thou what
+thou readest?"
+
+"Surely, father," answered the boy; "it was taught me by
+the masters at Treves; and we have read this epistle from
+beginning to end, so that I almost know it by heart."
+
+Then he began to repeat the passage, turning away from the
+page as if to show his skill.
+
+But Winfried stopped him with a friendly lifting of the
+hand.
+
+"Not so, my son; that was not my meaning.  When we pray,
+we speak to God.  When we read, God speaks to us.  I ask
+whether thou hast heard what He has said to thee in the common
+speech.  Come, give us again the message of the warrior and
+his armour and his battle, in the mother-tongue, so that all
+can understand it."
+
+The boy hesitated, blushed, stammered; then he came around
+to Winfried's seat, bringing the book.  "Take the book, my
+father," he cried, "and read it for me.  I cannot see the
+meaning plain, though I love the sound of the words.  Religion
+I know, and the doctrines of our faith, and the life of
+priests and nuns in the cloister, for which my grandmother
+designs me, though it likes me little.  And fighting I know,
+and the life of warriors and heroes, for I have read of it in
+Virgil and the ancients, and heard a bit from the soldiers at
+Treves; and I would fain taste more of it, for it likes me much.
+But how the two lives fit together, or what need there is of
+armour for a clerk in holy orders, I can never see.  Tell me the
+meaning, for if there is a man in all the world that knows it,
+I am sure it is thou."
+
+So Winfried took the book and closed it, clasping the
+boy's hand with his own.
+
+"Let us first dismiss the others to their vespers said he,
+"lest they should be weary."
+
+A sign from the abbess; a chanted benediction; a murmuring
+of sweet voices and a soft rustling of many feet over the
+rushes on the floor; the gentle tide of noise flowed out
+through the doors and ebbed away down the corridors; the three
+at the head of the table were left alone in the darkening
+room.
+
+Then Winfried began to translate the parable of the
+soldier into the realities of life.
+
+At every turn he knew how to flash a new light into the
+picture out of his own experience.  He spoke of the combat
+with self, and of the wrestling with dark spirits in solitude.
+He spoke of the demons that men had worshipped for centuries in
+the wilderness, and whose malice they invoked against the
+stranger who ventured into the gloomy forest.  Gods, they called
+them, and told weird tales of their dwelling among the
+impenetrable branches of the oldest trees and in the caverns of
+the shaggy hills; of their riding on the wind-horses and hurling
+spears of lightning against their foes.  Gods they were not, but
+foul spirits of the air, rulers of the darkness.  Was there not
+glory and honour in fighting them, in daring their anger under
+the shield of faith, in putting them to flight with the sword
+of truth?  What better adventure could a brave man ask than to
+go forth against them, and wrestle with them, and conquer
+them?
+
+"Look you, my friends," said Winfried, "how sweet and
+peaceful is this convent to-night!  It is a garden full of
+flowers in the heart of winter; a nest among the branches of
+a great tree shaken by the winds; a still haven on the edge of
+a tempestuous sea.  And this is what religion means for
+those who are chosen and called to quietude and prayer and
+meditation.
+
+"But out yonder in the wide forest, who knows what storms
+are raving to-night in the hearts of men, though all the woods
+are still? who knows what haunts of wrath and cruelty are
+closed tonight against the advent of the Prince of Peace?  And
+shall I tell you what religion means to those who are called
+and chosen to dare, and to fight, and to conquer the world for
+Christ?  It means to go against the strongholds of the
+adversary.  It means to struggle to win an entrance for the
+Master everywhere.  What helmet is strong enough for this
+strife save the helmet of salvation?  What breastplate can
+guard a man against these fiery darts but the breastplate of
+righteousness?  What shoes can stand the wear of these
+journeys but the preparation of the gospel of peace?"
+
+"Shoes?" he cried again, and laughed as if a sudden
+thought had struck him.  He thrust out his foot, covered with
+a heavy cowhide boot, laced high about his leg with thongs of
+skin.
