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diff --git a/6009.txt b/6009.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c98b85d --- /dev/null +++ b/6009.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6489 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Valley of Vision, by Henry Van Dyke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Valley of Vision + +Author: Henry Van Dyke + + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6009] +This file was first posted on October 16, 2002 +Last Updated: April 17, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VALLEY OF VISION *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +THE VALLEY OF VISION + +A Book Of Romance + +And Some Half-Told Tales + + +By Henry Van Dyke + + + _"Your old men shall dream dreams, + Your young men shall see visions."_ + + + + + + +TO MY CHILDREN + +AND CHILDREN'S CHILDREN + +WHO MAY REMEMBER THESE TROUBLOUS TIMES WHEN WE ARE GONE ON NEW ADVENTURE + + + + +PREFACE + + +"Why do you choose such a title as _The Valley of Vision_ for +your book," said my friend; "do you mean that one can see farther +from the valley than from the mountain-top?" + +This question set me thinking, as every honest question ought to +do. Here is the result of my thoughts, which you will take for what +it is worth, if you care to read the book. + +The mountain-top is the place of outlook over the earth and the sea. +But it is in the valley of suffering, endurance, and self-sacrifice +that the deepest visions of the meaning of life come to us. + +I take the outcome of this Twentieth Century War as a victory over +the mad illusion of world-dominion which the Germans saw from +the peak of their military power in 1914. The united force of the +Allies has grown, through valley-visions of right and justice and +human kindness, into an irresistible might before which the German +"will to power" has gone down in ruin. + +There are some Half-Told Tales in the volume--fables, fantasies--mere +sketches, grave and gay, on the margin of the book of life, + + + "Where more is meant than meets the ear." + + +Dreams have a part in most of the longer stories. That is because +I believe dreams have a part in real life. Some of them we remember +as vividly as any actual experience. These belong to the imperfect +sleep. But others we do not remember, because they are given to +us in that perfect sleep in which the soul is liberated, and goes +visiting. Yet sometimes we get a trace of them, by a happy chance, +and often their influence remains with us in that spiritual refreshment +with which we awake from profound slumber. This is the meaning of +that verse in the old psalm: "He giveth to His beloved in sleep." + +The final story in the book was written before the War of 1914 +began, and it has to do with the Light of the World, leading us +through conflict and suffering towards Peace. + +AVALON, November 24, 1918. + + + + +CONTENTS + + A Remembered Dream + Antwerp Road + A City of Refuge + A Sanctuary of Trees + The King's High Way + HALF-TOLD TALES + The Traitor in the House + Justice of the Elements + Ashes of Vengeance + The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France + The Hearing Ear + Sketches of Quebec + A Classic Instance + HALF-TOLD TALES + The New Era and Carry On + The Primitive and His Sandals + Diana and the Lions + The Hero and Tin Soldiers + Salvage Point + The Boy of Nazareth Dreams + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +The sails and smoke-stacks of great shift were visible, all passing +out to sea + +The cathedral spire... was swaying and rocking in the air like the +mast of a ship at sea + +All were fugitives, anxious to be gone... and making no more speed +than a creeping snail's pace of unutterable fatigue + +"I will ask you to choose between your old home and your new home +now" + +"I'm going to carry you in, 'spite of hell" + +"I was a lumberjack" + +"I am going to become a virtuous peasant, a son of the soil, a +primitive" + +The Finding of Christ in the Temple + + + + + +A REMEMBERED DREAM + + +This is the story of a dream that came to me some five-and-twenty +years ago. It is as vivid in memory as anything that I have ever +seen in the outward world, as distinct as any experience through +which I have ever passed. Not all dreams are thus remembered. But +some are. In the records of the mind, where the inner chronicle of +life is written, they are intensely clear and veridical. I shall +try to tell the story of this dream with an absolute faithfulness, +adding nothing and leaving nothing out, but writing the narrative +just as if the thing were real. + +Perhaps it was. Who can say? + +In the course of a journey, of the beginning and end of which +I know nothing, I had come to a great city, whose name, if it was +ever told me, I cannot recall. + +It was evidently a very ancient place. The dwelling-houses and +larger buildings were gray and beautiful with age, and the streets +wound in and out among them wonderfully, like a maze. + +This city lay beside a river or estuary--though that was something +that I did not find out until later, as you will see--and the newer +part of the town extended mainly on a wide, bare street running +along a kind of low cliff or embankment, where the basements of +the small houses on the water-side went down, below the level of +the street, to the shore. But the older part of the town was closely +and intricately built, with gabled roofs and heavy carved facades +hanging over the narrow stone-paved ways, which here and there +led out suddenly into open squares. + +It was in what appeared to be the largest and most important of +these squares that I was standing, a little before midnight. I +had left my wife and our little girl in the lodging which we had +found, and walked out alone to visit the sleeping town. + +The night sky was clear, save for a few filmy clouds, which floated +over the face of the full moon, obscuring it for an instant, but +never completely hiding it--like veils in a shadow dance. The spire +of the great cathedral was silver filigree on the moonlit side, and +on the other side, black lace. The square was empty. But on the +broad, shallow steps in front of the main entrance of the cathedral +two heroic figures were seated. At first I thought they were statues. +Then I perceived they were alive, and talking earnestly together. + +They were like Greek gods, very strong and beautiful, and naked +but for some slight drapery that fell snow-white around them. They +glistened in the moonlight. I could not hear what they were saying; +yet I could see that they were in a dispute which went to the very +roots of life. + +They resembled each other strangely in form and feature--like twin +brothers. But the face of one was noble, lofty, calm, full of a vast +regret and compassion. The face of the other was proud, resentful, +drawn with passion. He appeared to be accusing and renouncing his +companion, breaking away from an ancient friendship in a swift, +implacable hatred. But the companion seemed to plead with him, +and lean toward him, and try to draw him closer. + +A strange fear and sorrow shook my heart. I felt that this +mysterious contest was something of immense importance; a secret, +ominous strife; a menace to the world. + +Then the two figures stood up, marvellously alike in strength and +beauty, yet absolutely different in expression and bearing, the +one serene and benignant, the other fierce and threatening. The +quiet one was still pleading, with a hand laid upon the other's +shoulder. But he shook it off, and thrust his companion away with +a proud, impatient gesture. + +At last I heard him speak. + +"I have done with you," he cried. "I do not believe in you. I have +no more need of you. I renounce you. I will live without you. Away +forever out of my life!" + +At this a look of ineffable sorrow and pity came upon the great +companion's face. + +"You are free," he answered. "I have only besought you, never +constrained you. Since you will have it so, I must leave you, now, +to yourself." + +He rose into the air, still looking downward with wise eyes full +of grief and warning, until he vanished in silence beyond the thin +clouds. + +The other did not look up, but lifting his head with a defiant +laugh, shook his shoulders as if they were free of a burden. He +strode swiftly around the corner of the cathedral and disappeared +among the deep shadows. + +A sense of intolerable calamity fell upon me. I said to myself: + +"That was Man! And the other was God! And they have parted!" + +Then the multitude of bells hidden in the lace-work of the high +tower began to sound. It was not the aerial fluttering music of +the carillon that I remembered hearing long ago from the belfries +of the Low Countries. This was a confused and strident ringing, +jangled and broken, full of sudden tumults and discords, as if the +tower were shaken and the bells gave out their notes at hazard, in +surprise and trepidation. + +It stopped as suddenly as it began. The great bell of the hours +struck twelve. The windows of the cathedral glowed faintly with a +light from within. + +"It is New Year's Eve," I thought--although I knew perfectly well +that the time was late summer. I had seen that though the leaves +on the trees of the square were no longer fresh, they had not yet +fallen. + +I was certain that I must go into the cathedral. The western +entrance was shut. I hurried to the south side. The dark, low door +of the transept was open. I went in. The building was dimly lighted +by huge candles which flickered and smoked like torches. I noticed +that one of them, fastened against a pillar, was burning crooked, +and the tallow ran down its side in thick white tears. + +The nave of the church was packed with a vast throng of people, +all standing, closely crowded together, like the undergrowth in +a forest. The rood-screen was open, or broken down, I could not +tell which. The choir was bare, like a clearing in the woods, and +filled with blazing light. + +On the high steps, with his back to the altar, stood Man, his face +gleaming with pride. + +"I am the Lord!" he cried. "There is none above me! No law, no God! +Man is power. Man is the highest of all!" + +A tremor of wonder and dismay, of excitement and division, shivered +through the crowd. Some covered their faces. Others stretched +out their hands. Others shook their fists in the air. A tumult of +voices broke from the multitude--voices of exultation, and anger, +and horror, and strife. + +The floor of the cathedral was moved and lifted by a mysterious +ground-swell. The pillars trembled and wavered. The candles flared +and went out. The crowd, stricken dumb with a panic fear, rushed +to the doors, burst open the main entrance, and struggling in furious +silence poured out of the building. I was swept along with them, +striving to keep on my feet. + +One thought possessed me. I must get to my wife and child, save +them, bring them out of this accursed city. + +As I hurried across the square I looked up at the cathedral spire. +It was swaying and rocking in the air like the mast of a ship +at sea. The lace-work fell from it in blocks of stone. The people +rushed screaming through the rain of death. Many were struck down, +and lay where they fell. + +I ran as fast as I could. But it was impossible to run far. Every +street and alley vomited men--all struggling together, fighting, +shouting, or shrieking, striking one another down, trampling over +the fallen--a hideous melee. There was an incessant rattling noise +in the air, and heavier peals as of thunder shook the houses. Here +a wide rent yawned in a wall--there a roof caved in--the windows +fell into the street in showers of broken glass. + +How I got through this inferno I do not know. Buffeted and blinded, +stumbling and scrambling to my feet again, turning this way or +that way to avoid the thickest centres of the strife, oppressed and +paralyzed by a feeling of impotence that put an iron band around +my heart, driven always by the intense longing to reach my wife and +child, somehow I had a sense of struggling on. Then I came into a +quieter quarter of the town, and ran until I reached the lodging +where I had left them. + +They were waiting just inside the door, anxious and trembling. But +I was amazed to find them so little panic-stricken. The little girl +had her doll in her arms. + +[Illustration with caption: The cathedral spire... was swaying and +rocking in the air like the mast of a ship at sea.] "What is it?" +asked my wife. "What must we do?" + +"Come," I cried. "Something frightful has happened here. I can't +explain now. We must get away at once. Come, quickly." + +Then I took a hand of each and we hastened through the streets, +vaguely steering away from the centre of the city. + +Presently we came into that wide new street of mean houses, of +which I have already spoken. There were a few people in it, but +they moved heavily and feebly, as if some mortal illness lay upon +them. Their faces were pale and haggard with a helpless anxiety to +escape more quickly. The houses seemed half deserted. The shades +were drawn, the doors closed. + +But since it was all so quiet, I thought that we might find some +temporary shelter there. So I knocked at the door of a house where +there was a dim light behind the drawn shade in one of the windows. + +After a while the door was opened by a woman who held the end of +her shawl across her mouth. All that I could see was the black +sorrow of her eyes. + +"Go away," she said slowly; "the plague is here. My children are +dying of it. You must not come in! Go away." + +So we hurried on through that plague-smitten street, burdened +with a new fear. Soon we saw a house on the riverside which looked +absolutely empty. The shades were up, the windows open, the door +stood ajar. I hesitated; plucked up courage; resolved that we +must get to the waterside in some way in order to escape from the +net of death which encircled us. + +"Come," I said, "let us try to go down through this house. But +cover your mouths." + +We groped through the empty passageway, and down the basement-stair. +The thick cobwebs swept my face. I noted them with joy, for I thought +they proved that the house had been deserted for some time, and so +perhaps it might not be infected. + +We descended into a room which seemed to have been the kitchen. +There was a stove dimly visible at one side, and an old broken +kettle on the floor, over which we stumbled. The back door was +locked. But it swung outward as I broke it open. We stood upon a +narrow, dingy beach, where the small waves were lapping. + +By this time the "little day" had begun to whiten the eastern sky; +a pallid light was diffused; I could see westward down to the main +harbor, beside the heart of the city. The sails and smoke-stacks +of great ships were visible, all passing out to sea. I wished that +we were there. + +Here in front of us the water seemed shallower. It was probably only +a tributary or backwater of the main stream. But it was sprinkled +with smaller vessels--sloops, and yawls, and luggers--all filled +with people and slowly creeping seaward. + +There was one little boat, quite near to us, which seemed to be +waiting for some one. There were some people on it, but it was not +crowded. + +"Come," I said, "this is for us. We must wade out to it." + +So I took my wife by the hand, and the child in the other arm, +and we went into the water. Soon it came up to our knees, to our +waists. + +"Hurry," shouted the old man at the tiller. "No time to spare!" + +"Just a minute more," I answered, "only one minute!" + +That minute seemed like a year. The sail of the boat was shaking +in the wind. When it filled she must move away. We waded on, and +at last I grasped the gunwale of the boat. I lifted the child in +and helped my wife to climb over the side. They clung to me. The +little vessel began to move gently away. + +"Get in," cried the old man sharply; "get in quick." + +But I felt that I could not, I dared not. I let go of the boat. I +cried "Good-by," and turned to wade ashore. + +I was compelled to go back to the doomed city. I must know what +would come of the parting of Man from God! + +The tide was running out more swiftly. The water swirled around my +knees. I awoke. + +But the dream remained with me, just as I have told it to you. + + + + + + +ANTWERP ROAD + + +[OCTOBER, 1914] + +Along the straight, glistening road, through a dim arcade of drooping +trees, a tunnel of faded green and gold, dripping with the misty +rain of a late October afternoon, a human tide was flowing, not +swiftly, but slowly, with the patient, pathetic slowness of weary +feet, and numb brains, and heavy hearts. + +Yet they were in haste, all of these old men and women, fathers +and mothers, and little children; they were flying as fast as +they could; either away from something that they feared, or toward +something that they desired. + +That was the strange thing--the tide on the road flowed in two +directions. + +Some fled away from ruined homes to escape the perils of war. Some +fled back to ruined homes to escape the desolation of exile. But +all were fugitives, anxious to be gone, striving along the road +one way or the other, and making no more speed than a creeping +snail's pace of unutterable fatigue. I saw many separate things +in the tide, and remembered them without noting. + +A boy straining to push a wheelbarrow with his pale mother in it, +and his two little sisters trudging at his side. A peasant with his +two girls driving their lean, dejected cows back to some unknown +pasture. A bony horse tugging at a wagon heaped high with bedding +and household gear, on top of which sat the wrinkled grandmother +with the tiniest baby in her arms, while the rest of the family +stumbled alongside--and the cat was curled up on the softest coverlet +in the wagon. Two panting dogs, with red tongues hanging out, and +splayed feet clawing the road, tugging a heavy-laden cart while the +master pushed behind and the woman pulled in the shafts. Strange, +antique vehicles crammed with passengers. Couples and groups and +sometimes larger companies of foot-travellers. Now and then a +solitary man or woman, old and shabby, bundle on back, eyes on the +road, plodding through the mud and the mist, under the high archway +of yellowing leaves. + +[Illustration: All were fugitives, anxious to be gone, ... and +making no more speed than a creeping snail's pace of unutterable +fatigue.] + +All these distinct pictures I saw, yet it was all one vision--a +vision of humanity with its dumb companions in flight--infinitely +slow, painful, pitiful flight! + +I saw no tears, I heard no cries of complaint. But beneath the +numb and patient haste on all those dazed faces I saw a question. + +_"What have we done? Why has this thing come upon us and our +children?"_ + +Somewhere I heard a trumpet blown. The brazen spikes on the helmets +of a little troop of German soldiers flashed for an instant, far +down the sloppy road. Through the humid dusk came the dull, distant +booming of the unseen guns of conquest in Flanders. + +That was the only answer. + + + + + + +A CITY OF REFUGE + + +In the dark autumn of 1914 the City sprang up almost in a night, +as if by enchantment. + +It was white magic that called it into being--the deep, quiet, +strong impulse of compassion and protection that moved the motherly +heart of Holland when she saw the hundreds of thousands of Belgian +fugitives pouring out of their bleeding, ravaged land, and running, +stumbling, creeping on hands and knees, blindly, instinctively +turning to her for safety and help. + +"Come to me," she said, like a good woman who holds out her arms and +spreads her knees to make a lap for tired and frightened children, +"come to me. I will take care of you. You shall be safe with me." + +All doors were open. The little brick farmhouses and cottages with +their gayly painted window-shutters; the long rows of city houses +with their steep gables; the prim and placid country mansions set +among their high trees and formal flower-gardens--all kinds of +dwellings, from the poorest to the richest, welcomed these guests +of sorrow and distress. Many a humble family drained its savings-bank +reservoir to keep the stream of its hospitality flowing. Unused +factories were turned into barracks. Deserted summer hotels were +filled up. Even empty greenhouses were adapted to the need of human +horticulture. All Holland was enrolled, formally or informally, in +a big _Comite voor Belgische Slachtoffers._ + +But soon it was evident that the impromptu methods of generosity +could not meet the demands of the case. Private resources were +exhausted. Poor people could no longer feed and clothe their +poorer guests. Families were unhappily divided. In the huge flock +of exiles driven out by the cruel German Terror there were goats as +well as sheep, and some of them bewildered and shocked the orderly +Dutch homes where they were sheltered, by their nocturnal habits +and negligible morals. Something had to be done to bring order and +system into the chaos of brotherly love. Otherwise the neat Dutch +mind which is so close to the Dutch heart could not rest in its bed. +This vast trouble which the evil of German militarism had thrust +upon a helpless folk must be helped out by a wise touch of military +organization, which is a good thing even for the most peaceful +people. + +So it was that the City of Refuge (and others like it) grew up +swiftly in the wilderness. + +It stands in the heathland that slopes and rolls from the wooded +hills of Gelderland to the southern shore of the Zuider Zee--a sandy +country overgrown with scrub-oaks and pines and heather--yet very +healthy and well drained, and not unfertile under cultivation. You +may see that in the little neighbor-village, where the trees arch +over the streets, and the kitchen-gardens prosper, and the shrubs +and flowers bloom abundantly. + +The small houses and hotels of this tiny summer resort are of brick. +It has an old, well-established look; a place of relaxation with +restraint, not of ungirdled frivolity. The plain Dutch people love +their holidays, but they take them serenely and by rule: long walks +and bicycle-rides, placid and nourishing picnics in the woods or +by the sea, afternoon tea-parties in sheltered arbors. One of their +favorite names for a country-place is _Wel Teweden,_ "perfectly +contented." + +The commandant of the City of Refuge lives in one of the little +brick houses of the village. He is a portly, rosy old bachelor, +with a curly brown beard and a military bearing; a man of fine +education and wide experience, seasoned in colonial diplomacy. +The ruling idea in his mind is discipline, authority. His official +speech is abrupt and final, the manner of a martinet covering a +heart full of kindness and generous impulses. + +"Come," he says, after a good breakfast, "I want you to see my +camp. It is not as fine and fancy as the later ones. But we built +it in a hurry and we had it ready on time." + +A short ride over a sandy road brings you to the city gate--an +opening in the wire enclosure of perhaps two or three square miles +among the dwarf pines and oaks. The guard-house is kept by a squad +of Dutch soldiers. But it is in no sense a prison-camp, for people +are coming and going freely all the time, and the only rules within +are those of decency and good order. + +"Capacity, ten thousand," says the commandant, sweeping his hand +around the open circle, "quite a city, _niet waar?