+
+"Look here,--how a fighting man of the cross is
+shod!  I have seen the boots of the Bishop of Tours,--white
+kid, broidered with silk; a day in the bogs would tear them to
+shreds.  I have seen the sandals that the monks use on the
+highroads,--yes, and worn them; ten pair of them have I worn
+out and thrown away in a single journey.  Now I shoe my feet
+with the toughest hides, hard as iron; no rock can cut them,
+no branches can tear them.  Yet more than one pair of these
+have I outworn, and many more shall I outwear ere my journeys
+are ended.  And I think, if God is gracious to me, that I
+shall die wearing them.  Better so than in a soft bed with
+silken coverings.  The boots of a warrior, a hunter, a
+woodsman,--these are my preparation of the gospel of peace.
+
+"Come, Gregor," he said, laying his brown hand on the
+youth's shoulder, "come, wear the forester's boots with me.
+This is the life to which we are called.  Be strong in the
+Lord, a hunter of the demons, a subduer of the wilderness, a
+woodsman of the faith.  Come."
+
+The boy's eyes sparkled.  He turned to his grandmother.
+She shook her head vigorously.
+
+"Nay, father," she said, "draw not the lad away from my
+side with these wild words.  I need him to help me with my
+labours, to cheer my old age."
+
+"Do you need him more than the Master does?" asked
+Winfried; "and will you take the wood that is fit for a bow to
+make a distaff?"
+
+"But I fear for the child.  Thy life is too hard for him.
+He will perish with hunger in the woods."
+
+"Once," said Winfried, smiling, "we were camped on the
+bank of the river Ohru.  The table was set for the morning
+meal, but my comrades cried that it was empty; the provisions
+were exhausted; we must go without breakfast, and perhaps
+starve before we could escape from the wilderness.  While they
+complained, a fish-hawk flew up from the river with flapping
+wings, and let fall a great pike in the midst of the camp.
+There was food enough and to spare!  Never have I seen the
+righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."
+
+"But the fierce pagans of the forest," cried the
+abbess,--"they may pierce the boy with their arrows, or dash
+out his brains with their axes.  He is but a child, too young for
+the danger and the strife."
+
+"A child in years," replied Winfried, "but a man in
+spirit.  And if the hero fall early in the battle, he wears
+the brighter crown, not a leaf withered, not a flower fallen."
+
+The aged princess trembled a little.  She drew Gregor
+close to her side, and laid her hand gently on his brown hair.
+  "I am not sure that he wants to leave me yet.  Besides,
+there is no horse in the stable to give him, now, and he
+cannot go as befits the grandson of a king."
+
+Gregor looked straight into her eyes.
+
+"Grandmother," said he, "dear grandmother, if thou wilt
+not give me a horse to ride with this man of God, I will go
+with him afoot."
+
+
+
+II
+
+Two years had passed since that Christmas-eve in the cloister
+of Pfalzel.  A little company of pilgrims, less than a score
+of men, were travelling slowly northward through the wide forest
+that rolled over the hills of central Germany.
+
+At the head of the band marched Winfried, clad in a tunic
+of fur, with his long black robe girt high above his waist, so
+that it might not hinder his stride.  His hunter's boots were
+crusted with snow.  Drops of ice sparkled like jewels along
+the thongs that bound his legs.  There were no other ornaments
+of his dress except the bishop's cross hanging on his breast,
+and the silver clasp that fastened his cloak about his neck.
+He carried a strong, tall staff in his hand, fashioned at the
+top into the form of a cross.
+
+Close beside him, keeping step like a familiar comrade,
+was the young Prince Gregor.  Long marches through the
+wilderness had stretched his legs and broadened his back, and
+made a man of him in stature as well as in spirit.  His
+jacket and cap were of wolf-skin, and on his shoulder he
+carried an axe, with broad, shining blade.  He was a mighty
+woodsman now, and could make a spray of chips fly around him
+as he hewed his way through the trunk of a pine-tree.
+
+Behind these leaders followed a pair of teamsters, guiding
+a rude sledge, loaded with food and the equipage of the camp,
+and drawn by two big, shaggy horses, blowing thick clouds of
+steam from their frosty nostrils.  Tiny icicles hung from the
+hairs on their lips.  Their flanks were smoking.  They sank
+above the fetlocks at every step in the soft snow.
+
+Last of all came the rear guard, armed with bows and
+javelins.  It was no child's play, in those days, to cross
+Europe afoot.
+
+The weird woodland, sombre and illimitable, covered hill
+and vale, table-land and mountain-peak.  There were wide moors
+where the wolves hunted in packs as if the devil drove them,
+and tangled thickets where the lynx and the boar made their
+lairs.  Fierce bears lurked among the rocky passes, and had
+not yet learned to fear the face of man.  The gloomy recesses
+of the forest gave shelter to inhabitants who were still more
+cruel and dangerous than beasts of prey,--outlaws and sturdy
+robbers and mad were-wolves and bands of wandering pillagers.
+
+The pilgrim who would pass from the mouth of the Tiber to
+the mouth of the Rhine must trust in God and keep his arrows
+loose in the quiver.
+
+The travellers were surrounded by an ocean of trees, so
+vast, so full of endless billows, that it seemed to be
+pressing on every side to overwhelm them.  Gnarled oaks, with
+branches twisted and knotted as if in rage, rose in groves
+like tidal waves.  Smooth forests of beech-trees, round and
+gray, swept over the knolls and slopes of land in a mighty
+ground-swell.  But most of all, the multitude of pines and
+firs, innumerable and monotonous, with straight, stark trunks,
+and branches woven together in an unbroken flood of darkest
+green, crowded through the valleys and over the hills, rising
+on the highest ridges into ragged crests, like the foaming
+edge of breakers.
+
+Through this sea of shadows ran a narrow stream of shining
+whiteness,--an ancient Roman road, covered with snow.  It was
+as if some great ship had ploughed through the green ocean
+long ago, and left behind it a thick, smooth wake of foam.
+Along this open track the travellers held their way,--heavily,
+for the drifts were deep; warily, for the hard winter had driven
+many packs of wolves down from the moors.
+
+The steps of the pilgrims were noiseless; but the sledges
+creaked over the dry snow, and the panting of the horses
+throbbed through the still air.  The pale-blue shadows on the
+western side of the road grew longer.  The sun, declining
+through its shallow arch, dropped behind the tree-tops.
+Darkness followed swiftly, as if it had been a bird of prey
+waiting for this sign to swoop down upon the world.
+
+"Father," said Gregor to the leader, "surely this day's
+march is done.  It is time to rest, and eat, and sleep.  If we
+press onward now, we cannot see our steps; and will not that
+be against the word of the psalmist David, who bids us not to
+put confidence in the legs of a man?"
+
+Winfried laughed.  "Nay, my son Gregor," said he, "thou
+hast tripped, even now, upon thy text.  For David said only,
+'I take no pleasure in the legs of a man.'  And so say I, for
+I am not minded to spare thy legs or mine, until we come farther
+on our way, and do what must be done this night.  Draw thy
+belt tighter, my son, and hew me out this tree that is fallen
+across the road, for our campground is not here."
+
+The youth obeyed; two of the foresters sprang to help him;
+and while the soft fir-wood yielded to the stroke of the axes,
+and the snow flew from the bending branches, Winfried turned
+and spoke to his followers in a cheerful voice, that refreshed
+them like wine.
+
+"Courage, brothers, and forward yet a little!  The moon
+will light us presently, and the path is plain.  Well know I
+that the journey is weary; and my own heart wearies also for
+the home in England, where those I love are keeping feast this
+Christmas-eve.  But we have work to do before we feast
+to-night.  For this is the Yuletide, and the heathen people of
+the forest are gathered at the thunder-oak of Geismar to
+worship their god, Thor.  Strange things will be seen there,
+and deeds which make the soul black.  But we are sent to
+lighten their darkness; and we will teach our kinsmen to keep
+a Christmas with us such as the woodland has never known.
+Forward, then, and stiffen up the feeble knees!"
+
+A murmur of assent came from the men.  Even the horses
+seemed to take fresh heart.  They flattened their backs to
+draw the heavy loads, and blew the frost from their nostrils
+as they pushed ahead.