_ I will +show you the various arrangements." + +All the buildings are of wood, a mushroom city, but constructed with +intelligence to meet the needs of the sudden, helpless population. +You visit the big kitchen with its ever-simmering kettles; the +dining-halls with their long tables and benches; the schoolhouses +full of lively, irrepressible children; the wash-house where always +talkative and jocose laundresses are scrubbing and wringing the +clothes; the sewing-rooms where hundreds of women and girls are +busy with garments and gossip; the chapel where religious services +are held by the devoted pastors; the recreation-room which is the +social centre of the city; the clothing storerooms where you find +several American girls working for love. + +Then you go through the long family barracks where each family has +a separate cubicle, more or less neat and comfortable, sometimes +prettily decorated, according to the family taste and habit; the +barracks for the single men; the barracks for the single women; +the two hospitals, one general, the other for infectious diseases; +and last of all, the house where the half-dozen disorderly women are +confined, surrounded by a double fence of barbed wire and guarded +by a sentry. + +Poor, wretched creatures! You are sorry for them. Why not put the +disorderly men into a house of confinement, too? + +"Ah," says the commandant bluntly, "we find it easier and better +to send the disorderly men to jail or hospital in some near town. +We are easier with the women. I pity them. But they are full of +poison. We can't let them go loose in the camp for fear of infection." + +How many of the roots of human nature are uncovered in a place like +this! The branches and the foliage and the blossoms, too, are seen +more clearly in this air where all things are necessarily open and +in common. + +The men are generally less industrious than the women. But they +work willingly at the grading of roads and paths, the laying out +and planting of flower-beds, the construction of ornamental designs, +of doubtful taste but unquestionable sincerity. + +You read the names which they have given to the different streets +and barracks, and the passageways between the cubicles, and you +understand the strong, instinctive love which binds them to their +native Belgium. "Antwerp Avenue," "Louvain Avenue," "Malines Street," +"Liege Street," and streets bearing the names of many ruined towns +and villages of which you have never heard, but which are forever +dear to the hearts of these exiles. The names of the hero-king, +Albert, and of his brave consort, Queen Elizabeth, are honored by +inscriptions, and their pictures, cut from, newspapers, decorate +the schoolrooms and the little family cubicles. + +The brutal power which reigns at Berlin may drive the Belgians out +of Belgium by terror and oppression. But it cannot drive Belgium +out of the hearts of the Belgians. While they live their country +lives, and Albert is still their King. + +But think of the unnatural conditions into which these thousands +of human beings--yes, and hundreds of thousands like them, torn +from their homes, uprooted, dispersed, impoverished--are forced by +this bitter, cruel war. Think of the cold and ruined hearthstones, +the scattered families, the shelterless children, the desolate and +broken hearts. This is what Germany has inflicted upon mankind in +order to realize her robber-dream! + +Yet the City of Refuge, being human, has its bright spots and its +bits of compensation. Here is one, out of many. + +The chief nurse, a young Dutch lady of charming face and manners, +serving as a volunteer under the sacred sign of the Red Cross, +comes in, one morning, to make her report to the commandant. + +"Well," he says, disguising in his big voice of command the warm +admiration which he feels for the lady, "what is the trouble to-day? +Speak up." + +"Nothing, sir," she answers calmly. "Everything is going on pretty +well. No new cases of measles--those in hospital improving. The +only thing that bothers me is the continual complaint about that +Mrs. Van Orley--you remember her, a thin, dark little person. She +is melancholy and morose, quarrels all the time, says some one has +stolen her children. The people near her in the barracks complain +that she disturbs them at night, moans and talks aloud in her sleep, +jumps up and runs down the corridor laughing or crying: 'Here they +are!' They don't believe she ever had any children. They think +she is crazy and want her put out. But I don't agree with that. I +think she has had children, and now she has dreams." + +"Send her away," growls the commandant; "send her to a sanatorium! +This camp is not a lunatic asylum." + +"But," interposes the nurse in her most discreet voice, "she is +really a very nice woman. If you would allow me to take her on as +a housemaid in the general hospital, I think I could make something +out of her; at least I should like to try." + +"Have your own way," says the commandant, relenting; "you always +do. Now tell me the next trouble. You have something more up your +sleeve, I'm sure." + +"Babies," she replies demurely; "two babies from Amsterdam. Lost, +somehow or other, in the flight. No trace of their people. A family +in Zaandam has been taking care of them, but can't afford it any +longer. So the Amsterdam committee has sent them here." + +The commandant has listened, his cheeks growing redder and redder, +his eyes rounder and more prominent. He springs up and paces the +floor in wrath. + +"Babies!" he cries stormily. "By all the gods, da--those Amsterdammers! +Excuse me, but this is too much. Do they think this is a foundling +asylum? or a nursing home? Babies! What in Heaven's name am I to +do with them? Babies! Where are those babies?" + +"Just outside, and very nice babies indeed," says the nurse, opening +the hall door and giving a soft call. + +Enter a slim black-haired boy of about three and a half years and +a plump golden-haired girl about a year younger. They toddle to +the nurse and snuggle against her blue dress and white apron. + +Smiling she guides them toward the commandant and says: "Here they +are, sir. How do you like them?" + +That terrific personage has been suddenly transformed from haircloth +into silk. He beams, and pulling out his fat gold watch, coos like +a hoarse dove: "Look here, _kinderen_, come and hear the bells +in my tick-tock!" + +Presently he has one of them leaning against the inside of each +knee, listening ardently to the watch. + +"What do you think of that!" he says. "What is your name, youngster?" + +"Hendrik," answers the boy, looking up. + +"Hendrik _what?_ You have another name, haven't you?" + +The boy shakes his head and looks puzzled, as if the thought of +two names were too much for him. _"Hendrik,"_ he repeats more +clearly and firmly. + +"And what is her name?" asks the commandant, patting the little +girl. + +_"Sooss,"_ answers the boy. "Mama say _'ickle angel.'_ +Hendrik say _Sooss."_ + +All effort to get any more information from the children was fruitless. +They were too small to remember much, and what they did remember +was of their own size--only very little things, of no importance +except to themselves. The commandant looks at the nurse quizzically. + +"Now, miss, you have unloaded these vague babies on me. What do +you propose that I should do with them? Adopt them?" + +"Not yet, anyhow," she answers, smiling broadly. "Let us take them +up to the camp. I'll bet we can find some one there to look after +them. What do you say, sir?" + +"Well, well," he sighs, "have your own way as usual! Just ring that +bell for the automobile, _als't-Ublieft."_ + +In the busy sewing-room the two children are standing up on one +of the tables. The commandant has an arm around each of them, for +they are a little frightened by so much noise and so many eyes +looking at them. The chatter dies down, as he speaks in his gruff +authoritative voice, but with a twinkle in his eyes, rather like +a middle-aged Santa Claus. + +"Look here! I've got two fine babies." + +A titter runs through the room. + +_"Ja, Men'eer,"_ says one of the women, "congratulations! +They are _lievelingen_--darlings!" + +"Silence!" growls the commandant amiably. "None of your impudence, +you women. Look here! These two children--I want somebody to adopt +them, or at least to take care of them. I will pay for them. Their +names are Hendrik and--" + +A commotion at the lower end of the room. A thin, dark little +woman is standing up, waving her piece of sewing like a flag, her +big eyes flaming with excitement. + +"Stop!" she cries, hurrying and stumbling forward through the +crowd of women and girls. "Oh, stop a minute! They are mine--I lost +them--mine, I tell you--lost--mine!" + +She reaches the head of the table and flings her arms around the +boy, crying: "My Hendrik!" + +The boy hesitates a second, startled by the sudden wildness of +her caress. Then he presses his hot little face in her neck. + +_"Lieve moeder!"_ he murmurs. "Where was you? I looked." + +But the thin, dark little woman has fainted dead away. + +The rest we will leave, as the wise commandant does, to the chief +nurse. + + + + + + +A SANCTUARY OF TREES + + +The Baron d'Azan was old--older even than his seventy years. His +age showed by contrast as he walked among his trees. They were +fresh and flourishing, full of sap and vigor, though many of them +had been born long before him. + +The tracts of forest which still belonged to his diminished estate +were crowded with the growths native to the foot-hills of the +Ardennes. In the park around the small chateau, built in a Belgian +version of the First Empire style, trees from many lands had been +assembled by his father and grandfather: drooping spruces from +Norway, dark-pillared cypresses from Italy, spreading cedars from +Lebanon, trees of heaven from China, fern-leaved gingkos from Japan, +lofty tulip-trees and liquidambars from America, and fantastic +sylvan forms from islands of the Southern Ocean. But the royal +avenue of beeches! Well, I must tell you more about that, else you +can never feel the meaning of this story. + +The love of trees was hereditary in the family and antedated their +other nobility. The founder of the house had begun life as the son +of a forester in Luxemburg. His name was Pol Staar. His fortune and +title were the fruit of contracts for horses and provisions which +he made with the commissariat of Napoleon I. in the days when the +Netherlands were a French province. But though Pol Staar's hands +were callous and his manners plain, his tastes were aristocratic. +They had been formed young in the company of great trees. + +Therefore when he bought his estate of Azan (and took his title +from it) he built his chateau in a style which he considered +complimentary to his imperial patron, but he was careful also to +include within his domain large woodlands in which he could renew +the allegiance of his youth. These woodlands he cherished and +improved, cutting with discretion, planting with liberality, and +rejoicing in the thought that trees like those which had befriended +his boyhood would give their friendly protection to his heirs. +These are traits of an aristocrat--attachment to the past, and +careful provision for posterity. It was in this spirit that Pol +Staar, first Baron d'Azan, planted in 1809 the broad avenue of +beeches, leading from the chateau straight across the park to the +highroad. But he never saw their glory, for he died when they were +only twenty years old. + +His son and successor was of a different timber and grain; less +aristocratic, more bourgeois--a rover, a gambler, a man of fashion. +He migrated from the gaming-tables at Spa to the Bourse at Paris, +perching at many clubs between and beyond, and making seasonal +nests in several places. This left him little time for the Chdteau +d'Azan. But he came there every spring and autumn, and showed the +family fondness for trees in his own fashion. He loved the forests +so much that he ate them. He cut with liberality and planted without +discretion. But for the great avenue of beeches he had a saving +admiration. Not even to support the gaming-table would he have +allowed them to be felled. + +When he turned the corner of his thirty-first year he had a sharp +illness, a temporary reformation, and brought home as his wife a +very young lovely actress from the ducal theatre at Saxe-Meiningen. +She was a good girl, deeply in love with her handsome husband, to +whom she bore a son and heir in the first year of their marriage. +Not many moons thereafter the pleased but restless father slid back +into his old rounds again. The forest waned and the debts waxed. +Rumors of wild doings came from Spa and Aix, from Homburg and +Baden, from Trouville and Ostend. After four years of this the young +mother died, of no namable disease, unless you call it heart-failure, +and the boy was left to his grandmother's care and company among +the trees. + +Every day when it was fair the old lady and the little lad took +their afternoon walk together in the beech-tree avenue, where the +tips of the branches now reached the road. At other times he roamed +the outlying woods and learned to know the birds and the little +wild animals. When he was twelve his grandmother died. After that +he was left mainly to the housekeeper, his tutors, and the few +friends he could make among the children of the neighborhood. + +When he had finished his third year at the University of Louvain +and attained his majority, his father returned express-haste from +somewhere in Bohemia, to attend the coronation of Leopold II, +that remarkable King of Belgium and the Bourse. But by this time +the gay Baron d'Azan had become stout, the pillar of his neck seemed +shorter because it was thicker, and the rose in his bold cheek had +the purplish tint of a crimson rambler. So he died of an apoplexy +during the festivities, and his son brought him back to the Chateau +d'Azan, and buried him there with due honor, and mourned for him +as was fitting. Thus Albert, third Baron d'Azan, entered upon his +inheritance. + +It seemed, at first, to consist mainly of debts. These were paid by +the sale of the deforested lands and of certain detached woodlands. +By the same method, much as he disliked it, he made a modest +provision of money for continuing his education and beginning his +travels. He knew that he had much to learn of the world, and he +was especially desirous of pursuing his favorite study of botany, +which a wise old priest at Louvain had taught him to love. So he +engaged an intelligent and faithful forester to care for the trees +and the estate, closed the house, and set forth on his journeys. + +They led him far and wide. In the course of them no doubt he +studied other things than botany. It may be that he sowed some of +the wild oats with which youth is endowed; but not in the gardens +of others; nor with that cold self-indulgence which transforms +passionate impulse into sensual habit. He had a permanent and +regulative devotion to botanical research; and that is a study which +seems to promote modesty, tranquillity, and steadiness of mind in +its devotees, of whom the great Linnaeus is the shining exemplar. +Young Albert d'Azan sat at the feet of the best masters in Europe +and America. He crossed the western continent to observe the oldest +of living things, the giant Sequoias of California. He went to +Australasia and the Dutch East Indies and South America in search +of new ferns and orchids. He investigated the effect of ocean +currents and of tribal migrations in the distribution of trees. +His botanical monographs brought him renown among those who know, +and he was elected a corresponding member of many scientific +societies. After twenty years of voyaging he returned to port at +Azan, richly laden with observation and learning, and settled down +among his trees to pursue his studies and write his books. + +The estate, under the forester's care, had improved a little and +promised a modest income. The house, though somewhat dilapidated, +was easily made livable. But the one thing that was full of glory +and splendor, triumphantly prosperous, was the great avenue of +beeches. Their long, low aisle of broad arches was complete. They +shimmered with a pearly mist of buds in early spring and later +with luminous green of tender leafage. In mid-summer they formed a +wide, still stream of dark, unruffled verdure; in autumn they were +transmuted through glowing yellow into russet gold; in winter +their massy trunks were pillars of gray marble and the fan-tracery +of their rounded branches was delicately etched against the sky. + +"Look at them," the baron would say to the guests whom the fame of +his learning and the charm of his wide-ranging conversation often +brought to his house. "Those beeches were planted by my grandfather +after the battle of Wagram, when Napoleon whipped the Austrians. +After that came the Beresina and Leipsic and Waterloo and how many +battles and wars of furious, perishable men. Yet the trees live +on peaceably, they unfold their strength in beauty, they have not +yet reached the summit of their grandeur. We are all _parvenus_ +beside them." + +"If you had to choose," asked the great sculptor Constantin Meunier +one day, "would you have your house or one of these trees struck +by lightning?" + +"The house," answered the botanist promptly, "for I could rebuild +it in a year; but to restore the tree would take three-quarters of +a century." + +"Also," said the sculptor, with a smile, "you might change the +style of your house with advantage, but the style of these trees +you could never improve." + +"But tell me," he continued, "is it true, as they say, that lightning +never strikes a beech?" + +"It is not entirely true," replied the botanist, smiling in his +turn, "yet, like many ancient beliefs, it has some truth in it. +There is something in the texture of the beech that seems to resist +electricity better than other trees. It may be the fatness of the +wood. Whatever it is, I am glad of it, for it gives my trees a +better chance." + +"Don't be too secure," said the sculptor, shaking his head. "There +are other tempests besides those in the clouds. When the next war +comes in western Europe Belgium will be the battle-field. Beech-wood +is very good to burn." + +"God forbid," said the baron devoutly. "We have had peace for a +quarter of a century. Why should it not last?" + +"Ask the wise men of the East," replied the sculptor grimly. + +When he was a little past fifty the baron married, with steadfast +choice and deep affection, the orphan daughter of a noble family +of Hainault. She was about half his age; of a tranquil, cheerful +temper and a charm that depended less on feature than on expression; +a lover of music, books, and a quiet life. She brought him a small +dowry by which the chateau was restored to comfort, and bore him +two children, a boy and a girl, by whom it was enlivened with +natural gayety. The next twenty years were the happiest that Albert +d'Azan and his wife ever saw. The grand avenue of beeches became +to them the unconscious symbol of something settled and serene, +august, protective, sacred. + +On a brilliant morning of early April, 1914, they had stepped out +together to drink the air. The beeches were in misty, silver bloom +above them. All around was peace and gladness. + +"I want to tell you a dream I had last night," he said, "a strange +dream about our beeches." + +"If it was sad," she answered, "do not let the shadow of it fall +on the morning." + +"But it was not sad. It seemed rather to bring light and comfort. +I dreamed that I was dead and you had buried me at the foot of +the largest of the trees." + +"Do you call that not sad?" she interrupted reproachfully. + +"It did not seem so. Wait a moment and you shall hear the way of +it. At first I felt only a deep quietness and repose, like one who +has been in pain and is very tired and lies down in the shade to +sleep. Then I was waking again and something was drawing me gently +upward. I cannot exactly explain it, but it was as if I were passing +through the roots and the trunk and the boughs of the beech-tree +toward the upper air. There I saw the light again and heard the +birds singing and the wind rustling among the leaves. How I saw +and heard I cannot tell you, for there was no remembrance of a body +in my dream. Then suddenly my soul--I suppose it was that--stood +before God and He was asking me: 'How did you come hither?' +I answered, 'By Christ's way, by the way of a tree.' And He said +it was well, and that my work in heaven should be the care of the +trees growing by the river of life, and that sometimes I could go +back to visit my trees on earth, if I wished. That made me very +glad, for I knew that so I should see you and our children under +the beeches. And while I was wondering whether you would ever +know that I was there, the dream dissolved, and I saw the morning +light on the tree-tops. What do you think of my dream? Childish, +wasn't it?" + +She thought a little before she answered. + +"It was natural enough, though vague. Of course we could not be +buried at the foot of the beech-tree unless Cardinal Mercier would +permit a plot of ground to be consecrated there. But come, it is +time to go in to breakfast." + +She seemed to dismiss the matter from her mind. Yet, as women so +often do, she kept all these sayings and pondered them in her heart. + +The promise of spring passed into the sultry heat of summer. The +storm-cloud of the twentieth century blackened over Europe. The +wise men of Berlin made mad by pride, devoted the world not to +the Prince of Peace but to the lords of war. In the first week of +August the fury of the German invasion broke on Belgium. No one had +dared to dream the terrors of that tempest. It was like a return +of the Dark Ages. Every home trembled. The pillars of the tranquil +house of Azan were shaken. + +The daughter was away at school in England, and that was an unmixed +blessing. The son was a lieutenant in the Belgian army; and that +was right and glorious, but it was also a dreadful anxiety. The +father and mother were divided in mind, Whether to stay or take +flight with their friends. At last the father decided the hard +question. + +"It is our duty to stay. We cannot fight for our country, but we +can suffer with her. Our daughter is in safety; our son's danger we +cannot and would not prevent. How could we really live away from +here, our home, our trees? I went to consult the cardinal. He stays, +and he advises us to do so. He says that will be the best way to +show our devotion. As Christians we must endure the evil that we +cannot prevent; but as Belgians our hearts will never consent to +it." + +That was their attitude as the tide of blood and tears drew nearer +to them, surrounded them, swept beyond them, engulfed the whole +land. The brutal massacres at Andenne and Dinant were so near that +the news arrived before the spilt blood was dry. The exceeding great +and bitter cry of anguish came to them from a score of neighboring +villages, from a hundred lonely farmhouses. The old botanist +withered and faded daily; his wife grew pale and gray. Yet they +walked their _via crucis_ together, and kept their chosen +course. + +They fed the hungry and clothed the naked, helped the fugitives and +consoled the broken-hearted. They counselled their poor neighbors +to good order, and dissuaded the ignorant from the folly and peril +of violence. Toward the invading soldiery their conduct was beyond +reproach. With no false professions of friendship, they fulfilled +the hard services which were required of them. Their servants had +been helped away at the beginning of the trouble--all except the +old forester and his wife, who refused to leave. With their aid +the house was kept open and many of the conquerors lodged there +and in the outbuildings. So good were the quarters that a departing +Saxon chalked on the gate-post the dubious inscription: _"Gute +Leute-nicht auspliin-dern."