+
+The night grew broader and less oppressive.  A gate of
+brightness was opened secretly somewhere in the sky.  Higher
+and higher swelled the clear moon-flood, until it poured over
+the eastern wall of forest into the road.  A drove of wolves
+howled faintly in the distance, but they were receding, and
+the sound soon died away.  The stars sparkled merrily through
+the stringent air; the small, round moon shone like silver;
+little breaths of dreaming wind wandered across the pointed
+fir-tops, as the pilgrims toiled bravely onward, following
+their clew of light through a labyrinth of darkness.
+
+After a while the road began to open out a little.  There
+were spaces of meadow-land, fringed with alders, behind which
+a boisterous river ran clashing through spears of ice.
+
+Rude houses of hewn logs appeared in the openings, each one
+casting a patch of inky shadow upon the snow. Then the travellers
+passed a larger group of dwellings, all silent and unlighted; and
+beyond, they saw a great house, with many outbuildings and
+inclosed courtyards, from which the hounds bayed furiously, and a
+noise of stamping horses came from the stalls.  But there was no
+other sound of life.  The fields around lay naked to the moon.
+They saw no man, except that once, on a path that skirted the
+farther edge of a meadow, three dark figures passed them, running
+very swiftly.
+
+Then the road plunged again into a dense thicket,
+traversed it, and climbing to the left, emerged suddenly upon
+a glade, round and level except at the northern side, where a
+hillock was crowned with a huge oak-tree.  It towered above
+the heath, a giant with contorted arms, beckoning to the host
+of lesser trees.  "Here," cried Winfried, as his eyes flashed
+and his hand lifted his heavy staff, "here is the Thunder-oak;
+and here the cross of Christ shall break the hammer of the
+false god Thor."
+
+Withered leaves still clung to the branches of the oak: torn
+and faded banners of the departed summer.  The bright crimson
+of autumn had long since disappeared, bleached away by the
+storms and the cold.  But to-night these tattered remnants of
+glory were red again: ancient bloodstains against the
+dark-blue sky.  For an immense fire had been kindled in front
+of the tree.  Tongues of ruddy flame, fountains of ruby
+sparks, ascended through the spreading limbs and flung a
+fierce illumination upward and around.  The pale, pure
+moonlight that bathed the surrounding forests was quenched and
+eclipsed here.  Not a beam of it sifted through the branches
+of the oak.  It stood like a pillar of cloud between the still
+light of heaven and the crackling, flashing fire of earth.
+
+But the fire itself was invisible to Winfried and his
+companions.  A great throng of people were gathered around it
+in a half-circle, their backs to the open glade, their faces
+toward the oak.  Seen against that glowing background, it was but
+the silhouette of a crowd, vague, black, formless, mysterious.
+
+The travellers paused for a moment at the edge of the
+thicket, and took counsel together.
+
+"It is the assembly of the tribe," said one of the
+foresters, "the great night of the council.  I heard of it
+three days ago, as we passed through one of the villages.  All
+who swear by the old gods have been summoned.  They will
+sacrifice a steed to the god of war, and drink blood, and eat
+horse-flesh to make them strong.  It will be at the peril of
+our lives if we approach them.  At least we must hide the
+cross, if we would escape death."
+
+"Hide me no cross," cried Winfried, lifting his staff,
+"for I have come to show it, and to make these blind folk see
+its power.  There is more to be done here to-night than the
+slaying of a steed, and a greater evil to be stayed than the
+shameful eating of meat sacrificed to idols.  I have seen it
+in a dream.  Here the cross must stand and be our rede."
+
+At his command the sledge was left in the border
+of the wood, with two of the men to guard it, and the rest of
+the company moved forward across the open ground.  They
+approached unnoticed, for all the multitude were looking
+intently toward the fire at the foot of the oak.
+
+Then Winfried's voice rang out, "Hail, ye sons of the
+forest!  A stranger claims the warmth of your fire in the
+winter night."
+
+Swiftly, and as with a single motion, a thousand eyes were
+bent upon the speaker.  The semicircle opened silently in the
+middle; Winfried entered with his followers; it closed again
+behind them.