_ Thus the captives at the Chateau +d'Azan had a good name even among their enemies. The baron received +a military pass which enabled him to move quite freely about the +district on his errands of necessity and mercy, and the chateau +became a favorite billet for high-born officers. + +In the second year of the war an evil chance brought two uninvited +guests of very high standing indeed--that is to say in the social +ring of Potsdam. Their names are well known. Let us call them +Prince Barenberg and Count Ludra. The first was a major, the second +a captain. Their value as warriors in the field had not proved +equal to their prominence as noblemen, so they were given duty in +the rear. + +They were vicious coxcombs of the first order. Their uniforms +incased them tightly. Like wasps they bent only at the waist. Their +flat-topped caps were worn with an aggressive slant, their swords +jingled menacingly, their hay-colored mustaches spoke arrogance in +every upturned hair. When they bowed it was a mockery; when they +smiled it was a sneer. For the comfortable quarters of the Chateau +d'Azan they had a gross appreciation, for the enforced hospitality +of its owners an insolent condescension. They took it as their due, +and resented the silent protest underneath it. + +"Excellent wine, Herr Baron," said the prince, who, like his comrade, +drank profusely of the best in the cellar. "Your Rudesheimer Berg +'94 is _kolossal._ Very friendly of you to save it for us. +We Germans know good wine. What?" + +"You have that reputation," answered the baron. + +"And say," added the count, "let us have a couple of bottles more, +dear landlord. You can put it in the bill." + +"I shall do so," said the baron gravely. "It shall be put in the +bill with other things." + +"But why," drawled the prince, "does _la Baronne_ never favor +us with her company? Still very attractive--musical probably--here +is a piano--want good German music--console homesickness." + +"Madame is indisposed," answered the baron quietly, "but you may +be sure she regrets your absence from home." + +The officers looked at each other with half-tipsy, half-angry eyes. +They suspected a jest at their expense, but could not quite catch +it. + +"Impudence," muttered the count, who was the sharper of the two +when sober. + +"No," said the prince, "it is only stupidity. These Walloons have +no wit." + +"Come," he added, turning to the baron, "we sing you a good song of +fatherland--show how _gemuthlich_ we Germans are. You Belgians +have no word for that. What?" + +He sat down to the piano and pounded out _"Deutschland ueber +Alles,"_ singing the air in a raucous voice, while Ludra added +a rumbling bass. + +"What do you think of that? All Germans can sing. _Gemuthlich._ +What?" + +"You are right," said the baron, with downcast eyes. "We Belgians +have no word for that. It is inexpressible--except in German. I +bid you good night." + +For nearly a fortnight this condition of affairs continued. The +baron endured it as best he could, obeying scrupulously the military +regulations which necessity laid upon him, and taking his revenge +only in long thoughts and words of polite sarcasm which he knew would +not be understood. The baroness worked hard at the housekeeping, +often cooking and cleaning with her own hands, and rejoicing secretly +with her husband over the rare news that came from their daughter +in England, from their boy at the front in West Flanders. Sometimes, +when the coast was clear, husband and wife walked together under the +beech-trees and talked in low tones of the time when the ravenous +beast should no more go up on the land. + +The two noble officers performed their routine duties, found such +amusement as they could in neighboring villages and towns, drank +deep at night, and taxed their ingenuity to invent small ways of +annoying their hosts, for whom they felt the contemptuous dislike +of the injurer for the injured. They were careful, however, to +keep their malice within certain bounds, for they knew that the +baron was in favor with the commandant of the district. + +One morning the baron and his wife, looking from their window in +a wing of the house, saw with surprise and horror a score or more +of German soldiers assembled beside the beech-avenue, with axes +and saws, preparing to begin work. + +"What are they going to do there?" cried he in dismay, and hurried +down to the dining-room, where the officers sat at breakfast, giving +orders to an attentive corporal. + +"A thousand pardons, Highness," interrupted the baron; "forgive +my haste. But surely you are not going to cut down my avenue of +beeches?" + +"Why not?" said the prince, swinging around in his chair. "They +are good wood." + +"But, sir," stammered the baron, trembling with excitement, "those +trees--they are an ancient heritage of the house--planted by my +grandfather a century ago--an old possession--spare them for their +age." + +"You exaggerate," sneered the prince. "They are not old. I have on +my hunting estate in Thuringia oaks five hundred years old. These +trees of yours are mere upstarts. Why shouldn't they be cut? What?" + +"But they are very dear to us," pleaded the baron earnestly. "We +all love them, my wife and children and I. To us they are sacred. +It would be harsh to take them from us." + +"Baron," said the prince, with suave malice, "you miss the point. +We Germans are never harsh. But we are practical. My soldiers need +exercise. The camps need wood. Do you see? What?" + +"Certainly," answered the poor baron, humbling himself in his +devotion to his trees. "Your Highness makes the point perfectly +clear--the need of exercise and wood. But there is plenty of good +timber in the forest and the park--much easier to cut. Cannot your +men get their wood and their exercise there, and spare my dearest +trees?" + +Ludra laughed unpleasantly. + +"You do not yet understand us, dear landlord. We Germans are +a hard-working people, not like the lazy Belgians. The harder the +work the better we like it. The soldiers will have a fine time +chopping down your tough beeches." + +The slender old man drew himself up, his eyes flashed, he was driven +to bay. + +"You shall not do this," he cried. "It is an outrage, a sacrilege. +I shall appeal to the commandant. He will protect my rights." + +The officers looked at each other. Deaf to pity, they had keen ears +for danger. A reproof, perhaps a punishment from their superior +would be most unpleasant. They hesitated to face it. But they were +too obstinate to give up their malicious design altogether with a +good grace. + +"Military necessity," growled the prince, "knows no private rights. +I advise you, baron, not to appeal to the commandant. It will be +useless, perhaps harmful." + +"Here, you," he said gruffly, turning to the corporal, "carry out +my orders. Cut the two marked beeches by the gate. Then take your +men into the park and cut the biggest trees there. Report for +further orders to-morrow morning." + +The wooden-faced giant saluted, swung on his heels, and marched +stiffly out. The baron followed him quickly. + +He knew that entreaties would be wasted on the corporal. How to get +to the commandant, that was the question? He would not be allowed +to use the telephone which was in the dining-room, nor the automobile +which belonged to the officers; nor one of their horses which were +in his stable. The only other beast left there was a small and very +antique donkey which the children used to drive. In a dilapidated +go-cart, drawn by this pattering nag, the baron made such haste +as he could along twelve miles of stony road to the district +headquarters. There he told his story simply to the commandant and +begged protection for his beloved trees. + +The old general was of a different type from the fire-eating dandies +who played the master at Azan. He listened courteously and gravely. +There was a picture in his mind of the old timbered house in the +Hohe Venn, where he had spent four years in retirement before the +war called him back to the colors. He thought of the tall lindens +and the spreading chestnuts around it and imagined how he should +feel if he saw them falling under the axe. + +Then he said to his petitioner: + +"You have acted quite correctly, _Monsieur le Baron,_ in +bringing this matter quietly to my attention. There is no military +necessity for the destruction of your fine trees. I shall put a +stop to it at once." + +He called his aide-de-camp and gave some instructions in a low tone +of voice. When the aide came back from the telephone and reported, +the general frowned. + +"It is unheard of," he muttered, half to himself, "the way those +titled young fools go beyond their orders." + +Then he turned to his visitor. + +"I am very sorry, _Monsieur le Baron,_ but two of your beeches +have already fallen. It cannot be helped now. But there shall be no +more of it, I promise you. Those young officers are--they are--let +us call them overzealous. I will transfer them to another post +to-morrow. The German command appreciates the correct conduct of +you and _Madame la Baronne._ Is there anything more that I +can do for you?" + +"I thank your Excellency sincerely," replied the baron. Then he +hesitated a moment, as if to weigh his words. "No, _Herr General,_ +I believe there is nothing more--in which you can help me." + +The old soldier's eyelids flickered for an instant. "Then I bid +you a very good day," he said, bowing. + +The baron hurried home, to share the big good news with his wife. +The little bad news she knew already. Together they grieved over +the two fallen trees and rejoiced under the golden shadow of their +untouched companions. The officers had called for wine, and more +wine, and yet more wine, and were drinking deep and singing loud +in the dining-room. + +In the morning came an orderly with a despatch from headquarters, +ordering the prince and the count to duty in a dirty village of +the coal region. Their baggage was packed into the automobile, +and they mounted their horses and went away in a rage. + +"You will be sorry for this, dumbhead," growled the prince, scowling +fiercely. "Yes," added Ludra, with a hateful grin, "we shall meet +again, dear landlord, and you will be sorry." + +Their host bowed and said nothing. + +Some weeks later the princely automobile came to the door of the +chateau. The forester brought up word that the Prince Barenberg +and the Count Ludra were below with a message from headquarters; +the commandant wished the baron to come there immediately; the +automobile was sent to bring him. He made ready to go. His wife +and his servant tried hard to dissuade him: it was late, almost +dark, and very cold--not likely the commandant had sent for him--it +might be all a trick of those officers--they were hateful men--they +would play some cruel prank for revenge. But the old man was +obstinate in his resolve; he must do what was required of him, he +must not even run the risk of slighting the commandant's wishes; +after all, no great harm could come to him. + +When he reached the steps he saw the count in the front seat, beside +the chauffeur, grinning; and the prince's harsh voice, made soft +as possible, called from the shadowy interior of the car: + +"Come in, baron. The general has sent for you in a hurry. We will +take you like lightning. How fine your beeches look against the +sky. What?" + +The old man stepped into the dusky car. It rolled down the long +aisle, between the smooth gray columns, beneath the fan-tracery of +the low arches, out on to the stony highway. Thus the tree-lover +was taken from his sanctuary. + +He did not return the next day, nor the day after. His wife, tortured +by anxiety, went to the district headquarters. The commandant was +away. The aide could not enlighten her. There had been no message +sent to the baron--that was certain. Major Barenberg and Captain +Ludra had been transferred to another command. Unfortunately, +nothing could be done except to report the case. + +The brave woman was not broken by her anguish, but raised to the +height of heroic devotion. She dedicated herself to the search for +her husband. The faithful forester, convinced that his master had +been killed, was like a slow, sure bloodhound on the track of the +murderers. He got a trace of them in a neighboring village, where +their car had been seen to pass at dusk on the fatal day. The +officers were in it, but not the baron. The forester got a stronger +scent of them in a wine-house, where their chauffeur had babbled +mysteriously on the following day. The old woodsman followed the +trail with inexhaustible patience. + +"I shall bring the master's body home," he said to his mistress, +"and God will use me to avenge his murder." + +A few weeks later he found his master's corpse hidden in a hollow +on the edge of the forest, half-covered with broken branches, +rotting leaves, and melting snow. There were three bullets in the +body. They had been fired at close range. + +The widow's heart, passing from the torture of uncertainty to the +calm of settled grief, had still a sacred duty to live for. She had +not forgotten her husband's dream. She went to the cardinal-archbishop +to beg the consecration of a little burial-plot at the foot of the +greatest of the beeches of Azan. That wise and brave prince of +the church consented with words of tender consolation, and promised +his aid in the pursuit of the criminals. + +"Eminence," she said, weeping, "you are very good to me. God will +reward you. He is just. He will repay. But my heart's desire is +to follow my husband's dream." + +So the body of the old botanist was brought back to the shadow of +the great beech-trees, and was buried there, like the bones of a +martyr, within the sanctuary. + +Is this the end of the story? + +Who can say? + +It is written also, among the records of Belgium, that the faithful +forester disappeared mysteriously a few weeks later. His body was +found in the forest and laid near his master. + +Another record tells of the trial of Prince Barenberg and Count +Ludra before a court martial, The count was sentenced to ten years +of labor _on his own estate._ The death-sentence of the prince +was commuted to imprisonment _in some unnamed place._ So far +the story of German justice. + +But of the other kind of justice--the poetic, the Divine--the record +is not yet complete. + +I know only that there is a fatherless girl working and praying in +a hospital in England, and a fatherless boy fighting and praying +in the muddy trenches near Ypres, and a lonely woman walking and +praying under certain great beech-trees at the Chateau d'Azan. The +burden of their prayer is the same. Night and day it rises to Him +who will judge the world in righteousness and before whose eyes +the wicked shall not stand. + +September, 1918. + + + + + + +THE KING'S HIGH WAY + + +In the last remnant of Belgium, a corner yet unconquered by +the German horde, I saw a tall young man walking among the dunes, +between the sodden lowland and the tumbling sea. + +The hills where he trod were of sand heaped high by the western winds; +and the growth over them was wire-grass and thistles, bayberry and +golden broom and stunted pine, with many humble wild flowers--things +of no use, yet beautiful. + +The sky above was gray; the northern sea was gray; the southern +fields were hazy gray over green; the smoke of shells bursting +in the air was gray. Gray was the skeleton of the ruined city in +the distance; gray were the shattered spires and walls of a dozen +hamlets on the horizon; gray, the eyes of the young man who walked +in faded blue uniform, in the remnant of Belgium. But there was an +indomitable light in his eyes, by which I knew that he was a King. + +"Sir," I said, "I am sure that you are his Majesty, the King of +Belgium." + +He bowed, and a pleasant smile relaxed his tired face. + +"Pardon, monsieur," he answered, "but you make the usual mistake in +my title. If I were only 'the King of Belgium,' you see, I should +have but a poor kingdom now--only this narrow strip of earth, perhaps +four hundred square miles of debris, just a _'pou sto,'_ a +place to stand, enough to fight on, and if need be to die in." + +His hand swept around the half-circle of dull landscape visible +southward from the top of the loftiest dune, the _Hooge Blikker._ +It was a land of slow-winding streams and straight canals and flat +fields, with here and there a clump of woods or a slight rise of +ground, but for the most part level and monotonous, a checker-board +landscape--stretching away until the eyes rested on the low hills +beyond Ypres. Now all the placid charm of Flemish fertility as gone +from the land--it was scarred and marred and pitted. The shells +and mines had torn holes in it; the trenches and barbed-wire +entanglements spread over it like a network of scars and welts; the +trees were smashed into kindling-wood; the farmhouses were heaps +of charred bricks; the shattered villages were like mouths full +of broken teeth. As the King looked round at all this, his face +darkened and the slight droop of his shoulders grew more marked. + +"But, no," he said, turning to me again, "that is not my kingdom. +My real title, monsieur, is _King of the Belgians._ It was for +their honor, for their liberty, that I was willing to lose my land +and risk my crown. While they live and hold true, I stand fast." + +Then ran swiftly through me the thought, of how the little Belgian +army had fought, how the Belgian people had suffered, rather than +surrender the independence of their country to the barbarians. The +German cannonade was roaring along the Yser a few miles away; the +air trembled with the overload of sound; but between the peals of +thunder I could hear the brave song of the skylark climbing his +silver stairway of music, undismayed, hopeful, unconquerable. I +remembered how the word of this quiet man beside whom I stood had +been the inspiration and encouragement of his people through the +fierce conflict, the long agony: _"I have faith in our destiny; +a nation which defends itself does not perish; God will be with us +in that just cause."_ + +"Sir," I said, "you have a glorious kingdom which shall never be +taken away. But as for your land, the fates have been against you. +How will you ever get back to it? The Germans are strong as iron +and they bar the way. Will you make a peace with them and take what +they have so often offered you?" + +"Never," he answered calmly; "that is not the way home, it is the +way to dishonor. When God brings me back, my army and my Queen are +going with me to liberate our people. There is only one way that +leads there--the King's high way. Look, _monsieur,_ you can +see the beginning of it down there. I hope you wish me well on that +road, for I shall never take another." + +So he bade me good afternoon very courteously and walked away among +the dunes to his little cottage at La Panne. + +Looking down through the light haze of evening I saw a strip of +the straight white road leading eastward across the level land. At +the beginning of it there was a broken bridge; in places it seemed +torn up by shells; it disappeared in the violet dusk. But as I +looked a vision came. + +The bridge is restored, the road mended and built up, and on that +highway rides the King in his faded uniform with the Queen in white +beside him. At their approach ruined villages rejoice aloud and +ancient towns break forth into singing. + +In Bruges the royal comrades stand beside the gigantic monument +in the centre of the Great Market, and above the shouting of the +multitude the music of the old belfry floats unheard. Ghent and +Antwerp have put on their glad raiment, and in their crooked streets +and crowded squares joy flows like a river surging as it goes. Into +Brussels I see this man and woman ride through a welcome that rises +around them like the voice of many waters--the welcome of those +who have waited and suffered, the welcome of those to whom liberty +and honor were more dear than life. In the _Grande Place,_ +the antique, carven, gabled houses are gay with fluttering banners; +the people delivered from the cruel invader sing lustily the +_Marseillaise_ and the old songs of Belgium. + +In the midst, Albert and Elizabeth sit quietly upon their horses. +They have come home. Not by the low road of cowardly surrender; not +by the crooked road of compromise and falsehood; not by the soft +road of ease and self-indulgence; but by the straight road of faith +and courage and self-sacrifice--the King's High Way. + + + + + +HALF-TOLD TALES + + + + + +THE TRAITOR IN THE HOUSE + + +The Guest, who came from beyond the lake, had lived in the house +for years and had the freedom of it, so that he had become quite +like a member of the family. He was friendly treated and well lodged. +Indeed, some thought he had the best room of all, for though it +was in the wing, it was spacious and well warmed, and had a side +door, so that he could go in and out freely by day or night. + +It must be said that he had earned his living on the place, being +industrious and useful, a very handy man about the house; and the +children had a liking for him because he sang merry songs and told +beautiful fairy-tales. + +So he was all the more surprised and aggrieved when the Master of +the house said to him one night, as they sat late by the fire: + +"I suspect you." + +"But of what?" cried the Guest. + +"Of caring more for the house that you came from than for the house +that you live in." + +"But you know I was at home there once," said the Guest, "would +you have me forget that? Surely you will not deny me the freedom +of my thoughts and memories and fond feelings. Would you make me +less than a man?" + +"No," said the Master, "but I will ask you to choose between your +old home and your new home now. The house in which you lived formerly +is become our enemy--a nest of brigands and bloody men. They have +killed a child of ours on the highway. They threaten us to-night +with an attack in force. Tell me plainly where you stand." + +The Guest looked down his nose toward the smouldering embers of the +fire. He knocked out the dottle of his pipe on one of the andirons. +Two fat tears rolled down his cheeks; he was very sentimental. + +"I am with you," he said. + +"Good," said the Master, "now let us make the house fast!" +[Illustration with caption: 'I will ask you to choose between your +old home and your new home now'] + +So they closed and barred the shutters and locked and bolted the +front door. + +Then they lighted their bedroom candles and bade each other good +night. + +But as the Guest went along his dim corridor, the Master turned +and followed him very softly on tiptoe, watching. + +Outside the house, in the darkness, there was a sound of many +shuffling feet and whispering voices. + +When the Guest came to the side door he tried the latch, to see +that it was working freely. He moved the bolt, not forward into +its socket, but backward so that it should be no hindrance. In +the window beside the doorway he set his candle. So the house was +ready for late-comers. + +Then the Guest sighed a little. "They are my old friends," he +murmured, "my dear old friends! I could not leave them out in the +cold. I am not responsible for what they do. Only I must my old +affection prove." So he sighed again and turned softly to his bed. + +But as he turned the Master stood before him and took him by the +throat. + +"Traitor!" he cried. "You would betray the innocent. Already your +soul is stained with my sleeping children's blood." And with his +hands he choked the false Guest to death. + +Then he shot the bolt of the side door, and barred the window, and +called the servants, and made ready to defend the house. + +Great was the fighting that night. In the morning, when the robbers +were driven off, the false Guest was buried, outside the garden, +in an unmarked grave. + +February 2, 1918. + + + + + + +JUSTICE OF THE ELEMENTS + + +So the Criminal with a Crown came to the end of his resources. He +had told his last lie, but not even his servants would believe it. +He had made his last threat, but no living soul feared it. He had +put forth his last stroke of violence and cruelty, but it fell +short. + +When he saw his own image reflected in the eyes of men, and knew +what he had done to the world and what had come of his evil design, +he was afraid, and cried, "Let the Earth swallow me!" And the Earth +opened, and swallowed him. + +But so great was the harm that he had wrought upon the Earth, and +so deeply had he drenched it with blood, that it could not contain +him. So the Earth opened again, and spewed him forth. + +Then he cried, "Let the Sea hide me!" And the waves rolled over +his head. + +But the Sea, whereon he had wrought iniquity, and filled the depths +thereof with the bones of the innocent, could not endure him and +threw him up on the shore as refuse. + +Then he cried, "Let the Air carry me away!" And the strong winds +blew, and lifted him up so that he felt exalted. + +But the pure Air, wherein he had let loose the vultures of hate, +dropping death upon helpless women and harmless babes, found the +burden and the stench of him intolerable, and let him fall. + +And as he was falling he cried, "Let the Fire give me a refuge!" +So the Fire, wherewith he had consumed the homes of men, rejoiced; +and the flames which he had compelled to do his will in wickedness +leaped up as he drew near. + +"Welcome, old master!" roared the Fire. "Be my slave!" + +Then he perceived that there was no hope for him in the justice of +the elements. And he said, "I will seek mercy of Him against whom +I have most offended." + +So he fled to the foot of the Great White Throne. And as he kneeled +there, broken and abased, the world was silent, waiting for the +sentence of the Judge of All. + +August, 1918. + + + + + + +ASHES OF VENGEANCE + + +Dun was a hard little city, proud and harsh; but impregnable +because it was built upon a high rock. The host of the Visigoths +had besieged it for months in vain. Then came a fugitive from the +city, at midnight, to the tent of Alaric, the Chief of the besiegers. + +The man was haggard and torn. His eyes were wild, his hands trembling. +The Chief held and steadied him with a look. + +"Who are you?" he asked. "Your name, the purpose that brings you +here?" + +"My name," said the man, "is the Avenger. For thirty years I have +lived in Dun, and the people have been unjust and cruel to me. +They persecuted my family, because they hated me. My wife died of +a broken heart, my children of starvation. I have just escaped from +the prison of Dun, and come to tell you how the city may be taken. +There is a secret pathway, a hidden entrance. I know it and can +reveal it to you." + +"Good," said the Chief, measuring the man with tranquil eyes, "but +what is your price?" + +"Vengeance," said the man, "I ask only the right to revenge my +sufferings upon those who have inflicted them, when you have taken +the city." + +Alaric bent his head and was silent for a moment. "It is a fair +price," he said, "and I will pay it. Tell me the way to take the +city, and I will leave at your command a troop of soldiers sufficient +to work your will on it afterward." + +II + +The trumpet sounded the capture of the city in the morning. The +Avenger, waking late from his troubled sleep, led his soldiers +through the open gate. + +It was like a city of the dead, and the bodies of those who had been +killed in the last defense, lay where they had fallen. Empty and +silent were the streets where lie had so often walked in humiliation. +Gone were the familiar faces that had frowned on him and mocked +him. The houses at whose doors he had often knocked were vacant. +His wrath sank within him, and the arrow of solitude pierced him +to the heart. + +Then he came to the belfry, and there was the bell-ringer, one of +the worst of his ancient persecutors, standing at the entrance of +the tower. + +"Why are you here?" said the Avenger. + +"By the orders of King Alaric," answered the bell-ringer, "to ring +the bells when peace comes to the city." + +"Ring now," said the Avenger, "ring now!" + +Then, at the sound of the bells, the people who had concealed themselves +at Alaric's command came trooping forth from the cellars and caves +where they had been hiding,--old men and women and children, a +motley throng of sufferers. + +The Avenger looked at them and the tears ran down his cheeks, +because he remembered. + +"Listen," he said, "don't be afraid. These soldiers are going on +to join their army. You have done me great wrong. But the fire of +hatred is burnt out, and in the ashes of vengeance we are going to +plant the seeds of peace." + +December, 1918. + + + + + + +THE BROKEN SOLDIER AND THE MAID OF FRANCE + + + + +I. THE MEETING AT THE SPRING + + +Along the old Roman road that crosses the rolling hills from the +upper waters of the Marne to the Meuse a soldier of France was +passing in the night. + +In the broader pools of summer moonlight he showed as a hale and +husky fellow of about thirty years, with dark hair and eyes and +a handsome, downcast face. His uniform was faded and dusty; not a +trace of the horizon blue was left, only a gray shadow. He had no +knapsack on his back, no gun on his shoulder. Wearily and doggedly +he plodded his way, without eyes for the veiled beauty of the sleeping +country. The quick, firm military step was gone. He trudged like +a tramp, choosing always the darker side of the road. + +He was a figure of flight, a broken soldier. + +Presently the road led him into a thick forest of oaks and beeches, +and so to the crest of a hill overlooking a long open valley with +wooded heights beyond. Below him was the pointed spire of some +temple or shrine, lying at the edge of the wood, with no houses +near it. Farther down he could see a cluster of white houses with +the tower of a church in the centre. Other villages were dimly +visible up and down the valley on either slope. The cattle were +lowing from the barnyards. The cocks crowed for the dawn. Already +the moon had sunk behind the western trees. But the valley was +still bathed in its misty, vanishing light. Over the eastern ridge +the gray glimmer of the little day was rising, faintly tinged with +rose. It was time for the broken soldier to seek his covert and +rest till night returned. + +So he stepped aside from the road and found a little dell thick +with underwoods, and in it a clear spring gurgling among the ferns +and mosses. Around the opening grew wild gooseberries and golden +broom and a few tall spires of purple foxglove. He drew off his +dusty boots and socks and bathed his feet in a small pool, drying +them with fern leaves. Then he took a slice of bread and a piece of +cheese from his pocket and made his breakfast. Going to the edge +of the thicket, he parted the branches and peered out over the +vale. + +Its eaves sloped gently to the level floor where the river loitered +in loops and curves. The sun was just topping the eastern hills; +the heads of the trees were dark against a primrose sky. + +In the fields the hay had been cut and gathered. The aftermath +was already greening the moist places. Cattle and sheep sauntered +out to pasture. A thin silvery mist floated here and there, +spreading in broad sheets over the wet ground and shredding into +filmy scarves and ribbons as the breeze caught it among the pollard +willows and poplars on the border of the stream. Far away the water +glittered where the river made a sudden bend or a long smooth reach. +It was like the flashing of distant shields. Overhead a few white +clouds climbed up from the north. The rolling ridges, one after +another, enfolded the valley as far as eye could see; dark green +set in pale green, with here and there an arm of forest running +down on a sharp promontory to meet and turn the meandering stream. + +"It must be the valley of the Meuse," said the soldier. "My faith, +but France is beautiful and tranquil here!" + +The northerly wind was rising. The clouds climbed more swiftly. +The poplars shimmered, the willows glistened, the veils of mist +vanished. From very far away there came a rumbling thunder, heavy, +insistent, continuous, punctuated with louder crashes. + +"It is the guns," muttered the soldier, shivering. "It is the guns +around Verdun! Those damned Boches!" + +He turned back into the thicket and dropped among the ferns beside +the spring. Stretching himself with a gesture of abandon, he +pillowed his face on his crossed arms to sleep. + +A rustling in the bushes roused him. He sprang to his feet quickly. +It was a priest, clad in a dusty cassock, his long black beard +streaked with gray. He came slowly treading up beside the trickling +rivulet, carrying a bag on a stick over his shoulder. + +"Good morning, my son," he said. "You have chosen a pleasant spot +to rest." + +The soldier, startled, but not forgetting his manners learned from +boyhood, stood up and lifted his hand to take off his cap. It was +already lying on the ground. "Good morning, Father," he answered, +"I did not choose the place, but stumbled on it by chance. It is +pleasant enough, for I am very tired and have need of sleep." + +"No doubt," said the priest. "I can see that you look weary, and +I beg you to pardon me if I have interrupted your repose. But why +do you say you came here 'by chance'? If you are a good Christian +you know that nothing is by chance. All is ordered and designed +by Providence." + +"So they told me in church long ago," said the soldier coldly; "but +now it does not seem so true--at least not with me." + +The first feeling of friendliness and respect into which he had +been surprised was passing. He had fallen back into the mood of +his journey--mistrust, secrecy, resentment. + +The priest caught the tone. His gray eyes under their bushy brows +looked kindly but searchingly at the soldier and smiled a little. +He set down his bag and leaned on his stick. "Well," he said, "I +can tell you one thing, my son. At all events it was not chance +that brought me here. I came with a purpose." + +The soldier started a little, stung by suspicion. "What then," he +cried, roughly, "were you looking for me? What do you know of me? +What is this talk of chance and purpose?" + +"Come, come," said the priest, his smile spreading from his eyes +to his lips, "do not be angry. I assure you that I know nothing of +you whatever, not even your name nor why you are here. When I said +that I came with a purpose I meant only that a certain thought, a +wish, led me to this spot. Let us sit together awhile beside the +spring and make better acquaintance." + +"I do not desire it," said the soldier, with a frown. + +"But you will not refuse it?" queried the priest gently. "It is +not good to refuse the request of one old enough to be your father. +Look, I have here some excellent tobacco and cigarette-papers. Let +us sit down and smoke together. I will tell you who I am and the +purpose that brought me here." + +The soldier yielded grudgingly, not knowing what else to do. They +sat down on a mossy bank beside the spring, and while the blue +smoke of their cigarettes went drifting under the little trees the +priest began: + +"My name is Antoine Courcy. I am the cure of Darney, a village +among the Reaping Hook Hills, a few leagues south from here. +For twenty-five years I have reaped the harvest of heaven in that +blessed little field. I am sorry to leave it. But now this war, +this great battle for freedom and the life of France, calls me. +It is a divine vocation. France has need of all her sons to-day, +even the old ones. I cannot keep the love of God in my heart unless +I follow the love of country in my life. My younger brother, who +used to be the priest of the next parish to mine, was in the army. +He has fallen. I am going to replace him. I am on my way to join +the troops--as a chaplain, if they will; if not, then as a private. +I must get into the army of France or be left out of the host of +heaven." + +The soldier had turned his face away and was plucking the lobes +from a frond of fern. "A brave resolve, Father," he said, with an +ironic note. "But you have not yet told me what brings you off your +road, to this place." + +"I will tell you," replied the priest eagerly; "it is the love of +Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid who saved France long ago. You know about +her?" + +"A little," nodded the soldier. "I have learned in the school. She +was a famous saint." + +"Not yet a saint," said the priest earnestly; "the Pope has not yet +pronounced her a saint. But it will be done soon. Already he has +declared her among the Blessed Ones. To me she is the most blessed +of all. She never thought of herself or of a saint's crown. She +gave her life entire for France. And this is the place that she +came from! Think of that--right here!" + +"I did not know that," said the soldier. + +"But yes," the priest went on, kindling. "I tell you it was here +that the Maid of France received her visions and set out to her work. +You see that village below us--look out through the branches--that +is Domremy, where she was born. That spire just at the edge of +the wood--you saw that? It is the basilica they have built to her +memory. It is full of pictures of her. It stands where the old +beech-tree, 'Fair May,' used to grow. There she heard the voices +and saw the saints who sent her on her mission. And this is the +Gooseberry Spring, the Well of the Good Fairies. Here she came +with the other children, at the festival of the well-dressing, to +spread their garlands around it, and sing, and cat their supper +on the green. Heavenly voices spoke to her, but the others did not +hear them. Often did she drink of this water. It became a fountain +of life springing up in her heart. I have come to drink at the +same source. It will strengthen me as a sacrament. Come, son, let +us take it together as we go to our duty in battle!" + +Father Courcy stood up and opened his old black bag. He took out +a small metal cup. He filled it carefully at the spring. He made +the sign of the cross over it. + +"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," he murmured, +"blessed and holy is this water." Then he held the cup toward the +soldier. "Come, let us share it and make our vows together." + +The bright drops trembled and fell from the bottom of the cup. The +soldier sat still, his head in his hands. + +"No," he answered heavily, "I cannot take it. I am not worthy. +Can a man take a sacrament without confessing his sins?" + +Father Courcy looked at him with pitying eyes. "I see," he said +slowly; "I see, my son. You have a burden on your heart. Well, I +will stay with you and try to lift it. But first I shall make my +own vow." + +He raised the cup toward the sky. A tiny brown wren sang canticles +of rapture in the thicket. A great light came into the priest's +face--a sun-ray from the east, far beyond the treetops. + +"Blessed Jeanne d'Arc, I drink from thy fountain in thy name. I vow +my life to thy cause. Aid me, aid this my son, to fight valiantly +for freedom and for France. In the name of God, Amen." + +The soldier looked up at him. Wonder, admiration, and shame were +struggling in the look. Father Courcy wiped the empty cup carefully +and put it back in his bag. Then he sat down beside the soldier, +laying a fatherly hand on his shoulder. + +"Now, my son, you shall tell me what is on your heart." + + + + +II. THE GREEN CONFESSIONAL + + +For a long time the soldier remained silent. His head was bowed. +His shoulders drooped. His hands trembled between his knees. He +was wrestling with himself. + +"No," he cried, at last, "I cannot, I dare not tell you. Unless, +perhaps"--his voice faltered--"you could receive it under the seal +of confession? But no. How could you do that? Here in the green +woods? In the open air, beside a spring? Here is no confessional." + +"Why not?" asked Father Courcy. "It is a good place, a holy place. +Heaven is over our heads and very near. I will receive your confession +here." + +The soldier knelt among the flowers. The priest pronounced the +sacred words. The soldier began his confession: + +"I, Pierre Duval, a great sinner, confess my fault, my most grievous +fault, and pray for pardon." He stopped for a moment and then +continued, "But first I must tell you, Father, just who I am and +where I come from and what brings me here." + +"Go on, Pierre Duval, go on. That is what I am waiting to hear. Be +simple and very frank." + +"Well, then, I am from the parish of Laucourt, in the pleasant +country of the Barrois not far from Bar-sur-Aube. My word, but that +is a pretty land, full of orchards and berry-gardens! Our old farm +there is one of the prettiest and one of the best, though it is +small. It was hard to leave it when the call to the colors came, +two years ago. But I was glad to go. My heart was high and strong +for France. I was in the Nth Infantry, We were in the centre division +under General Foch at the battle of the Marne. _Fichtre!_ but +that was fierce fighting! And what a general! He did not know how +to spell 'defeat.' He wrote it 'victory.' Four times we went across +that cursed Marsh of St.-Gond. The dried mud was trampled full of +dead bodies. The trickling streams of water ran red. Four times +we were thrown back by the boches. You would have thought that was +enough. But the general did not think so. We went over again on +the fifth day, and that time we stayed. The Germans could not stand +against us. They broke and ran. The roads where we chased them +were full of empty wine-bottles. In one village we caught three +officers and a dozen men dead drunk. _Bigre!_ what a fine +joke!" + +Pierre, leaning back upon his heels, was losing himself in his +recital. His face lighted up, his hands were waving. Father Courcy +bent forward with shining eyes. + +"Continue," he cried. "This is a beautiful confession--no sin yet. +Continue, Pierre." + +"Well, then, after that we were fighting here and there, on the +Aisne, on the Ailette, everywhere. Always the same story--Germans +rolling down on us in flood, green-gray waves. But the foam on +them was fire and steel. The shells of the barrage swept us like +hailstones. We waited, waited in our trenches, till the green-gray +mob was near enough. Then the word came. _Sapristi!_ We let +loose with mitrailleuse, rifle, field-gun, everything that would +throw death. It did not seem like fighting with men. It was like +trying to stop a monstrous thing, a huge, terrible mass that was +rushing on to overwhelm us. The waves tumbled and broke before +they reached us. Sometimes they fell flat. Sometimes they turned +and rushed the other way. It was wild, wild, like a change of the +wind and tide in a storm, everything torn and confused. Then perhaps +the word came to go over the top and at them. That was furious. +That was fighting with men, for sure--bayonet, revolver, rifle-butt, +knife, anything that would kill. Often I sickened at the blood and +the horror of it. But something inside of me shouted: 'Fight on! +It is for France. It is for "L'Alouette" thy farm; for thy wife, +thy little ones. Will you let them be ruined by those beasts of +Germans? What are they doing here on French soil? Brigands, butchers, +apaches! Drive them out; and if they will not go, kill them so they +can do no more shameful deeds. Fight on!' So I killed all I could." + +The priest nodded his head grimly. "You were right, Pierre; your +voice spoke true. It was a dreadful duty that you were doing. The +Gospel tells us if we are smitten on one cheek we must turn the +other. But it does not tell us to turn the cheek of a little child, +of the woman we love, the country we belong to. No! that would +be disgraceful, wicked, un-Christian. It would be to betray the +innocent! Continue, my son." + +"Well, then," Pierre went on, his voice deepening and his face +growing more tense, "then we were sent to Verdun. That was the +hottest place of all. It was at the top of the big German drive. +The whole sea rushed and fell on us--big guns, little guns, poison-gas, +hand-grenades, liquid fire, bayonets, knives, and trench-clubs. +Fort after fort went down. The whole pack of hell was loose and +raging. I thought of that crazy, chinless Crown Prince sitting in +his safe little cottage hidden in the woods somewhere--they say he +had flowers and vines planted around it--drinking stolen champagne +and sicking on his dogs of death. He was in no danger. I cursed +him in my heart, that blood-lord! The shells rained on Verdun. The +houses were riddled; the cathedral was pierced in a dozen places; +a hundred fires broke out. The old citadel held good. The outer forts +to the north and east were taken. Only the last ring was left. We +common soldiers did not know much about what was happening. The big +battle was beyond our horizon. But that General Petain, he knew it +all. Ah, that is a wise man, I can tell you! He sent us to this +place or that place where the defense was most needed. We went +gladly, without fear or holding back. We were resolute that those +mad dogs should not get through. _'They shall not pass'!_ And +they did not pass!" + +"Glorious!" cried the priest, drinking the story in. "And you, +Pierre? Where were you, what were you doing?" + +"I was at Douaumont, that fort on the highest hill of all. The +Germans took it. It cost them ten thousand men. The ground around +it was like a wood-yard piled with logs. The big shell-holes were +full of corpses. There were a few of us that got away. Then our +company was sent to hold the third redoubt on the slope in front of +Port de Vaux. Perhaps you have heard of that redoubt. That was a +bitter job. But we held it many days and nights. The boches pounded +us from Douaumont and from the village of Vaux. They sent wave +after wave up the slope to drive us out. But we stuck to it. That +ravine of La Caillette was a boiling caldron of men. It bubbled +over with smoke and fire. Once, when their second wave had broken +just in front of us, we went out to hurry the fragments down +the hill. Then the guns from Douaumont and the village of Vaux +hammered us. Our men fell like ninepins. Our lieutenant called to +us to turn back. Just then a shell tore away his right leg at the +knee. It hung by the skin and tendons. He was a brave lad. I could +not leave him to die there. So I hoisted him on my back. Three +shots struck me. They felt just like hard blows from a heavy fist. +One of them made my left arm powerless. I sank my teeth in the +sleeve of my lieutenant's coat as it hung over my shoulder. I must +not let him fall off my back. Somehow--God knows how--I gritted +through to our redoubt. They took my lieutenant from my shoulders. +And then the light went out." + +The priest leaned forward, his hands stretched out around the +soldier. "But you are a hero," he cried. "Let me embrace you!" + +The soldier drew back, shaking his head sadly. "No," he said, +his voice breaking--"no, my Father, you must not embrace me now. +I may have been a brave man once. But now I am a coward. Let me +tell you everything. My wounds were bad, but not desperate. The +_brancardiers_ carried me down to Verdun, at night I suppose, +but I was unconscious; and so to the hospital at Vaudelaincourt. +There were days and nights of blankness mixed with pain. Then I +came to my senses and had rest. It was wonderful. I thought that I +had died and gone to heaven. Would God it had been so! Then I should +have been with my lieutenant. They told me he had passed away in +the redoubt. But that hospital was beautiful, so clean and quiet +and friendly. Those white nurses were angels. They handled me like +a baby. I would have liked to stay there. I had no desire to get +better. But I did. One day several officers visited the hospital. +They came to my cot, where I was sitting up. The highest of +them brought out a Cross of War and pinned it on the breast of my +nightshirt. 'There,' he said, 'you are decorated, Pierre Duval! You +are one of the heroes of France. You are soon going to be perfectly +well and to fight again bravely for your country.' I thanked him, +but I knew better. My body might get perfectly well, but something +in my soul was broken. It was worn out. The thin spring had snapped. +I could never fight again. Any loud noise made me shake all over. +I knew that I could never face a battle--impossible! I should +certainly lose my nerve and run away. It is a damned feeling, that +broken something inside of one. I can't describe it." + +Pierre stopped for a moment and moistened his dry lips with the +tip of his tongue. + +"I know," said Father Courcy. "I understand perfectly what you want +to say. It was like being lost and thinking that nothing could save +you; a feeling that is piercing and dull at the same time, like a +heavy weight pressing on you with sharp stabs in it. It was what +they call shell-shock, a terrible thing. Sometimes it drives men +crazy for a while. But the doctors know what to do for that malady. +It passes. You got over it." + +"No," answered Pierre, "the doctors may not have known that I had +it. At all events, they did not know what to do for it. It did +not pass. It grew worse. But I hid it, talking very little, never +telling anybody how I felt. They said I was depressed and needed +cheering up. All the while there was that black snake coiled around +my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter. But my body grew stronger +every day. The wounds were all healed. I was walking around. In +July the doctor-in-chief sent for me to his office. He said: 'You +are cured, Pierre Duval, but you are not yet fit to fight. You are +low in your mind. You need cheering up. You are to have a month's +furlough and repose. You shall go home to your farm. How is it that +you call it?' I suppose I had been babbling about it in my sleep +and one of the nurses had told him. He was always that way, that +little Doctor Roselly, taking an interest in the men, talking +with them and acting friendly. I said the farm was called +_'L'Alouette'_--rather a foolish name. 'Not, at all,' he +answered; 'it is a fine name, with the song of a bird in it. Well, +you are going back to _"L'Alouette"_ to hear the lark sing for +a month, to kiss your wife and your children, to pick gooseberries +and currants. Eh, my boy, what do you think of that? Then, when +the month is over, you will be a new man. You will be ready to fight +again at Verdun. Remember they have not passed and they shall not +pass! Good luck to you, Pierre Duval.' So I went back to the farm +as fast as I could go." + +He was silent for a few moments, letting his thoughts wander through +the pleasant paths of that little garden of repose. His eyes were +dreaming, his lips almost smiled. + +"It was sweet at _'L'Alouette,'_ very sweet, Father. The +farm was in pretty good order and the kitchen-garden was all right, +though, the flowers had been a little neglected. You see, my wife, +Josephine, she is a very clever woman. She had kept up the things +that were the most necessary. She had hired one of the old neighbors +and a couple of boys to help her with the ploughing and planting. +The harvest she sold as it stood. Our yoke of cream-colored oxen +and the roan horse were in good condition. Little Pierrot, who is +five, and little Josette, who is three, were as brown as berries. +They hugged me almost to death. But it was Josephine herself who was +the best of all. She is only twenty-six, Father, and so beautiful +still, with her long chestnut hair and her eyes like stones shining +under the waters of a brook. I tell you it was good to get her in +my arms again and feel her lips on mine. And to wake in the early +morning, while the birds were singing, and see her face beside me +on the white pillow, sleeping like a child, that was a little bit +of Paradise. But I do wrong to tell you of all this, Father." + +"Proceed, my big boy," nodded the priest. "You are saying nothing +wrong. I was a man before I was a priest. It is all natural, what +you are saying, and all according to God's law--no sin in it. +Proceed. Did your happiness do you good?" Pierre shook his head +doubtfully. The look of dejection came back to his face. He frowned +as if something puzzled and hurt him. "Yes and no. That is the +strange thing. It made me thankful--that goes without saying. But +it did not make me any stronger in my heart. Perhaps it was too +sweet. I thought too much of it. I could not bear to think of +anything else. The idea of the war was hateful, horrible, disgusting. +The noise and the dirt of it, the mud in the autumn and the bitter +cold in the winter, the rats and the lice in the dugouts, And then +the fury of the charge, and the everlasting killing, killing, or +being killed! The danger had seemed little or nothing to me when +I was there. But at a distance it was frightful, unendurable. I +knew that I could never stand up to it again. Besides, already I +had done my share--enough for two or three men. Why must I go back +into that hell? It was not fair. Life was too dear to be risking +it all the time. I could not endure it. France? France? Of course +I love France. But my farm and my life with Josephine and the +children mean more to me. The thing that made me a good soldier is +broken inside me. It is beyond mending." + +His voice sank lower and lower. Father Courcy looked at him gravely. + +"But your farm is a part of France. You belong to France. He that +saveth his life shall lose it!" + +"Yes, yes, I know. But my farm is such a small part of France. +I am only one man. What difference does one man make, except to +himself? Moreover, I had done my part, that was certain. Twenty +times, really, my life had been lost. Why must I throw it away +again? Listen, Father. There is a village in the Vosges, near the +Swiss border, where a relative of mine lives. If I could get to +him he would take me in and give me some other clothes and help me +over the frontier into Switzerland. There I could change my name +and find work until the war is over. That was my plan. So I set +out on my journey, following the less-travelled roads, tramping by +night and sleeping by day. Thus I came to this spring at the same +time as you by chance, by pure chance. Do you see?" + +Father Courcy looked very stern and seemed about to speak in anger. +Then he shook his head, and said quietly: "No, I do not see that +at all. It remains to be seen whether it was by chance. But tell +me more about your sin. Did you let your wife, Josephine, know +what you were going to do? Did you tell her good-by, parting for +Switzerland?" + +"Why, no! I did not dare. She would never have forgiven me. +So I slipped down to the post-office at Bar-sur-Aube and stole +a telegraph blank. It was ten days before my furlough was out. I +wrote a message to myself calling me back to the colors at once. +I showed it to her. Then I said good-by. I wept. She did not cry +one tear. Her eyes were stars. She embraced me a dozen times. She +lifted up each of the children to hug me. Then she cried: 'Go now, +my brave man. Fight well. Drive the damned boches out. It is for +us and for France. God protect you. _Au revoir!'