+
+Then, as they looked round the curving ranks, they saw
+that the hue of the assemblage was not black, but
+white,--dazzling, radiant, solemn.  White, the robes of the
+women clustered together at the points of the wide crescent;
+white, the glittering byrnies of the warriors standing in
+close ranks; white, the fur mantles of the aged men who held
+the central palace in the circle; white, with the shimmer of
+silver ornaments and the purity of lamb's-wool, the raiment of
+a little group of children who stood close by the fire; white,
+with awe and fear, the faces of all who looked at them; and over
+all the flickering, dancing radiance of the flames played and
+glimmered like a faint, vanishing tinge of blood on snow.
+
+The only figure untouched by the glow was the old priest,
+Hunrad, with his long, spectral robe, flowing hair and beard,
+and dead-pale face, who stood with his back to the fire and
+advanced slowly to meet the strangers.
+
+"Who are you?  Whence come you, and what seek you here?"
+
+"Your kinsman am I, of the German brotherhood," answered
+Winfried, "and from England, beyond the sea, have I come to
+bring you a greeting from that land, and a message from the
+All-Father, whose servant I am."
+
+"Welcome, then," said Hunrad, "welcome, kinsman, and be
+silent; for what passes here is too high to wait, and must be
+done before the moon crosses the middle heaven, unless,
+indeed, thou hast some sign or token from the gods.  Canst
+thou work miracles?"
+
+The question came sharply, as if a sudden gleam of hope
+had flashed through the tangle of the old priest's mind.  But
+Winfried's voice sank lower and a cloud of disappointment
+passed over his face as he replied:  "Nay, miracles have I
+never wrought, though I have heard of many; but the All-Father
+has given no power to my hands save such as belongs to common
+man."
+
+"Stand still, then, thou common man," said Hunrad,
+scornfully, "and behold what the gods have called us hither to
+do.  This night is the death-night of the sun-god, Baldur the
+Beautiful, beloved of gods and men.  This night is the hour of
+darkness and the power of winter, of sacrifice and mighty
+fear.  This night the great Thor, the god of thunder and war,
+to whom this oak is sacred, is grieved for the death of
+Baldur, and angry with this people because they have forsaken
+his worship.  Long is it since an offering has been laid upon
+his altar, long since the roots of his holy tree have been fed
+with blood.  Therefore its leaves have withered before the
+time, and its boughs are heavy with death.  Therefore the
+Slavs`and the Wends have beaten us in battle.  Therefore the
+harvests have failed, and the wolf-hordes have ravaged the
+folds, and the strength has departed from the bow, and the
+wood of the spear has broken, and the wild boar has slain the
+huntsman.  Therefore the plague has fallen on our dwellings,
+and the dead are more than the living in all our villages.
+Answer me, ye people, are not these things true? "
+
+ A hoarse sound of approval ran through the circle.  A
+chant, in which the voices of the men and women blended, like
+the shrill wind in the pinetrees above the rumbling thunder of
+a waterfall, rose and fell in rude cadences.
+
+      O Thor, the Thunderer
+      Mighty and merciless,
+      Spare us from smiting!
+      Heave not thy hammer,
+      Angry, aginst us;
+      Plague not thy people.
+      Take from our treasure
+      Richest Of ransom.
+      Silver we send thee,
+      Jewels and javelins,
+      Goodliest garments,
+      All our possessions,
+      Priceless, we proffer.
+      Sheep will we slaughter,
+      Steeds will we sacrifice;
+      Bright blood shall bathe
+      O tree of Thunder,
+      Life-floods shall lave thee,
+      Strong wood of wonder.
+      Mighty, have mercy,
+      Smile as no more,
+      Spare us and save us,
+      Spare us, Thor!  Thor!
+
+
+
+With two great shouts the song ended, and stillness
+followed so intense that the crackling of the fire was heard
+distinctly.  The old priest stood silent for a moment.  His
+shaggy brows swept down ever his eyes like ashes quenching
+flame.  Then he lifted his face and spoke.