_ I went down +the road silent. I felt like a dog. But I could not help it." + +"And you were a dog," said the priest sternly. "That is what you +were, and what you remain unless you can learn to help it. You lied +to your wife. You forged; you tricked her who trusted you. You have +done the thing which you yourself say she would never forgive. +If she loves you and prays for you now, you have stolen that love +and that prayer. You are a thief. A true daughter of France could +never love a coward to-day." + +"I know, I know," sobbed Pierre, burying his face in the weeds. +"Yet I did it partly for her, and I could not do otherwise." + +"Very little for her, and a hundred times for yourself," said +the priest indignantly. "Be honest. If there was a little bit of +love for her, it was the kind of love she did not want. She would +spit upon it. If you are going to Switzerland now you are leaving +her forever. You can never go back to Josephine again. You are a +deserter. She would cast you out, coward!" + +The broken soldier lay very still, almost as if he were dead. Then +he rose slowly to his feet, with a pale, set face. He put his hand +behind his back and drew out a revolver. "It is true," he said +slowly, "I am a coward. But not altogether such a coward as you +think, Father. It is not merely death that I fear. I could face +that, I think. Here, take this pistol and shoot me now! No one +will know. You can say you shot a deserter, or that I attacked you. +Shoot me now, Father, and let me out of this trouble." + +Father Courcy looked at him with amazement. Then he took the pistol, +uncocked it cautiously, and dropped it behind him. He turned to +Pierre and regarded him curiously. "Go on with your confession, +Pierre. Tell me about this strange kind of cowardice which can face +death." + +The soldier dropped on his knees again, and went on in a low, +shaken voice: "It is this, Father. By my broken soul, this is the +very root of it. I am afraid of fear." + +The priest thought for an instant. "But that is not reasonable, +Pierre. It is nonsense. Fear cannot hurt you. If you fight it you +can conquer it. At least you can disregard it, march through it, +as if it were not there." + +"Not this fear," argued the soldier, with a peasant's obstinacy. +"This is something very big and dreadful. It has no shape, but +a dead-white face and red, blazing eyes full of hate and scorn. I +have seen it in the dark. It is stronger than I am. Since something +is broken inside of me, I know I can never conquer it. No, it would +wrap its shapeless arms around me and stab me to the heart with +its fiery eyes. I should turn and run in the middle of the battle. +I should trample on my wounded comrades. I should be shot in the +back and die in disgrace. O my God! my God! who can save me from +this? It is horrible. I cannot bear it." + +The priest laid his hand gently on Pierre's quivering shoulder. +"Courage, my son!" + +"I have none." + +"Then say to yourself that fear is nothing." + +"It would be a lie. This fear is real." + +"Then cease to tremble at it; kill it." + +"Impossible. I am afraid of fear." + +"Then carry it as your burden, your cross. Take it back to Verdun +with you." + +"I dare not. It would poison the others. It would bring me to +dishonor." + +"Pray to God for help." + +"He will not answer me. I am a wicked man. Father, I have made my +confession. Will you give me a penance and absolve me?" + +"Promise to go back to the army and fight as well as you can." + +"Alas! that is what I cannot do. My mind is shaken to pieces. +Whither shall I turn? I can decide nothing. I am broken. I repent +of my great sin. Father, for the love of God, speak the word of +absolution." + +Pierre lay on his face, motionless, his arms stretched out. The +priest rose and went to the spring. He scooped up a few drops in +the hollow of his hand. He sprinkled it like holy water upon the +soldier's head. A couple of tears fell with it. + +"God have pity on you, my son, and bring you back to yourself. +The word of absolution is not for me to speak while you think of +forsaking France. Put that thought away from you, do penance for +it, and you will be absolved from your great sin." + +Pierre turned over and lay looking up at the priest's face and at +the blue sky with white cloude drifting across it. He sighed. "Ah, +if that could only be! But I have not the strength. It is impossible." + +"All things are possible to him that believeth. Strength will +come. Perhaps Jeanne d'Arc herself will help you." + +"She would never speak to a man like me. She is a great saint, very +high in heaven." + +"She was a farmer's lass, a peasant like yourself. She would +speak to you, gladly and kindly, if you saw her, and in your own +language, too. Trust her." + +"But I do not know enough about her." + +"Listen, Pierre. I have thought for you. I will appoint the first +part of your penance. You shall take the risk of being recognized +and caught. You shall go down to the village and visit the places +that belong to her--her basilica, her house, her church. Then you +shall come back here and wait until you know--until you surely know +what you must do. Will you promise this?" + +Pierre had risen and looked up at the priest with tear-stained +face. But his eyes were quieter. "Yes, Father, I can promise you +this much faithfully." + +"Now I must go my way. Farewell, my son. Peace in war be with +you." He held out his hand. + +Pierre took it reverently. "And with you, Father," he murmured. + + + + +III. THE ABSOLVING DREAM + + +Antoine Courcy was one of those who are fitted and trained by nature +for the cure of souls. If you had spoken to him of psychiatry he +would not have understood you. The long word would have been Greek +to him. But the thing itself he knew well. The preliminary penance +which he laid upon Pierre Duval was remedial. It belonged to the +true healing art which works first in the spirit. + +When the broken soldier went down the hill, in the blaze of the +mid-morning sunlight, toward Domremy, there was much misgiving and +confusion in his thoughts. He did not comprehend why he was going, +except that he had promised. He was not sure that some one might +not know him, or perhaps out of mere curiosity stop him and question +him. It was a reluctant journey. + +Yet it was in effect an unconscious pilgrimage to the one health-resort +that his soul needed. For Domremy and the region round about are +saturated with the most beautiful story of France. The life of Jeanne +d'Arc, simple and mysterious, humble and glorious, most human and +most heavenly, flows under that place like a hidden stream, rising +at every turn in springs and fountains. The poor little village +lives in and for her memory. Her presence haunts the ridges and +the woods, treads the green pastures, follows the white road beside +the river, and breathes in the never-resting valley-wind that +marries the flowers in June and spreads their seed in August. + +At the small basilica built to her memory on the place where her +old beech-tree, "Fair May," used to stand, there was an ancient +caretaker who explained to Pierre the pictures from the life of +the Maid with which the walls are decorated. They are stiff and +conventional, but the old man found them wonderful and told with +zest the story of _La Pucelle_--how she saw her first vision; +how she recognized the Dauphin in his palace at Chinon; how she +broke the siege of Orleans; how she saw Charles crowned in the +cathedral at Rheims; how she was burned at the stake in Rouen. But +they could not kill her soul. She saved France. + +In the village church there was a priest from the border of Alsace, +also a pilgrim like Pierre, but one who knew the shrine better. +He showed the difference between the new and the old parts of the +building. Certain things the Maid herself had seen and touched. + +"Here is the old holy-water basin, an antique, broken column hollowed +out on top. Here her fingers must have rested often. Before this +ancient statue of St. Michel she must have often knelt to say her +prayers. The cure of the parish was a friend of hers and loved to +talk with her. She was a good girl, devout and obedient, not learned, +but a holy and great soul. She saved France." + +In the house where she was born and passed her childhood a crippled +old woman was custodian. It was a humble dwelling of plastered +stone standing between two tall fir-trees, with ivy growing over +the walls, lilies and hollyhocks blooming in the garden. Pierre +found it not half so good a house as _"L'Alouette."_ But to +the custodian it was more precious than a palace. In this upper +room with its low mullioned window the Maid began her life. Here, +in the larger room below, is the kneeling statue which the Princess +Marie d'Orleans made of her. Here, to the right, under the sloping +roof, with its worm-eaten beams, she slept and prayed and worked. + +"See, here is the bread-board between two timbers where she cut +the bread for the _croute au pot._ From this small window she +looked at night and saw the sanctuary light burning in the church. +Here, also, as well as in the garden and in the woods, her heavenly +voices spoke to her and told her what she must do for her king and +her country. She was not afraid or ashamed, though she lived in +so small a house. Here in this very room she braided her hair and +put on her red dress, and set forth on foot for her visit to Robert +de Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs. He was a rough man and at first he +received her roughly. But at last she convinced him. He gave her +a horse and arms and sent her to the king. She saved France." + +At the rustic inn Pierre ate thick slices of dark bread and drank +a stoup of thin red wine at noon. He sat at a bare table in the +corner of the room. Behind him, at a table covered with a white +cloth, two captains on furlough had already made their breakfast. +They also were pilgrims, drawn to Domremy by the love of Jeanne +d'Arc. They talked of nothing else but of her. Yet their points of +view were absolutely different. + +One of them, the younger, was short and swarthy, a Savoyard, the +son of an Italian doctor at St. Jean de Maurienne. He was a sceptic; +he believed in Jeanne, but not in the legends about her. + +"I tell you," said he eagerly, "she was one of the greatest among +women. But all that about her 'voices' was illusion. The priests +suggested it. She had hallucinations. Remember her age when they +began--just thirteen. She was clever and strong; doubtless she was +pretty; certainly she was very courageous. She was only a girl. +But she had a big, brave idea which possessed her--the liberation +of her country. Pure? Yes. I am sure she was virtuous. Otherwise +the troops would not have followed and obeyed her as they did. +Soldiers are very quick about those things. They recognize and respect +an honest woman. Several men were in love with her, I think. But +she was _une nature froide._ The only thing that moved her +was her big, brave idea--to save France. The Maid was a mother, but +not of a mortal child. Her offspring was the patriotism of France." + +The other captain was a man of middle age, from Lyons, the son of +an architect. He was tall and pale and his large brown eyes had +the tranquillity of a devout faith in them. He argued with quiet +tenacity for his convictions. + +"You are right to believe in her," said he, "but I think you are +mistaken to deny her 'voices.' They were as real as anything in +her life. You credit her when she says that she was born here, that +she went to Chinon and saw the king, that delivered Orleans. Why +not credit her when she says she heard God and the saints speaking +to her? The proof of it was in what she did. Have you read the story +of her trial? How clear and steady her answers were! The judges +could not shake her. Yet at any moment she could have saved her +life by denying the 'voices.' It was because she knew, because +she was sure, that she could not deny. Her vision was a part of +her real life. She was the mother of French patriotism--yes. But +she was also the daughter of true faith. That was her power." + +"Well," said the younger man, "she sacrificed herself and she +saved France. That was the great thing." + +"Yes," said the elder man, stretching his hand across the table +to clasp the hand of his companion, "there is nothing greater than +that. If we do that, God will forgive us all." + +They put on their caps to go. Pierre rose and stood at attention. +They returned his salute with a friendly smile and passed out. + +After a few moments he finished his bread and wine, paid his score, +and followed them. He watched them going down the village street +toward the railway station. Then he turned and walked slowly back +to the spring in the dell. + +The afternoon was hot, in spite of the steady breeze which came out +of the north. The air felt as if it had passed through a furnace. +The low, continuous thunder of the guns rolled up from Verdun, +with now and then a sharper clap from St. Mihiel. + +Pierre was very tired. His head was heavy, his heart troubled. He +lay down among the ferns, looking idly at the foxglove spires above +him and turning over in his mind the things he had heard and seen +at Domremy. Presently he fell into a profound sleep. + +How long it was he could not tell, but suddenly he became aware +of some one near him. He sprang up. A girl was standing beside the +spring. + +She wore a bright-red dress and her feet were bare. Her black hair +hung down her back. Her eyes were the color of a topaz. Her form was +tall and straight. She carried a distaff under her arm and looked +as if she had just come from following the sheep. + +"Good day, shepherdess," said Pierre. Then a strange thought struck +him, and he fell on his knees. "Pardon, lady," he stammered. +"Forgive my rudeness. You are of the high society of heaven, a +saint. You are called Jeanne d'Arc?" + +She nodded and smiled. "That is my name," said she. "Sometimes +they call me _La Pucelle_, or the Maid of France. But you were +right, I am a shepherdess, too. I have kept my father's sheep in +the fields down there, and spun from the distaff while I watched +them. I know how to sew and spin as well as any girl in the Barrois +or Lorraine. Will you not stand up and talk with me?" + +Pierre rose, still abashed and confused. He did not quite understand +how to take this strange experience--too simple for a heavenly +apparition, too real for a common dream. "Well, then," said he, "if +you are a shepherdess, why are you here? There are no sheep here." + +"But yes. You are one of mine. I have come here to seek you." + +"Do you know me, then? How can I be one of yours?" + +"Because you are a soldier of France and you are in trouble." + +Pierre's head drooped. "A broken soldier," he muttered, "not fit +to speak to you. I am running away because I am afraid of fear." + +She threw back her head and laughed. "You speak very bad French. +There is no such thing as being afraid of fear. For if you are +afraid of it, you hate it. If you hate it, you will have nothing +to do with it. And if you have nothing to do with it, it cannot +touch you; it is nothing." + +"But for you, a saint, it is easy to say that. You had no fear when +you fought. You knew you would not be killed." + +"I was no more sure of that than the other soldiers. Besides, when +they bound me to the stake at Rouen and kindled the fire around me +I knew very well that I should be killed. But there was no fear in +it. Only peace." + +"Ah, you were strong, a warrior born. You were not wounded and +broken." + +"Four times I was wounded," she answered gravely. "At Orleans a +bolt went through my right shoulder. At Paris a lance tore my thigh. +I never saw the blood of Frenchmen flow without feeling my heart +stand still. I was not a warrior born. I knew not how to ride or +fight. But I did it. What we must needs do that we can do. Soldier, +do not look on the ground. Look up." + +Then a strange thing took place before his eyes. A wondrous +radiance, a mist of light, enveloped and hid the shepherdess. When +it melted she was clad in shining armor, sitting on a white horse, +and lifting a bare sword in her left hand. + +"God commands you," she cried. "It is for France. Be of good cheer. +Do not retreat. The fort will soon be yours!" + +How should Pierre know that this was the cry with which the Maid +had rallied her broken men at Orleans when the fort of _Les +Tourelles_ fell? What he did know was that something seemed to +spring up within him to answer that call. He felt that he would +rather die than desert such a leader. + +The figure on the horse turned away as if to go. + +"Do not leave me," he cried, stretching out his hands to her. "Stay +with me. I will obey you joyfully." + +She turned again and looked at him very earnestly. Her eyes shone +deep into his heart. "Here I cannot stay," answered a low, sweet, +womanly voice. "It is late, and my other children need me." + +"But forgiveness? Can you give that to me--a coward?" + +"You are no coward. Your only fault was to doubt a brave man." + +"And my wife? May I go back and tell her?" + +"No, surely. Would you make her hear slander of the man she loves? +Be what she believes you and she will be satisfied." + +"And the absolution, the word of peace? Will you speak that to me?" + +Her eyes shone more clearly; the voice sounded sweeter and steadier +than ever. "After the penance comes the absolution. You will find +peace only at the lance's point. Son of France, go, go, go! I will +help you. Go hardily to Verdun." + +Pierre sprang forward after the receding figure, tried to clasp +the knee, the foot of the Maid. As he fell to the ground something +sharp pierced his hand. It must be her spur, thought he. + +Then he was aware that his eyes were shut. He opened them and looked +at his hand carefully. There was only a scratch on it, and a tiny +drop of blood. He had torn it on the thorns of the wild gooseberry-bushes. + +His head lay close to the clear pool of the spring. He buried his +face in it and drank deep. Then he sprang up, shaking the drops +from his mustache, found his cap and pistol, and hurried up the +glen toward the old Roman road. + +"No more of that damned foolishness about Switzerland," he said, +aloud. "I belong to France. I am going with the other boys to save +her. I was born for that." He took off his cap and stood still for +a moment. He spoke as if he were taking an oath. "By Jeanne d'Arc!" + + + + +IV. THE VICTORIOUS PENANCE + + +It never occurred to Pierre Duval, as he trudged those long kilometres +toward the front, that he was doing a penance. + +The joy of a mind made up is a potent cordial. + +The greetings of comrades on the road put gladness into his heart +and strength into his legs. + +It was a hot and dusty journey, and a sober one. But it was not +a sad one. He was going toward that for which he was born. He was +doing that which France asked of him, that which God told him to +do. Josephine would be glad and proud of him. He would never be +ashamed to meet her eyes. As he went, alone or in company with +others, he whistled and sang a bit. He thought of _"L'Alouette"_ +a good deal. But not too much. He thought also of the forts of +Douaumont and Vaux. + +_"Dame!"_ he cried to himself. "If I could help to win them +back again! That would be fine! How sick that would make those +cursed boches and their knock-kneed Crown Prince!" + +At the little village of the headquarters behind Verdun he found +many old friends and companions. They greeted him with cheerful +irony. + +"Behold the prodigal! You took your time about coming back, didn't +you? Was the hospital to your taste, the nurses pretty? How is the +wife? Any more children? How goes it, old man?" + +"No more children yet," he answered, grinning; "but all goes well. +I have come back from a far country, but I find the pigs are still +grunting. What have you done to our old cook?" + +"Nothing at all," was the joyous reply. "He tried to swim in his +own soup and he was drowned." + +When Pierre reported to the officer of the day, that busy functionary +consulted the record. + +"You are a day ahead of your time, Pierre Duval," he said, frowning +slightly. + +"Yes, sir," answered the soldier. "It costs less to be a day ahead +than a day too late." + +"That is well," said the officer, smiling in his red beard. "You +will report to-morrow to your regiment at the citadel. You have a +new colonel, but the regiment is busy in the old way." + +As Pierre saluted and turned to go out his eye caught the look +of a general officer who stood near, watching. He was a square, +alert, vigorous man, his face bronzed by the suns of many African +campaigns, his eyes full of intelligence, humor, and courage. It +was Guillaumat, the new commander of the Army of Verdun. + +"You are prompt, my son," said he pleasantly, "but you must +remember not to be in a hurry. You have been in hospital. Are you +well again? Nothing broken?" + +"Something was broken, my General," responded the soldier gravely, +"but it is mended." + +"Good!" said the general. "Now for the front, to beat the Germans +at their own game. We shall get them. It may be long, but we shall +get them!" + +That was the autumn of the offensive of 1916, by which the French +retook, in ten days, what it had cost the Germans many months to +gain. + +Pierre was there in that glorious charge at the end of October which +carried the heights of Douaumont and took six thousand prisoners. +He was there at the recapture of the Fort de Vaux which the Germans +evacuated in the first week of November. In the last rush up the +slope, where he had fought long ago, a stray shell, an inscrutable +messenger of fate, coming from far away, no one knows whence, caught +him and ripped him horribly across the body. + +It was a desperate mass of wounds. But the men of his squad loved +their corporal. He still breathed. They saw to it that he was carried +back to the little transit hospital just behind the Fort de Souville. + +It was a rude hut of logs, covered with sand-bags, on the slope +of the hill. The ruined woods around it were still falling to the +crash of far-thrown shells. In the close, dim shelter of the inner +room Pierre came to himself. + +He looked up into the face of Father Courcy. A light of recognition +and gratitude flickered in his eyes. It was like finding an old +friend in the dark. + +"Welcome!