+
+"None of these things will please the god.  More costly is
+the offering that shall cleanse your sin, more precious the
+crimson dew that shall send new life into this holy tree of
+blood.  Thor claims your dearest and your noblest gift."
+
+Hunrad moved nearer to the group of children who stood
+watching the fire and the swarms of spark-serpents darting
+upward.  They had heeded none of the priest's words, and did
+not notice now that he approached them, so eager were they to
+see which fiery snake would go highest among the oak branches.
+Foremost among them, and most intent on the pretty game, was
+a boy like a sunbeam, slender and quick, with blithe brown
+eyes and laughing lips.  The priest's  hand was laid upon his
+shoulder.  The boy turned and looked up in his face.
+
+"Here," said the old man, with his voice vibrating as when
+a thick rope is strained by a ship swinging from her moorings,
+"here is the chosen one, the eldest son of the Chief, the
+darling of the people.  Hearken, Bernhard, wilt thou go to
+Valhalla, where the heroes dwell with the gods, to bear a
+message to Thor?"
+
+The boy answered, swift and clear:
+
+"Yes, priest, I will go if my father bids me.  Is
+it far away?  Shall I run quickly?  Must I take my bow and
+arrows for the wolves?"
+
+The boy's father, the Chieftain Gundhar, standing among
+his bearded warriors, drew his breath deep, and leaned so
+heavily on the handle of his spear that the wood cracked.  And
+his wife, Irma, bending forward from the ranks of women,
+pushed the golden hair from her forehead with one hand.  The
+other dragged at the silver chain about her neck until the
+rough links pierced her flesh, and the red drops fell unheeded
+on her breast.
+
+A sigh passed through the crowd, like the murmur of the
+forest before the storm breaks.  Yet no one spoke save Hunrad:
+
+"Yes, my Prince, both bow and spear shalt thou have, for
+the way is long, and thou art a brave huntsman.  But in
+darkness thou must journey for a little space, and with eyes
+blindfolded.  Fearest thou?"
+
+"Naught fear I," said the boy, "neither darkness, nor the
+great bear, nor the were-wolf.  For I am Gundhar's son, and the
+defender of my folk."
+
+Then the priest led the child in his raiment of
+lamb's-wool to a broad stone in front of the fire.  He gave
+him his little bow tipped with silver, and his spear with
+shining head of steel.  He bound the child's eyes with a white
+cloth, and bade him kneel beside the stone with his face to
+the cast.  Unconsciously the wide arc of spectators drew
+inward toward the centre, as the ends of the bow draw together
+when the cord is stretched.  Winfried moved noiselessly until
+he stood close behind the priest.
+
+The old man stooped to lift a black hammer of stone from
+the ground,--the sacred hammer of the god Thor.  Summoning all
+the strength of his withered arms, he swung it high in the
+air.  It poised for an instant above the child's fair
+head--then turned to fall.
+
+One keen cry shrilled out from where the women stood:
+"Me! take me! not Bernhard!"
+
+The flight of the mother toward her child was swift as the
+falcon's swoop.  But swifter still was the hand of the
+deliverer.
+
+Winfried's heavy staff thrust mightily against the hammer's
+handle as it fell.  Sideways it glanced from the old man's grasp,
+and the black stone, striking on the altar's edge, split in
+twain.  A shout of awe and joy rolled along the living circle.
+The branches of the oak shivered.  The flames leaped higher.  As
+the shout died away the people saw the lady Irma, with her arms
+clasped round her child, and above them, on the altar-stone,
+Winfried, his face shining like the face of an angel.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A swift mountain-flood rolling down its channel; a huge rock
+tumbling from the hill-side and falling in mid-stream: the
+baffled waters broken and confused, pausing in their flow,
+dash high against the rock, foaming and murmuring, with
+divided impulse, uncertain whether to turn to the right or the
+left.
+
+Even so Winfried's bold deed fell into the midst of the
+thoughts and passions of the council.  They were at a
+standstill.  Anger and wonder, reverence and joy and confusion
+surged through the crowd. They knew not which way to move: to
+resent the intrusion of the stranger as an insult to their gods,
+or to welcome him as the rescuer of their prince.