--But the fort?" he gasped. + +"It is ours," said the priest. + +Something like a smile passed over the face of Pierre. He could +not speak for a long time. The blood in his throat choked him. At +last he whispered: + +"Tell Josephine--love." + +Father Courcy bowed his head and took Pierre's hand. "Surely," he +said. "But now, my dear son Pierre, I must prepare you--" + +The struggling voice from the cot broke in, whispering slowly, +with long intervals: "Not necessary.... I know already.... The +penance. ... France.... Jeanned'Arc.... It is done." + +A few drops of blood gushed from the corner of his mouth. The +look of peace that often comes to those who die of gunshot wounds +settled on his face. His eyes grew still as the priest laid the +sacred wafer on his lips. The broken soldier was made whole. + + + + + +THE HEARING EAR + + +There were three American boys from the region of Philadelphia +in the dugout, "Somewhere in France"; and they found it a snug +habitation, considering the circumstances. + +The central heating system--a round sheet-iron stove, little larger +than a "topper" hat--sent out incredible quantities of acrid smoke +at such times as the rusty stovepipe refused to draw. But on cold +nights and frosty mornings the refractory thing was a distinct +consolation. The ceiling of the apartment lacked finish. When +wet it dropped mud; when dry, dust. But it had the merit of being +twenty feet thick--enough to stop any German shell except a "Jack +Johnson" full of high explosive. The beds were elegantly excavated +in the wall, and by a slight forward inclination of the body +you could use them as _fauteuils_. The rats approved of them +highly. + +There were two flights of ladder-stairs leading down from the trench +into the dugout, and the holes at the top which served as vestibules +were three or four yards apart. It was a comfort to think of this +architectural design; for if the explosion of a big shell blocked +up one of the entrances, the other would probably remain open, and +you would not be caught in a trap with the other rats. + +The main ornament of the _salon_ was a neat but not gaudy +biscuit-box. The top of it was a centre-table, illuminated by a +single, guttering candle; the interior was a "combination" wardrobe +and sideboard. Around this simple but satisfying piece of furniture +the three transient tenants of the dugout had just played a game +of dummy bridge, and now sat smoking and bickering as peacefully +as if they were in a college club-room in America. The night on +the front was what the French call _"relativement calme."_ +Sporadic explosions above punctuated but did not interrupt the +debate, which eddied about the high theme of Education--with a +capital "E"--and the particular point of dispute was the study of +languages. + +"Everything is going to change after the war," said Phipps-Herrick, +a big Harvard man from Bryn Mawr and a member of the Unsocial +Socialists' Club. "We are going to make a new world. Must have a +new education. Sweep away all the old stuff--languages, grammar, +literature, philosophy, history, and all that. Put in something modern +and practical. Montessori system for the little kids. Vocational +training for the bigger ones. Teach them to make a living. Then +organize them politically and economically. You can do what you +like, then, with England, France, and America together. Germany +will be shut out. Why study German? From a practical point of view, +I ask you, why?" + +"Didn't you take it at Harvard?" sarcastically drawled Rosenlaube, +a Princeton man from Rittenhouse Square. (His grandfather was born +at Frankfort-on-the-Main, but his mother was a Biddle, and he had +penetrated about an inch into the American diplomatic service when +the war summoned him to a more serious duty.) "I understood that +all you Harvard men were strong on modern languages, especially +German." + +Phipps-Herrick grunted. + +"Certainly I took it. It was supposed to be a soft-snap course. +What do you think we go to Harvard for? But that little beast, +Professor von Buch, gave me a cold forty-minus on examination. So +I dropped it, and thank God I've forgotten the little I ever knew +of German! It will be absolutely useless in the new world." + +"Right you are," said Rosenlaube. "My grandfather used to speak +it when he was angry--a sloppy, slushy language, extremely ugly. +At Princeton, you know, we stand by the classics, Latin and Greek, +the real thing in languages. You ought to hear Dean Andy West talk +about that. Of course a fellow forgets his Virgil and his Homer when +he gets out in the world. But, then, he's had the benefit of them; +they've given him real culture and literature. There's nothing +outside of the classics, except perhaps a few things in French +and Italian. Thank God I never studied German!" + +The third man, who had kept silence up to this point, now gently +butted in. It was little Phil Mitchell, of Overbrook, a University +of Pennsylvania man, who had been stopped in his junior year by +a financial catastrophe in the family, and had gone out to Idaho +to earn his living as third assistant bookkeeper in a big mining +concern. He took a few real books with him, besides those that +he was to "keep." Double entry was his business; reading, his +recreation; thinking, his vocation. From all this the great war +called him as with a trumpet. + +"Look here, you fellows," he said quietly, "in spite of this war +and all the rest of it, there are some good things in German." + +"What," they cried, "you, a fire-eater, stand up for the Kaiser +and his language? Damn him!" + +"With all my heart," assented Mitchell. "But the language isn't his. +It existed a long while before he was born. It isn't very pretty, +I'll admit. But there are lots of fine things in it. Kant and Lessing, +Goethe and Schiller and Heine--they all loved liberty and made it +shine out in their work. Do you mean to say that I must give them +up and throw my German overboard because these modern Potsdammers +have acted like brutes?" + +"Yes," cried Phipps-Herrick and Rosenlaube, nodding at each other, +"that's what we mean, and that's what America means. The German +language must go!" + +"Look here," said Phipps-Herrick, "you admit that modern education +must be useful? Well, there won't be any more use for German, because +we are going to shut Germany out of the international trades-union. +She has betrayed the principles of the new era. We are going to +boycott her." + +"Won't that be rather difficult?" queried Mitchell, shaking his +head. "Seventy or eighty million people--hard to shut them out of +the world, eh?" + +"Nonsense, dear Phil," drawled Rosenlaube; "it will be easy enough. +But I don't agree with Phipps-Herrick about the reason or method. +We are going to have a new era after the war. But it will not +be a utilitarian age. It will be a return to beauty and form and +culture--not with a 'k.' First of all, we are going to kill a great +many Germans. Then we are going to Berlin to knock down all the +ugly statues in the _Sieges-Allee_ and smash the parvenu German +Empire. Then we shall have a new age on classic lines. People will +still use French and English and Italian because there is some beauty +in those languages. But nobody outside of Germany will speak or +read German. It is a barbarous tongue--shapeless and hideous--used +by barbarians who gobble and snort when they talk. Sorry for Kant +and Goethe and Heine and all that crowd, but their time is up; +they've got to go out with their beastly language!" + +"Yes," said Phipps-Herrick, "out with them, bag and baggage. Think +what the German spies and propagandists have done in America. +Schools full of pacifist and pro-German teachers; text-books full +of praise of the German Empire and the Hohenzollern Highbinders; +newspapers full of treason, printed in the German language. Why, +it's only a piece of self-defense to clean it all out, root and +branch. No more German taught or spoken, printed or read, in the +United States. Forget it! Twenty-three for the Hun language!" + +"Noble," gently murmured Mitchell, shaking his head again; "very +noble! But not very easy and perhaps not entirely wise. Why should I +throw away something that has been useful to me, and may be again? +Why forget the little German that I know and burn my Goethe and +refuse to listen to Beethoven's music? I won't do it, that's all." + +"Our little friend is a concealed Kaiserite," said Rosenlaube. "He +wants to Germanize America." + +"No, Rosy," said Mitchell, thoughtfully running his hand over some +nicks on the butt of his rifle in the corner; "you know I'm not a +Kaiserite of any kind. I've got seven scored against him already, +and I'm going to get some more. But the language question seems to +me different. Cut out the German newspapers and the German schools +in America by all means! No more teaching of the primary branches +in any language but English! Make it absolutely necessary for +everybody in the U. S. A. to learn the language of the country the +first thing. Then in the high schools and universities let German +be studied like any other foreign language, by those who want +it--chemists, and philosophers, and historians, and electrical +engineers, and so on. We could censor the text-books and keep out +all complimentary allusions to the Hohenzollern family." + +"Oh, shut up, Phil," growled Phipps-Herrick. "You're too soft, +you old easy-mark! You don't go half far enough. We may not decide +to exterminate the Hun race in Europe. But we have decided to +exterminate their language in America." + +His hand was groping inside the biscuit-box. He pulled out a little +ditty-bag and carefully extracted a bit of newspaper. + +"Listen to this, you fellows. This is from the National Obscurity +Society. You know a chap with a German name is president of it, +but he's a real patriot, hundred per cent, not fifty-fifty, Philly. +'The following States have abolished the teaching of German: +Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, +Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, +Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, +Montana, California, and Oregon.' _Abolished_, mind you! What +do you think of that?" + +"Most excellent Phippick," nodded Rosenlaube, "I opine, as Horace +said to Cicero, 'That's the stuff,' or words to that effect. What +saith the senator from Mitchellville?" + +"Noble," grinned Phil, "unmistakably noble! Those Obscurity fellows +are a fiery lot. It reminds me that during the late war with Spain, +when I was a little, tiny boy, but brimful of ferocity, I refused +to eat my favorite dessert because it was called _Spanish_ +cream. I felt sure at the time that my heroic conduct was of distinct +assistance to Dewey in the battle of Manila Bay." + +"Well, then," said Phipps-Herrick, grabbing him by the shoulders +and shaking him good-humoredly, "you murderous little pacifist +with seven nicks on your gun, will you give up your German? Will +you forget it?" + +Mitchell chuckled and shook his head, + +"As far as requisite under military orders. But no further, not by +a--" + +A pair of muddy boots was heard and seen descending one of +the ladders, followed by the manly and still rather neat form of +Lieutenant Barker Bunn, a Cornell man from West Philadelphia. The +three men sprang to their feet and saluted smartly, for the lieutenant +was very stiff about all the preliminary forms. + +"Too loud talking here," he said gruffly. "I heard you before I +came down. Who is here? Oh, I see, Sergeant Phipps-Herrick, Privates +Rosenlaube and Mitchell. It's your turn to go out on listening +post to-night, sergeant. Twelve sharp, stay three hours, go as far +as you can, come back and report, take Mitchell or Rosenlaube with +you. Captain's orders." + +The sergeant saluted again, and the two men looked at each other. + +"Why not both of us, sir?" said Mitchell. + +The lieutenant regarded him with some surprise. Listening post is +not a detail passionately desired by the men. It is always dirty, +frequently dangerous, generally obscure, and often fatal. Hence +there is no keen competition for it. + +"Two is the usual number for a listening post," said Barker Bunn +thoughtfully. "But there is no regulation about it, and the captain +did not specify any number. Well, yes, I suppose you can all three +go, if you are set on it. In fact, I give the order to that effect." + +"Thank you, sir," said Rosenlaube and Mitchell. Phipps-Herrick, +feeling that the strict etiquette of the preliminaries had been +fully observed and the time to be human had come, held out a box +of "Fierce Fairies." + +"Have a cigarette, Bunn, and take a chair, do. Time for a little +talk this quiet night? Tell us what's doing up above." + +"Nothing particular," said Barker Bunn, lighting and relaxing. "But +the old man has a hunch that the Fritzies are grubbing a mine--a +corker--to get our goat. Hence this business of ears forward. +The old man thinks the Fritzies have a strong grouch against this +little alley, and since they couldn't take it top side last week +they're going to try to bust it out bottom side with a big bang some +day soon. Maybe so--maybe just greens--but, anyway, you've got to +go on the Q. T. with this job--no noise, don't even whisper unless +you have to; just listen for all you're worth. P'r'aps you'll hear +that little tap-tap-tapping that tells where Fritzie Mole is at +work. Then if you come back and tell the old man where it is, he'll +give you all the cigarettes you want. But say, do you want me to +give you a pointer on the way to go, the method of procedure, as +the old man would call it?" + +They agreed that they were thirsting for information and instruction. + +"Well, it's this way," continued Barker Bunn. "You know I had a +bit of experience in listening post while I was with the Canadians +down around 'Wipers'; and I noticed that most of the troubles +came from a bad method of procedure. Fellows went out any old way; +followed each other in the dark, and then hunted for each other +and came to grief; all those kind of silly fumbles. Now, what you +need is _formation_--see? Must have some sort of formation +for advance. Must keep in touch. For two men a tandem is right. For +three men, what you want is a spike-team--middle man crawls ahead, +other men follow on each side just near enough to touch his left +heel with right hand and right heel with left hand--a triangle, +see? Keep touching once every thirty seconds. If you miss it, +leader crawls back, side men crawl in, sure to meet, nobody gets +lost. Go as far _as_ you can, then spread out like a fan, fold +together _when_ you can, come back _if_ you can--that's +the way to cover the most possible ground on a listening post. Do +you get me?" + +"We get you," they nodded. "It's a wonderful scheme." And Rosenlaube +added in his most impressive literary manner: "Plato, it _must_ +be so, thou reasonest well." + +"But tell me," said the lieutenant, "what were you fellows chattering +about so loud when I came down?" + +So they told him, and, according to the habit of college boys, +they skirmished over the ground of debate again, and Barker Bunn +vigorously supported the majority opinion, and Mitchell was left +in a hopeless minority of one, clinging obstinately to his faith +that there had been, and still might be, some use for the German +language. + +Midnight came, and with it the return of the lieutenant's official +manner. He saw the trio slide over the top, one by one, vanishing +in the starless dark. "Good luck going and coming," he whispered; +and it sounded almost like an unofficial prayer. + +In single file they crept through the prepared opening in the +barbed-wire entanglement, and so out into No Man's Land, where they +took up their spike-team formation. Phipps-Herrick was the leader, +the other men were the wheelers. They had agreed on a code of +silent signals: One kick with the heel or one pinch with the hand +meant "stop"; two meant "back"; three meant "get together." They +carried no rifles, because the rifle is an awkward tool for a +noiseless crawler to lug. But each man had a big trench-knife and +a pair of automatic pistols, with plenty of ammunition. + +The space between the two front lines of barbed wire in this region +was not more than four or five hundred yards. In the murk of that +unstarred, drizzling night, where every inch must be felt out, it +seemed like a vast, horrible territory. There was nothing monotonous +about it but the blackness of darkness. To the touch it was a +_paysage accidente_, a landscape full of surprises. Dead bodies +were sprinkled over it. It was pockmarked with small shell-holes +and pitted with large craters, many of them full of water, all slimy +with mud. Phipps-Herrick nearly slipped into one of the deepest, but +a lively kick warned his followers of the danger, and they pulled +him back by the heels. + +Now and then a star-shell looped across the spongy sky, casting a +lurid illumination over the ghastly field. When the three travellers +caught the soft swish of its ascent, they "froze"--motionless as +a shamming 'possum--mimicking death among the dead. + +It was a long, slow, silent, revolting crawl. Sounds which did +not concern them were plenty--distant cannonade, shells exploding +here and there, scattered rifle-shots. All these they unconsciously +eliminated, listening for something else, ears pressed to the ground +wherever they could find a comparatively dry spot. From their +point of hearing the night was still as the grave--no subterranean +tapping and scraping could they hear anywhere under the sea of +mud. + +Once Rosenlaube caught a faint metallic sound, and signalled +through Phipps-Herrick's left leg to Mitchell's left arm, "Stop!" +All three listened tensely. They crawled toward the faint noise. +It was made by a loose end of wire swaying in the night-wind and +tapping on a broken helmet. + +They were getting close to the German barbed wire. The leader had +swung around to the west, following what he judged to be the line +of the front trench, perhaps forty yards away. He was determined +to hear something before he went back. And he did! + +Just as he had made up his mind to call up the other fellows for the +final spreadout in fan formation, his groping right hand touched +something round and smooth and hard. It seemed to be made fast to +a string or wire, but he pulled it toward him and gave the "stop" +signal to his followers. + +The thing he had picked up was a telephone receiver. How it came +to be there he did not know. Perhaps a German listening post had +carried it out last night, in order to receive directions from the +trench; perhaps the mining party--man killed, receiver dropped, +wire connection not cut, or tangled up with other wires--who can +tell? One thing is sure--here is the receiver, faintly buzzing. +Phipps-Herrick joyfully puts it to his ear. He hears a voice and +words, but it is all gibberish to him. With a look of desperation +on his face he gives the "get together" signal. + +Rosenlaube crawls up first and takes hold of the cylinder, puts it +to his ear. He hears the sound, but it says absolutely nothing to +him. It is like being at the door of the secret of the universe +and unable to get over the threshold. + +Then comes Mitchell, slowly, a little lame, and almost "all in." +Phipps-Herrick thrusts the receiver into his hand. As he listens +a beatific expression spreads over his face. It lasts a long time, +and then he lays down the cylinder with a sigh. + +The three heads are close together, and Mitchell whispers under +his breath: + +"Got 'em--got the whole thing--line of mine changed--raiders coming +out now--twelve men--rough on us, but if we can get back to our +alley we've got 'em! Crawl home quick." + +[Illustration with caption: "I'm going to carry you in, spite of +hell"] + +They crawled together in a bunch, formation ignored. Presently +steps sounded near them. A swift light swept the hole where they +crouched, a volley of rifle-shots crashed into it. The Americans +answered with their pistols, and saw three or four of the dark +forms on the edge of the hole topple over. The rest disappeared. +But Rosenlaube had a rifle-ball through his right hip and another +through his shoulder. Mitchell and Phipps-Herrick started to carry +him. + +"Drop it," he whispered. "I'm safe here till dawn--you get home, +quick! Specially Phil. He's the one that counts. Cut away, boys!" + +Meantime the American trench had opened fire and the German trench +answered. The still night broke into a tempest of noise. A bullet +or a bit of shell caught Mitchell in the knee and crumpled him up. +Phipps-Herrick lifted him on his back and stood up. + +"Come on," he said, "you little cuss. You're the only one that has +the stuff we went out after. I'm going to carry you in, 'spite of +hell." + +And he did it. + +Mitchell told the full story of the change in the direction of the +German mine and the plan of the next assault, as he had heard it +through that lost receiver. The captain said it was information +of the highest value. It counted up to a couple of hundred German +prisoners and three machine-guns in the next two days. + +Rosenlaube, still alive, was brought in just before daybreak by a +volunteer rescue-party under the guidance of Phipps-Herrick. All +three were cited in the despatches. Phipps-Herrick in due time +received the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry on the field. +But Mitchell had the surplus satisfaction of the hearing ear. + +"Look here, old man," Rosenlaube said to him as they lay side by +side in the hospital, "'member our talk in the dugout just before +our big night? Well, I allow there was something in what you +said. There are times when it is a good thing to know a bit of +that barbarous German language. And you never can tell when one of +those times may hit you." + + + + + + +SKETCHES OF QUEBEC + + +If you love a certain country, for its natural beauty, or for the +friends you have made there, or for the happy days you have passed +within its borders, you are troubled and distressed when that +country comes under criticism, suspicion, and reproach. + +It is just as it would be if a woman who had been very kind +to you and had done you a great deal of good were accused of some +unworthiness. You would refuse to believe it. You would insist on +understanding before you pronounced judgment. Memories would ask +to be heard. + +That is what I feel in regard to French Canada, the province of +Quebec, where I have had so many joyful times, and found so many +true comrades among the _voyageurs_, the _habitants_, and +the _coureurs de bois._ + +People are saying now that Quebec is not loyal, not brave, not +patriotic in this war for freedom and humanity. + +Even if the accusation were true, of course it would not spoil the +big woods, the rushing rivers, the sparkling lakes, the friendly +mountains of French Canada. But all the same, it hurts me to hear +such a charge against my friends of the forest. + +Do you mean to tell me that Francois and Ferdinand and Louis and +Jean and Eugene and Iside are not true men? Do you mean to tell me +that these lumbermen who steer big logs down steep places, these +trappers who brave the death-cold grip of Winter, these canoe-men +who shout for joy as they run the foaming rapids,--do you mean to +tell me that they have no courage? + +I am not ready to credit that. I want to hear what they have to say +for themselves. And in listening for that testimony certain little +remembrances come to me--not an argument--only a few sketches on +the wall. Here they are. Take them for what they are worth. + +I + +LA GRANDE DECHARGE + +September, 1894 + +In one of the long stillwaters of the mighty stream that rushes +from _Lac Saint Jean_ to make the Saguenay--below the _Ile +Maligne_ and above the cataract of Chicoutimi--two birch-bark +canoes are floating quietly, descending with rhythmic strokes of +the paddle, through the luminous northern twilight. + +The chief guide, Jean Morel, is a _coureur de bois_ of the old +type--broad-shouldered, red-bearded, a fearless canoeman, a good +hunter and fisherman--simple of speech and deep of heart: a good +man to trust in the rapids. + +"Tell me, Jean," I ask in the comfortable leisure of our voyage +which conduces to pipe-smoking and conversation, "tell me, are you +a Frenchman or an Englishman?" + +"Not the one, nor the other," answers Jean in his old-fashioned +_patois._ "M'sieu' knows I am French-Canadian." + +A remarkable answer, when you come to think of it; for it claims +a nationality which has never existed, and is not likely to exist, +except in a dream. + +"Well, then," I say, following my impulse of psychological curiosity, +of which Jean is sublimely ignorant, "suppose a war should come +between France and England. On which side would you fight?" + +Jean knocks the dottle out of his pipe, refills and relights. Then, +between the even strokes of his paddle, he makes this extraordinary +reply: + +_"M'sieu, I suppose my body would march under the flag of England. +But my heart would march under the flag of France."