+
+The old priest crouched by the altar, silent.  Conflicting
+counsels troubled the air.  Let the sacrifice go forward; the
+gods must be appeased.  Nay, the boy must not die; bring the
+chieftain's best horse and slay it in his stead; it will be
+enough; the holy tree loves the blood of horses.  Not so,
+there is a better counsel yet; seize the stranger whom the
+gods have led hither as a victim and make his life pay the
+forfeit of his daring.
+
+The withered leaves on the oak rustled and whispered
+overhead.  The fire flared and sank again.  The angry voices
+clashed against each other and fell like opposing waves.  Then
+the chieftain Gundhar struck the earth with his spear and gave
+his decision.
+
+"All have spoken, but none are agreed.  There is no voice
+of the council.  Keep silence now, and let the stranger speak.
+His words shall give us judgment, whether he is to live or to
+die."
+
+Winfried lifted himself high upon the altar, drew a roll
+of parchment from his bosom, and began to read.
+
+"A letter from the great Bishop of Rome, who sits on a
+golden throne, to the people of the forest, Hessians and
+Thuringians, Franks and Saxons. In nomin Domini, sanctae et
+individuae Trinitatis, amen!"
+
+A murmur of awe ran through the crowd.  "It is the sacred
+tongue of the Romans; the tongue that is heard and understood
+by the wise men of every land.  There is magic in it.
+Listen!"
+
+Winfried went on to read the letter, translating it into
+the speech of the people.
+
+"We have sent unto you our Brother Boniface, and appointed
+him your bishop, that he may teach you the only true faith,
+and baptise you, and lead you back from the ways of error to
+the path of salvation.  Hearken to him in all things like a
+father.  Bow your hearts to his teaching.  He comes not for
+earthly gain, but for the gain of your souls.  Depart from
+evil works.  Worship not the false gods, for they are devils.
+Offer no more bloody sacrifices, nor eat the flesh of horses, but
+do as our Brother Boniface commands you.  Build a house for him
+that he may dwell among you, and a church where you may offer
+your prayers to the only living God, the Almighty King of
+Heaven."
+
+It was a splendid message: proud, strong, peaceful,
+loving.  The dignity of the words imposed mightily upon the
+hearts of the people.  They were quieted as men who have
+listened to a lofty strain of music.
+
+"Tell us, then," said Gundhar, "what is the word that thou
+bringest to us from the Almighty?  What is thy counsel for the
+tribes of the woodland on this night of sacrifice?"
+
+"This is the word, and this is the counsel," answered
+Winfried.  "Not a drop of blood shall fall to-night, save that
+which pity has drawn from the breast of your princess, in love
+for her child.  Not a life shall be blotted out in the
+darkness to-night; but the great shadow of the tree which
+hides you from the light of heaven shall be swept away.  For
+this is the birth-night of the white Christ, son of the
+All-Father, and Saviour of mankind.  Fairer is He than Baldur
+the Beautiful, greater than Odin the Wise, kinder than Freya
+the Good.  Since He has come to earth the bloody sacrifice
+must cease.  The dark Thor, on whom you vainly call, is dead.
+Deep in the shades of Niffelheim he is lost forever.  His
+power in the world is broken.  Will you serve a helpless god?
+See, my brothers, you call this tree his oak.  Does he dwell
+here?  Does he protect it?"
+
+A troubled voice of assent rose from the throng.  The
+people stirred uneasily.  Women covered their eyes.  Hunrad
+lifted his head and muttered hoarsely, "Thor! take vengeance!
+Thor!"
+
+Winfried beckoned to Gregor.  "Bring the axes, thine and
+one for me.  Now, young woodsman, show thy craft!  The
+king-tree of the forest must fall, and swiftly, or all is
+lost!"
+
+The two men took their places facing each other, one on
+each side of the oak.  Their cloaks were flung aside, their
+heads bare.  Carefully they felt the ground with their feet,
+seeking a firm grip of the earth.  Firmly they grasped the
+axe-helves and swung the shining blades.
+
+"Tree-god!" cried Winfried, "art thou angry?  Thus we
+smite thee!"