_ + +Good old Jean Morel! You had no premonition of this glorious war +in which the Tricolor and the Union Jack would advance together +against the ravening black eagle of Germany, and the Stars and +Stripes would join them. + +How should you know anything about it? Your log cabin was your +capitol. Your little family was your council of state. Even the +rest of us, proud of our university culture, were too blind, in +those late Victorian days, to see the looming menace of Prussian +paganism and the conquer-lust of the Hohenzollerns, which has +plunged the whole world in war. + +II + +OXFORD + +February, 1917 + +The "Schools" building, though modern, is one of the stateliest +on the Main Street. Here, in old peaceful times, the university +examinations used to be held. Now it is transformed into a hospital +for the wounded men from the fighting front of freedom. + +Sir William Osier, Canadian, and world-renowned physician, is my +guide, an old friend in Baltimore, now Regius Professor of Medicine +in Oxford. + +"Come," he says, "I want you to see an example of the Carrel +treatment of wounds." + +The patient is sitting up in bed--a fine young fellow about twenty +years old. A shrapnel-shell, somewhere in France, passed over his +head and burst just behind him. His bare back is a mass of scars. +The healing fluid is being pumped in through the shattered elbow +of his right arm, not yet out of danger. + +"Does it hurt," I ask. + +"Not much," he answers, trying to smile, "at least not too much, +M'sieu'." + +The accent of French Canada is unmistakable. I talk to him in his +own dialect. + +"What part of Quebec do you come from?" + +"From _Trois Rivieres,_ M'sieu', or rather from a country back +of that, the Saint Maurice River." + +"I know it well--often hunted there. But what made you go to the +war?" + +"I heard that England fought to save France from the damned Germans. +That was enough, M'sieu', to make me march. Besides, I always liked +to fight." + +"What did you do before you became a soldier?" + +"I was a lumberjack." + +(What he really said was, _"J'allais en chantier,"_ "I went +in the shanty." If he had spoken in classic French he would have +said, _"J'etais bucheron."_ How it brought back the smell of +the big spruce forest to hear that word _chantier_, in Oxford!) + +[Illustration: "I was a lumberjack."] + +"Well, then, I suppose you will return to the wood-cutting again, +when this war is over." + +"But no, M'sieu', how can I, with this good-for-nothing arm? I +shall never be capable of swinging the axe again." + +"But you could be the cook, perfectly. And you know the cook gets +the best pay in the whole shanty." + +His face lights up a little. + +"Truly," he replies; "I never thought of that, but it is true. I +have seen a bit of cooking at the front and learned some things. +I might take up that end of the job. _But anyway, Im glad I went +to the war."_ + +So we say good-by--_"bonne chance!"_ + +Since that day the good physician who guided me through the hospital +has borne without a murmur the greatest of all sacrifices--the loss +of his only son, a brave and lovely boy, killed in action against +the thievish, brutal German hordes. + +III + +SAINTE MARGUERITE August, 1917 + +The wild little river _Sainte Marguerite_ runs joyously among +the mountains and the green woods, back of the Saguenay, singing +the same old song of liberty and obedience to law, as if the world +had never been vexed and tortured by the madness of war-lords. + +A tired man who has a brief furlough from active service is lucky +if he can spend it among the big trees and beside a flowing stream. +The trees are ministers of peace. The stream is full of courage +and adventure as it rushes toward the big sea. + +We are coming back to camp from the morning's fishing, with a +brace of good salmon in the canoe. + +"Tell me, Iside," I ask of the wiry little bowman, the best hunter +and fisher on the river, "why is it that you are not at the war?" + +"But, M'sieu', I am too old. A father of family--almost a +grandfather--the war is not for men of that age. Besides, it does +not concern us here in Quebec." + +"Why not? It concerns the whole world. Who told you that it does +not concern you?" + +"The priest at our village of _Sacre Coeur,_ M'sieu'. He says +that it is only right and needful for a good Christian to fight +in defense of his home and his church. Let those Germans attack us +here, _chez nous_, and you shall see how the men of _Sacre +Coeur_ will stand up and fight." + +It was an amazing revelation of a state of mind, absolutely simple, +perfectly sincere, and strictly imprisoned by the limitations of +its only recognized teacher. + +"But suppose, Iside, that England and France should be beaten down +by Germany, over there. What would happen to French Canada? Do +you think you could stand alone then, to defend your home and your +church? Are you big enough, you French-Canadians?" + +"M'sieu', I have never thought of that. Perhaps we have more than +a million people--many of them children, for you understand we +French-Canadians have large families--but of course the children +could not fight. Still, we should not like to have them subject to +a German Emperor. We would fight against that, if the war came to +us here on our own soil." + +"But don't you see that the only way to keep it from coming +to you on your own soil is to fight against it over there? Hasn't +the English Government given you all your liberties, for home and +church?" + +"Yes, M'sieu', especially since Sir Wilfred Laurier. Ah, that is +a great man! A true French-Canadian!" + +"Well, then, you know that he is against Germany. You know he +believes the freedom of Canada depends on the defeat of Germany, +over there, on the other side of the sea. You would not like a +German Canada, would you?" + +"Not at all, M'sieu', that would be intolerable. But I have never +thought of that." + +"Well, think of it now, will you? And tell your priest to think of +it, too. He is a Christian. The things we are fighting for belong +to Christianity--justice, liberty, humanity. Tell him that, and tell +him also some of the things which the Germans did to the Christian +people in Belgium and Northern France. I will narrate them to you +later." + +"M'sieu'," says Iside, dipping his paddle deeper as we round the +sharp corner of a rock, "I shall remember all that you tell me, and +I shall tell it again to our priest. You know we have few newspapers +here. Most of us could not read them, anyway. I am not well convinced +that we yet comprehend, here in French Canada, the meaning of +this war. But we shall endeavor to comprehend it better. And when +we comprehend, we shall be ready to do our duty--you can trust +yourself to the men of _Sacre Coeur_ for that. We love peace--we +all about here _(nous autres d'icite)--but we can fight like the +devil when we know it is for a good cause--liberty, for example._ +Meanwhile would M'sieu' like to stop at the pool _'La Pinette'_ +on the way down and try a couple of casts? There was a big salmon +rising there yesterday." + +That very evening a runner comes up the river, through the woods, +to tell Iside and Eugene, who are Selectmen of the community of +_Sacre Coeur,_ that they must come down to the village for an +important meeting at ten o'clock the next morning. + +So they set off, quite as a matter of course, for their thirty-five +mile tramp through the forest in the dark. They are good citizens, +as well as good woodsmen, you understand. On the second day they +are back again at their work in the canoe. + +"Well, Iside," I ask, "how was it with the meeting yesterday? All +correct?" + +"All correct, M'sieu'. It was an affair of a new schoolhouse. We are +going to build it. All goes well. We are beginning to comprehend. +Quebec is a large corner of the world. But it is only a corner, +after all, we can see that. And those damned Germans who do such +terrible things in France, we do not love them at all, no matter what +the priest may say about Christian charity. They are Protestants, +M'sieu', is it not?" + +"Well," I answer, hiding a smile with a large puff of smoke, "some +of them call themselves Protestants and some call themselves +Catholics. But it seems to me they are all infidels, heathen--judging +by what they do. That is the real proof." + +_"C'est b'en vrai, M'sieu',_" says Iside. "It is the conduct +that shows the Christian." + +IV + +BELOW CAPE DIAMOND March, 1818 + +The famous citadel of Quebec stands on top of the steep hill that +dominates the junction of the Saint Charles River with the Saint +Lawrence. That is Cape Diamond--a natural stronghold. Indians and +French, and British, and Americans have fought for that coign of +vantage. For a century and a half the Union Jack has floated there, +and under its fair protection the Province of Quebec, keeping its +quaint old language and peasant customs, has become an important +part of the British Empire. + +The Upper Town, on the high shoulders of Cape Diamond, with +its government buildings, convents, hospitals, showy new shops, +and ancient gardens, its archiepiscopal palace, trim theological +seminary, huge castle-like hotel, and placid ramparts dominating +the _Ile d'Orleans_ with rows of antiquated, harmless cannon +around which the children play--the Upper Town belongs distinctly +to the citadel. The garrison is in evidence here. A regimental band +plays in the kiosk on Dufferin Terrace on summer evenings. There +is a good mixture of khaki in the coloring of the street crowd, +and many wounded soldiers are seen, invalided home from the front. +They are all very proud of the glorious record that Canada has made +in the battle for freedom. Most of them, it seems to me, are from +English-speaking families. But by no means all. There are many of +unmistakable French-Canadian stock; and they tell me proudly of +the notable bravery of a certain regiment which was formed early +from volunteers of their own people--hunters, woodsmen, farmers, +guides. The war does not seem very far away, up here in the region +of the citadel. + +The Lower Town, with its narrow streets, little shops, gray stone +warehouses, dingy tenements, and old-fashioned markets, is quite a +different place. It belongs to the slow rivers on whose banks it +drowses and dreams. The once prosperous lumberyards are half empty +now. The shipping along the wharfs has been dwindling for many +years. The northern winter puts a quietus on the waterside. Troops, +munitions, supplies, must go down by rail to an ice-free port. The +white river-boats are all laid up. But a way is kept open across +the river to Levis, and the sturdy, snub-nosed little ice-breaking +ferry-boats buffet back and forth almost without interruption. There +is a plenty of nothing to do, now, in the Lower Town; pipe-smoking +and heated discussion of parish politics are incessant; an inconsiderate +quantity of bad liquor is imbibed, _pour faire passer le temps._ + +Suddenly--if anything can be said to happen suddenly in Quebec--bad +news comes from the Lower Town. A riot has broken out, an insurrection +of the French-Canadians against the new military service act, an +armed resistance to the draft. Windows have been smashed, shops +looted. A mob, not very large perhaps, but extremely noisy, has +marched up the steep curve of Mountain Hill Street, into the Upper +Town. Shots have been exchanged. People have been killed. The +revolution in Quebec has begun. + +That is the disquieting rumor which comes to us, carefully spread and +magnified by those agencies which have an interest in preventing, or +at least obstructing the righteous punishment of the German criminals +in this war. Can it possibly be true? Have the French-Canadians gone +crazy, as the Irish did in 1916, under the lunatic incantations of +the Sinn-Feiners? Are they also people without a country, playing +blindly into the hands of the Prussian gang who have set out to +subjugate the world? + +No! This riot in the old city is not an expression of the spirit of +French Canada at all. It is only a shrewdly stupid trick in local +politics, planned and staged by small-minded and loud-voiced +politicians who are trying to keep their hold upon the province. +The so-called revolutionists are either imported loafers and +trouble-makers, or else they are drawn from that class of "hooligans" +who have always made a noise around the Quebec hotels at night. They +shout much: they swear abominably: but they have no real fight in +them. They can be hired and used--up to a certain point--but beyond +that they are worthless. It is a waste of money to employ them. +The trouble below Cape Diamond froths up and goes down as quickly +as the effervescence on a bottle of ginger beer. Before you can +find out what it is all about, it is all over. It has not even +touched the real French-Canadians, the men of the forests and the +farms. They are loyal by nature, and slow by temperament. You have +got to give them time, and light. + +What is happening in Quebec now? Just what ought to happen. The +draft is going forward smoothly and steadily, without resistance. +Sons of the best French-Canadian families are volunteering for the +war. Recruits from Laval University are coming in, stirred perhaps +by the knowledge that forty thousand Catholic priests in France +have entered the army which fights against the Prussian paganism. + +The petty politicians who have sought to serve their own ends +by putting forward the mad notion of secession and an independent +"Republic of Quebec" have gone to cover under a storm of ridicule +and indignation. M. Bourassa's iridescent dream of French-Canadian +nationalism has disappeared like a soap-bubble. M. Francoeur's +motion in the Quebec legislature, carrying a vague hint that the +province might withdraw from the Dominion if the other provinces +were not particularly nice to it, was snowed under by an overwhelming +vote. The patriotic and eloquent speech of the provincial Premier, +M. Gouin, was received with every sign of approval. The political +cinema has shown its latest film, and the title is evidently +_"Fidelite de Quebec."_ + +Meantime a Catholic missioner has been in the province. The visit +of Archbishop Mathieu of Saskatchewan was probably made on the +invitation, certainly with the consent, of the hierarchy of Quebec. +That intelligent and fearless preacher brought with him a clear and +ringing gospel, a call to all Christian folk to stand up together +and "resist even unto blood, striving against sin"--the sin of +the German war-lords who have plunged the world in agony to enforce +their heresy that Might makes Right. + +Such a message, at this time, must be of inestimable value to +the humble and devout people of the province, attached as they are +to their church, and looking patiently to her for guidance. The +parish priests, devoted to their lonely tasks in obscure hamlets, +may get a new and broader inspiration from it. They may have a vision +of the ashes of Louvain University, the ruin of Rheims Cathedral, +wrought by ruthless German hands. Then the church in Quebec will +measure up to the church in Belgium and in France. Then the village +cure will say to his young men: "Go! Fight! It is for the glory +of God and the good of the world. It is for the Christian religion +and the life of free Canada." + + +"Well, then," says the gentle reader, of a sociological turn of +mind, who has followed me thus far, "what have you got to say about +the big political problem of Quebec? Is a French-speaking province +a safe factor in the Dominion of Canada, in the British Empire? Why +was Quebec so late in coming into this world war against Germany?" + +Dear man, I have nothing whatever to say about what you call the +big political problem of Quebec. I told you that at the beginning. +That is a question for Canada and Great Britain to settle. The +British colonial policy has always been one of the greatest liberality +and fairness, except perhaps in that last quarter of the eighteenth +century, when the madness of a German king and his ministers in +England forced the United States to break away from her, and form +the republic which has now become her most powerful friend. + +The perpetuation of a double language within a state, an _enclave_, +undoubtedly carries with it an element of inconvenience and possibly +of danger. Yet Belgium is bilingual and Switzerland is quadrilingual. +If any tongue other than that of the central government is +to be admitted, what could be better than French--the language of +culture, which has spoken the large words, _liberte, egalite, +fraternite?_ The native dialect of French Canada is a quaint +and delightful thing--an eighteenth-century vocabulary with pepper +and salt from the speech of the woodsmen and hunters. I should be +sorry if it had to fade out. But evidently that is a question for +Canada to decide. She has been a bilingual country for a long time. +I see no reason why the experiment should not be carried on. + +Quebec has been rather slow in waking up to the meaning of this war +for world-freedom. But she has been very little slower than some +of the United States, after all. + +The Church? Well, the influence of the Church always has depended +and always must depend upon the quality of her ministers. In +France, in Belgium, they have not fallen short of their high duty. +The Archbishop of Saskatchewan, who came to Quebec, preached a +clear gospel of self-sacrifice for a righteous cause. + +But the plain people of Quebec--the _voyageurs_, the +_habitants_, my old friends in the back districts--that is +what I am thinking about. I am sure they are all right. They are +very simple, old-fashioned, childish, if you like; but there is +no pacifist or pro-German virus among them. If their parochial +politicians will let them alone, if their priests will speak to +them as prophets of the God of Righteousness, they will show their +mettle. They will prove their right to be counted among the free +peoples of the world who are willing to defend peace with arms. + +That is what I expect to find if I ever get back to my canoemen on +the _Sainte Marguerite_ again. + +SYLVANORA, July 10, 1918. + + + + + + +A CLASSIC INSTANCE + + +"Latin and Greek are dead," said Hardman, lean, eager, absolute, +a fanatic of modernity. "They have been a long while dying, and +this war has finished them. We see now that they are useless in +the modern world. Nobody is going to waste time in studying them. +Education must be direct and scientific. Train men for efficiency +and prepare them for defense. Otherwise they will have no chance +of making a living or of keeping what they make. Your classics are +musty and rusty and fusty. _Heraus mit----"_ + +He checked himself suddenly, with as near a blush as his sallow +skin could show. + +"Excuse me," he stammered; "bad habit, contracted when I was a +student at Kiel--only place where they really understood metallurgy." + +Professor John De Vries, round, rosy, white-haired, steeped in the +mellow lore of ancient history, puffed his cigar and smiled that +benignant smile with which he was accustomed joyfully to enter a +duel of wits. Many such conflicts had enlivened that low-ceilinged +book-room of his at Calvinton. + +"You are excused, my dear Hardman," he said, "especially because +you have just given us a valuable illustration of the truth that +language and the study of language have a profound influence upon +thought. The tongue which you inadvertently used belongs to the +country that bred the theory of education which you advocate. The +theory is as crude and imperfect as the German language itself. +And that is saying a great deal." + +Young Richard De Vries, the professor's favorite nephew and adopted +son, whose chief interest was athletics, but who had a very pretty +side taste for verbal bouts, was sitting with the older men before +a cheerful fire of logs in the chilly spring of 1917. He tucked +one leg comfortably underneath him and leaned forward in his chair, +lighting a fresh cigarette. He foresaw a brisk encounter, and was +delighted, as one who watches from the side-lines the opening of +a lively game. + +"Well played, sir," he ejaculated; "well played, indeed. Score one +for you, Uncle." + +"The approbation of the young is the consolation of the aged," +murmured the professor sententiously, as if it were a quotation +from Plutarch. "But let us hear what our friend Hardman has to say +about the German language and the Germanic theory of education. It +is his turn." + +"I throw you in the German language," answered Hardman, rather +tartly. "I don't profess to admire it or defend it. But nobody +can deny its utility for the things that are taught in it. You can +learn more science from half a dozen recent German books than from +a whole library of Latin and Greek. Besides, you must admit that +the Germans are great classical scholars too." + +"Rather neat," commented Dick; "you touched him there, Mr. Hardman. +Now, Uncle!" + +"I do not admit," said the professor firmly, "that the Germans are +great classical scholars. They are great students, that is all. +The difference is immense. Far be it from me to deny the value of +the patient and laborious researches of the Germans in the grammar +and syntax of the ancient languages and in archaeology. They are +painstaking to a painful degree. They gather facts as bees gather +pollen, indefatigably. But when it comes to making honey they go +dry. They cannot interpret, they can only instruct. They do not +comprehend, they only classify. Name me one recent German book of +classical interpretation to compare in sweetness and light with +Jowett's 'Dialogues of Plato' or Butcher's 'Some Aspects of the +Greek Genius' or Croiset's 'Histoire de la Litterature Grecque.' +You can't do it," he ended, with a note of triumph. + +"Of course not," replied Hardman sharply. "I never claimed to know +anything about classical literature or scholarship. My point at +the beginning--you have cleverly led the discussion away from it, +like one of your old sophists--the point I made was that Greek and +Latin are dead languages, and therefore practically worthless in +the modern world. Let us go back to that and discuss it fairly and +leave the Germans out." + +"But that, my dear fellow, is precisely what you cannot do. It +is partly because they have insisted on treating Latin and Greek +as dead that the Germans have become what they are--spectacled +barbarians, learned Huns, veneered Vandals. In older times it was +not so bad. They had some perception of the everlasting current +of life in the classics. When the Latin spirit touched them for a +while, they acquired a sense of form, they produced some literature +that was good--Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller. But it was a +brief illumination, and the darkness that followed it was deeper +than ever. Who are their foremost writers to-day? The Hauptmanns +and the Sudermanns, gropers in obscurity, violent sentimentalists, +'bigots to laxness,' Dr. Johnson would have called them. Their +world is a moral and artistic chaos agitated by spasms of hysteria. +Their work is a mass of decay touched with gleams of phosphorescence. +The Romans would have called it _immunditia_. What is your new +American word for that kind of thing, Richard? I heard you use it +the other day." + +"Punk," responded Dick promptly. "Sometimes, if it's very sickening, +we call it pink punk." + +"All right," interrupted Hardman impatiently. "Say what you like +about Hauptmann and Sudermann. They are no friends of mine. Be as +ferocious with them as you please. But you surely do not mean to +claim that the right kind of study and understanding of the classics +could have had any practical influence on the German character, or +any value in saving the German Empire from its horrible blunders." + +"Precisely that is what I do mean." + +"But how?" + +"Through the mind, _animus_, the intelligent directing spirit +which guides human conduct in all who have passed beyond the stage +of mere barbarism." + +"You exaggerate the part played by what you call the mind. Human +conduct is mainly a matter of heredity and environment. Most of it +is determined by instinct, impulse, and habit." + +"Granted, for the sake of argument. But may there not be a mental +as well as a physical inheritance, an environment of thought as +well as of bodily circumstances?" + +"Perhaps so. Yes, I suppose that is true to a certain extent." + +"A poor phrase, my dear Hardman; but let it pass. Will you admit +that there may be habits of thinking and feeling as well as habits +of doing and making things?" + +"Certainly." + +"And do you recognize a difference between bad habits and good +habits?" + +"Of course." + +"And you agree that this difference exists both in mental and +in physical affairs? For example, you would call the foreman of a +machine-shop who directed his work in accordance with the natural +laws of his material and of his steam or electric power a man of +good habits, would you not?" + +"Undoubtedly." + +"And you would not deny him this name, but would rather emphasize +it, if in addition he had the habit of paying regard to the moral +and social laws which condition the welfare and efficiency of his +workmen; for example, self-control, cheerfulness, honesty, fair +play, honor, human kindness, and so on. If he taught these things, +not only by word but by deed, you would call him an excellent +foreman, would you not?" + +"Without a question. That machine-shop would be a great success, +a model." + +"But suppose your foreman had none of these good mental and moral +habits. Suppose he was proud, overbearing, dishonest, unfair, and +cruel. Do you not believe he would have a bad influence upon his +men? Would not the shop, no matter what kind of work it turned out, +become a nest of evil and a menace to its neighbors?" + +"It surely would." + +"What, then, would you do with the foreman?" + +"I would try