+
+"Tree-god!" answered Gregor, "art thou mighty?  Thus we
+fight thee!"
+
+Clang! clang! the alternate strokes beat time upon the
+hard, ringing wood.  The axe-heads glittered in their rhythmic
+flight, like fierce eagles circling about their quarry.
+
+The broad flakes of wood flew from the deepening gashes in
+the sides of the oak.  The huge trunk quivered.  There was a
+shuddering in the branches.  Then the great wonder of
+Winfried's life came to pass.
+
+Out of the stillness of the winter night, a mighty rushing
+noise sounded overhead.
+
+Was it the ancient gods on their white battlesteeds, with
+their black hounds of wrath and their arrows of lightning,
+sweeping through the air to destroy their foes?
+
+A strong, whirling wind passed over the treetops.  It
+gripped the oak by its branches and tore it from the roots.
+Backward it fell, like a ruined tower, groaning and crashing as
+it split asunder in four great pieces.
+
+Winfried let his axe drop, and bowed his head for a moment
+in the presence of almighty power.
+
+Then he turned to the people, "Here is the timber," he
+cried, "already felled and split for your new building.  On
+this spot shall rise a chapel to the true God and his servant
+St. Peter.
+
+"And here," said he, as his eyes fell on a young fir-tree,
+standing straight and green, with its top pointing toward the
+stars, amid the divided ruins of the fallen oak, "here is the
+living tree, with no stain of blood upon it, that shall be the
+sign of your new worship.  See how it points to the sky.  Call
+it the tree of the Christ-child.  Take it up and carry it to
+the chieftain's hall.  You shall go no more into the shadows
+of the forest to keep your feasts with secret rites of shame.
+You shall keep them at home, with laughter and songs and rites
+of love.  The thunder-oak has fallen, and I think the day is
+coming when there shall not be a home in all Germany where the
+children are not gathered around the green fir-tree to rejoice in
+the birth-night of Christ."
+
+So they took the little fir from its place, and carried it
+in joyous procession to the edge of the glade, and laid it on
+the sledge.  The horses tossed their heads and drew their load
+bravely, as if the new burden had made it lighter.
+
+When they came to the house of Gundhar, he bade them throw
+open the doors of the hall and set the tree in the midst of
+it.  They kindled lights among the branches until it seemed to
+be tangled full of fire-flies.  The children encircled it,
+wondering, and the sweet odour of the balsam filled the house.
+
+Then Winfried stood beside the chair of Gundhar, on the
+dais at the end of the hall, and told the story of Bethlehem;
+of the babe in the manger, of the shepherds on the hills, of
+the host of angels and their midnight song.  All the people
+listened, charmed into stillness.
+
+But the boy Bernhard, on Irma's knee, folded in her soft
+arms, grew restless as the story lengthened, and began to prattle
+softly at his mother's ear.
+
+"Mother," whispered the child, "why did you cry out so
+loud, when the priest was going to send me to Valhalla?"
+
+"Oh, hush, my child," answered the mother, and pressed him
+closer to her side.
+
+"Mother," whispered the boy again, laying his finger on
+the stains upon her breast, "see, your dress is red!  What are
+these stains?  Did some one hurt you?"
+
+The mother closed his mouth with a kiss.  "Dear, be still,
+and listen!"
+
+The boy obeyed.  His eyes were heavy with sleep.  But he
+heard the last words of Winfried as he spoke of the angelic
+messengers, flying over the hills of Judea and singing as they
+flew.  The child wondered and dreamed and listened.  Suddenly
+his face grew bright.  He put his lips close to Irma's cheek
+again.
+
+"Oh, mother!" he whispered very low, "do not speak.  Do
+you hear them?  Those angels have come back again.  They are
+singing now behind the tree."
+
+
+And some say that it was true; but others say that it was
+only Gregor and his companions at the lower end of the hall,
+chanting their Christmas hymn:
+
+
+      All glory be to God on high,
+      And on the earth be peace!
+      Good-will, henceforth, from heaven to man,
+      Begin and never cease.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Blue Flower, by Henry van Dyke
+