to teach him better. If that failed, I would discharge +him." + +"In what method and by what means would you endeavor to teach him?" + +"By all the means that I could command. By precept and by example, +by warning him of his faults and by showing him better ways, by +wholesome books and good company." + +"And if he refused to learn; if he remained obstinate; if he +mocked you and called you a hypocrite; if he claimed that his way +was the best, in fact the only way, divinely inspired, and therefore +beyond all criticism, then you would throw him out?" + +"Certainly, and quickly! I should regard him as morally insane, +and try my best to put him where he could do no more harm. But tell +me why this protracted imitation of Socrates? Where are you trying +to lead me? Do you want me to say that the German Kaiser is a very +bad foreman of his shop; that he has got it into a horrible mess +and made it despised and hated by all the other shops; that he ought +to be put out? If that is your point, I am with you in advance." + +"Right you are!" cried Dick joyously. "Can the Kaiser! We all agree +to that. And here the bout ends, with honors for both sides, and +a special prize for the Governor." + +The professor smiled, recognizing in the name more affection than +disrespect. He leaned forward in his chair, lighting a fresh cigar +with gusto. + +"Not yet," he said, "O too enthusiastic youth! Our friend here has +not yet come to the point at which I was aiming. The application of +my remarks to the Kaiser--whom I regard as a gifted paranoiac--is +altogether too personal and limited. I was thinking of something +larger and more important. Do you give me leave to develop the +idea?" + +"Fire away, sir," said Dick. + +Hardman nodded his assent. "I should like very much to hear in +what possible way you connect the misconduct of Germany, which +I admit, with your idea of the present value of classical study, +which I question." + +"In this way," said the professor earnestly. "Germany has been +living for fifty years with a closed mind. Oh, I grant you it was an +active mind, scientific, laborious, immensely patient. But it was +an ingrowing mind. Sure of its own superiority, it took no counsel +with antiquity and scorned the advice of its neighbors. It was +intent on producing something entirely new and all its own--a purely +German _Kultur_, independent of the past, and irresponsible +to any laws except those of Germany's interests and needs. Hence +it fell into bad habits of thought and feeling, got into trouble, +and brought infinite trouble upon the world." + +"And do you claim," interrupted Hardman, "that this would have been +prevented by reading the classics? Would that have been the only +and efficient cure for Germany's disease? Rather a large claim, +that!" + +"Much too large," replied the professor. "I did not make it. In +the first place, it may be that Germany's trouble had gone beyond +any cure but the knife. In the second place, I regard the intelligent +reading of the Bible and the vital apprehension of the real spirit +of Christianity as the best of all cures for mental and moral ills. +All that I claim for the classics--the works of the greatest of +the Greek and Roman writers--is that they have in them a certain +remedial and sanitary quality. They contain noble thoughts in noble +forms. They show the strength of self-restraint. They breathe the +air of clearness and candor. They set forth ideals of character +and conduct which are elevating. They also disclose the weakness +and the ugliness of things mean and base. They have the broad and +generous spirit of the true _literae humaniores._ They reveal +the springs of civilization and lead us-- + + + 'To the glory that was Greece, + To the grandeur that was Rome.' + + +Now these are precisely the remedies 'indicated,' as the physicians +say, for the cure, or at least the mitigation, of the specific bad +habits which finally caused the madness of Germany." + +"Please tell us, sir," asked Dick gravely, "how you mean us to +take that. Do you really think it would have done any good to those +brutes who ravaged Belgium and outraged France to read Tacitus or +Virgil or the Greek tragedies? They couldn't have done it, anyhow." + +"Probably not," answered the professor, while Hardman sat staring +intently into the fire, "probably not. But suppose the leaders +and guides of Germany (her masters, in effect, who moulded and +_kultured_ the people to serve their nefarious purpose of +dominating the world by violence), suppose these masters had really +known the meaning and felt the truth of the Greek tragedies, which +unveil reckless arrogance--_Hybris_--as the fatal sin, +hateful to the gods and doomed to an inevitable Nemesis. Might not +this truth, filtering through the masters to the people, have led +them to the abatement of the ruinous pride which sent Germany out +to subjugate the other nations in 1914? The egregious General von +der Goltz voiced the insane arrogance which made this war when he +said, 'The nineteenth century saw a German Empire, the twentieth +shall see a German world.' + +"Or suppose the Teutonic teachers and pastors had read with +understanding and taken to heart the passages of Csesar in which he +curtly describes the violent and thievish qualities of the ancient +Germans--how they spread desolation around them to protect their +borders, and encouraged their young men in brigandage in order to +keep them in practice. Might not these plain lessons have been +used as a warning to the people of modern Germany to discourage +their predatory propensities and their habits of devastation and to +hold them back from their relapse into the _Schrecklichkeit_ +of savage warfare? George Meredith says a good thing in 'Diana +of the Crossways': 'Before you can civilize a man, you must first +de-barbarize him.' That is the trouble with the Germans, especially +their leaders and masters. They have never gotten rid of their +fundamental barbarism, the idolatry of might above right. + + + They have only put on a varnish of civilization. + It cracks and peels off in the heat. + + +"Take one more illustration. Suppose these German thought-masters +and war-lords had really understood and assimilated the true greatness +of the conception of the old Roman Empire as it is shown, let us +say, by Virgil. You remember that splendid passage in the Sixth +Book of the AEneid where the Romans are called to remember that it +is their mission 'to crown Peace with Law, to spare the humbled, +and to subdue and tame the proud.' Might not sucn a noble doctrine +have detached the Germans a little from their blind devotion to +the Hohenzollern-Hollweg conception of the modern pinchbeck German +Empire--a predatory state, greedy to gain new territory but incapable +of ruling it when gained, scornful of the rights of smaller peoples, +oppressing them when subjugated, as she has oppressed Poland and +Schleswig-Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine, a clumsy and exterminating +tyrant in her own colonies, as she has shown herself in East and +West Africa? I tell you that a vital perception of what the Roman +Empire really meant in its palmy days might have been good medicine +for Germany. It might have taught her to make herself fit for +power before seeking to grasp it." + +"Granted, granted," broke in Hardman, impatiently poking the fire. +"You can't say anything about Germany too severe to suit me. Whatever +she needed to keep her from committing the criminal blunder of +this war, it is certain that she did not get it. The blunder was +made and the price must be paid. But what I say now, as I said at +the beginning, is that Latin and Greek are dead languages. For us, +for the future, for the competitions of the modern industrial and +social era, the classics are no good. For a few ornamental persons +a knowledge of them may be a pleasing accomplishment. But they are +luxuries, not necessaries. They belong to a bygone age. They have +nothing to tell us about the things we most need to know--chemistry +and physics, engineering and intensive agriculture, the discovery +of new forms and applications of power, the organization of labor +and the distribution of wealth, the development of mechanical skill +and the increase of production--these are the things that we must +study. I say they are the only things that will count for success +in the new democracy." + +"That is what _you_ say," replied Professor De Vries dryly. +"But the wisest men of the world have said something very different. +No democracy ever has survived, or ever will survive, without +an aristocracy at the heart of it. Not an aristocracy of birth +and privilege, but one of worth and intelligence; not a band of +hereditary lords, but a company of well-chosen leaders. Their value +will depend not so much upon their technical knowledge and skill +as upon the breadth of their mind, the clearness of their thought, +the loftiness of their motives, the balance of their judgment, and +the strength of their devotion to duty. For the cultivation of these +things I say--pardon the apparent contradiction of what _you_ +said--I say the study of the classics has been and still is of the +greatest value." + +"What did George Washington know about the classics?" Hardman +interrupted sharply. "He was one of your aristocrats of democracy, +I suppose?" + +"He was," answered the professor blandly, "and he knew more about +the classics than, I fear, you do, my dear Hardman. At all events, +he understood what was meant when he was called 'the Cincinnatus +of the West'--and he lived up to the ideal, otherwise we should +have had no American Republic. + +"But let us not drop to personalities. What I maintain is that +Latin and Greek are not dead languages, because they still convey +living thoughts. The real success of a democracy--the production +of a finer manhood--depends less upon mechanics than upon morale. +For that the teachings of the classics are excellent. They have a +bracing and a steadying quality. They instil a sense of order and +they inspire a sense of admiration, both of which are needed by +the people--especially the plain people--of a sane democracy. The +classics are fresher, younger, more vital and encouraging than most +modern books. They have lessons for us to-day--believe me--great +words for the present crisis and the pressing duty of the hour." + +"Give us an example," said Dick; "something classic to fit this +war." + +"I have one at hand," responded the professor promptly. He went to +the book-shelves and pulled out a small brown volume with a slip +of paper in it. He opened the book at the marked place. "It is from +the Eighth Satire of Juvenal, beginning at line 79. I will read +the Latin first, and afterward a little version which I made the +other day." + +The old man rolled the lines out in his sonorous voice, almost +chanting: + + + "'Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem + Integer; ambiguae si quando citabere testis + Incertaeque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis + Falsus et admoto dictet periuria tauro, + _Summum crede nefas, animam praeferre pudori + Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.'"_ + +"Please to translate, sir," said Dick, copying exactly the professor's +classroom phrase and manner. + +"To gratify my nephew," said the professor, nodding and winking at +Hardman. "But, understand, this is not a real translation. It is +only a paraphrase. Here it is: + + + "Be a good soldier, and a guardian just; + Likewise an upright judge. Let no one thrust + You in a dubious cause to testify, + Through fear of tyrant's vengeance, to a lie. + Count it a baseness if your soul prefer + Safety above what Honor asks of her: + And hold it manly life itself to give, + Rather than lose the things for which we live. + + +It is not half as good as the Latin. But it gives the meaning. How +do you like it, Richard?" + +"Fine!" answered the young man quickly; "especially the last lines. +They are great." He hesitated slightly, and then went on. "Perhaps +I ought to tell you now, sir, that I have signed up and got my +papers for the training-school at Madison Barracks. I hope you will +not be angry with me." + +The old man put both hands on the lad's shoulders and looked at +him with a suspicious moisture in his eyes. He swallowed hard a +couple of times. You could see the big Adam's apple moving up and +down in his wrinkled throat. + +"Angry!" he cried. "Why, boy, I love you for it." + +Hardman, who was a thoroughly good fellow at heart, held out his +hand. + +"Good for you, Dick! But I must be going now. I am putting up at +the Ivy. Will you walk up with me? I'd like to have a word with +you." + +The two men walked in silence along the shady, moon-flecked streets +of the tranquil old university town. Then the elder one spoke. + +"You have done the right thing, I am sure. That officers' +training-school is a good place to get a practical education. When +you are through, how would you like to have a post in the Ordnance +Department at Washington? I have some influence there and believe +I could get you in without difficulty." + +"Thanks, a lot," answered the lad modestly. "You're awfully kind. +But, if you don't mind my saying so, I think I'd rather have service +at the front--that is, if I can qualify for it." + +There was another long silence before Hardman spoke again, with an +apparent change of subject: + +"I wish you would tell me what you really think of your uncle's +views on the classics, you and the other fellows of your age in +the university." + +Dick hesitated a moment before he replied: + +"Well, personally, you know, I believe what Uncle says is usually +about right. He has the habit of it. But I allow when he gets +on his hobby he rides rather hard. Most of the other fellows have +given up the classics--they like the modern-language course with +sciences better--perhaps it's softer. They say not; but I know +the classics are hard enough. I flunked out on my Greek exam junior +year. So, you see, I'm not a very good judge. But, anyhow, wasn't +the bit he read us from Juvenal simply fine? And didn't he read +it well? I've felt that a hundred times, but never knew how to say +it." + + + +It was in the early fall of 1918, more than a year later, that +Hardman came once more into the familiar library at Calvinton. He +had read the casualty list of the last week of August and came to +condole with his friend De Vries. + +The old man sat in the twilight of the tranquil book-lined room, +leaning back in his armchair, with an open letter on the table +before him. He gave his hand cordially to Hardman and thanked him +for his sympathetic words. He talked quietly and naturally about +Dick, and confessed how much he should miss the boy--as it were, +his only son. + +"Yes," he said quietly. "I am going to be lonely, but I am not +forsaken. I shall be sad sometimes, but never sorry--always proud +of my boy. Would you like to see this letter? It is the last that +he wrote." + +It was a young, simple letter, full of cheerful joking and personal +details and words of affection which the shy lad would never have +spoken face to face. At the end he wrote: + +"Well, dear Governor, this is a rough life, and some parts are +not easy to bear. But I want you to know that I was never happier +in all my days. I know that we are fighting for a good cause, +justice, and freedom, and a world made clean from this beastly +German militarism. The things that the Germans have done to France +and Belgium must be stopped, and they must never be done again. +We want a decent world to live in, and we are going to have it, no +matter what it costs. Of course I should like to live through it +all, if I can do it with honor. But a man never can tell what is +going to happen. And I certainly would rather give up my life than +the things we are fighting for--the things you taught me to believe +are according to the will of God. So good-night for the present, +Uncle, and sleep well. + +"Your loving nephew and son, + +"DICK." + +Hardman's hand shook a little as he laid the paper on the table. + +"It is a beautiful letter," he said. + +"Yes," nodded the old professor, putting his hand upon it; "it is +a classic; very clear and simple and high-minded. The German Crown +Prince says our American soldiers do not know what they are fighting +for. But Richard knew. It was to defend 'the things for which we +live' that he gladly gave his life." + +September, 1918. + + + + + +HALF-TOLD TALES + + + + +THE NEW ERA AND CARRY ON + + +The Commandant of the Marine Hospital was at his desk, working +hard, when the door of the room was flung open and the Officer of +the Day rushed in. + +"Sir," he exploded, "the New Era has come." + +"Very likely, Mr. Corker," answered the Commandant. "It has been +coming continually since the world began. But is that any reason +why you should enter without knocking, and with your coat covered +with bread-crumbs and cigarette-ashes?" + +So the Officer of the Day went outside, brushed his coat, knocked +at the door, and awaited orders. + +"Mr. Corker," said the Commandant, "have the kindness to bring me +your report on the condition of yesterday's cases, and let me know +what operations are indicated for to-day. Good morning. Orderly, +my compliments to the Executive Officer, and I wish to see him at +once." + +When the Executive Officer arrived, he began: + +"Sir, the New Era--" + +"Quite so, Mr. Greel, but you understand this Hospital has to +carry on as required in any kind of an era. How many patients did +we receive yesterday? Good. Have we enough bedding and provisions? +Bad. Attend to it immediately, and let me know the result of your +efforts to remedy a situation which should never have arisen. The +Navy cannot be run on hot air." + +As the Executive Officer went out he held the door open for the Head +Nurse to pass in. She was a fine, upstanding creature, tremulous +with emotion. + +"Oh, Doctor," she cried, "I simply must tell you about the New Era. +Woman Suffrage is going to save the world." + +"I hope so, Miss Dooby, it certainly needs saving. Meantime how +are things in the pneumonia ward?" + +"Two deaths last night, sir, three new cases this morning. Oxygen +is running short: no beef-tea or milk. Five of my nurses have gone +to attend conventions of woman--" + +"Slackers," interrupted the Commandant. "Put them on report for +leaving the ship without permission. I shall attend to their cases. +Fill their places from the volunteer list. Be so good as to send +the head steward here immediately." + +"I'm very sorry, Sir," said the steward, "but ye see it's just +this way. The mess-boys was holdin' a New Era mass-meetin', and +the cook he forgot--" + +"Milk and beef-tea!" growled the Commandant as if they were +swear-words. "What the devil is this new influenza that has struck +the hospital? Steward, you will provide what the head nurse requires +at once. Orderly, my cap, and call Mr. Greel to accompany me on +inspection." + +In the galley the fires were out, the ovens cold, the soup-kettles +empty, and all the cooks, dish-washers, and scrubbers were absorbing +the eloquence of the third assistant pie-maker, who stood on an +empty biscuit-box and explained the glories of the one-hour day in +the New Era. + +'"Ten_shun!_" yelled the Orderly, and the force of habit +brought the men up, stiff and silent. The Commandant looked around +the circle, grinning. + +"My word!" he cried, "what a beautiful sight! What do you think +this is--a blooming debating society? Wrong! It's a hospital, with +near a thousand sick and wounded to take care of. And it's going +to be done, see? And you're going to help do it, see? No work--no +pay and no food! Neglect of orders means extra duty and no +liberty--perhaps a couple of twenty-four-hour days in the brig. That's the +rule in all eras, see? Now get busy, all of you. Chow at twelve as +usual. Carry on, men." + +"Aye, aye, sir," they answered cheerily, for they were weary of +the third assistant pie-maker's brand of talk and felt the pangs +of healthy hunger. + +Then came the second engineer, out of breath with running, followed +by two or three helpers. + +"Fire, captain," he gasped, "fire in the fuel-room--awful +blaze--started in the wood box--cigarette--we were just settin' +round talkin' over what we were goin' to do in the New Era, an' +the first thing we knew it was burnin' like--" + +"The New Era," snapped the Commandant, "and be damned to it! Sound +the fire-call. All hands to quarters. Lead along the hose. Follow +me," he cried, hurrying forward through the gathering smoke, "this +ship must be saved." + +And so it was--strictly in conformity with the old laws that fire +burns, water quenches, and every man must do his duty promptly. On +these ancient principles, and others equally venerable, the hospital +carried on its good work. But the Commandant made one new rule. +It cost five dollars to mention the New Era within its walls. + + + + + + +THE PRIMITIVE AND HIS SANDALS + + +"I am sick of all this," said the Great Author, sweeping his hand +over the silver-laden dinner-table. He seemed to include in his +gesture the whole house and the broad estate surrounding it. "It +bores me, and I don't believe it can be right." + +His wife, at the other end of the table, shining in her low-necked +dress with diamonds on her breast and in her hair, leaned forward +anxiously, knowing her husband's temperament. + +"But, Nicholas," she said, "what do you mean? You have earned all +this by your work as a writer. You are the greatest man in the +country. You are entitled to a fine house and a large estate." + +He gravely nodded his big head with its flamboyant locks, and lit +a fresh cigarette. + +"Quite right, my dear," said he, "you are always right on practical +affairs. But, you see, this is an artistic affair. My books are +realistic and radical. They teach the doctrine of the universal +level, that no man can be above other men. They have made poverty, +perhaps not exactly popular, but at least romantic. My villains +are always rich and my heroes poor. The people like this; but it is +rather a strain to believe it and keep on believing it. If my work +is to hold the public it must have illustrations--moving pictures, +you know! Something in character! Nobody else can do that as well +as I can. It will be better than many advertisements. I am going +to become a virtuous peasant, a son of the soil, a primitive." + +His wife laughed, with a slight nervous tremor in her voice. She +knew her husband's temperament, to be sure, but she never knew just +how far it would carry him. + +"I think you must be a little crazy, Nicholas," she said. + +"Thank you, Alexandra," he answered, "thank you for the temperate +flattery. Evidently you have heard the old proverb about genius +and madness. But why not make the compliment complete and say +'absolutely crazy'?" + +"Well," she replied, "because I do not understand just what you +propose to do. Are you going to impoverish yourself and the whole +family? Are you thinking of turning over your farms to these stupid +peasants who will let them go to rack and ruin? Will you give your +property to the village council who will drink it up in a month? +You know how much money Peter needs; he is a member of twelve +first-class clubs. And Olga's husband is not earning much. Are you +going to starve your children and grandchildren for the sake of an +idea of consistency in art?" + +The Great Author was now standing in front of the fireplace, warming +himself and filling a pipe. The flames behind him made an aureole +in his extravagant white hair and beard. He smiled and puffed +slowly at his pipe. At last he answered. + +"My dear, you go too fast and too far. You know I am enthusiastic, +but have you ever known me to be silly? It would be wrong to make +you and the children suffer. I have no right to do that." + +[Illustration: I am going to become a virtuous peasant, a son of +the soil, a primitive] + +She nodded her head emphatically, and a look of comprehension spread +over her face. "Suppose," he continued, "suppose that I should +make over the real estate and farms to you--you are an excellent +manager. And suppose that I should put the personal estate, including +copyrights, into a trust, the income to be paid to you and the +children. You would take care of me while I became a primitive, +wouldn't you?" + +"I would," she answered, "you know I would. But think how +uncomfortable it will be for you. While we are living in luxury, +you--" + +"Don't worry about that," he interrupted with a laugh. "I shall +have all the luxury I want: flannel shirts, loose around the neck, +instead of these infernal stiff collars; velveteen trousers and +jacket instead of this waiter's uniform; and I shall go barefoot +when the weather is suitable--do you understand? Barefoot in the +summer grass--it will be immense." + +"But your food," she asked, "how will you manage that on a primitive +basis?" + +"You will manage it," he replied, "you know I have always preferred +beefsteak and onions to any French dish. Champagne does not agree +with me. I'd rather have a glass of the straight stuff, without +any gas in it." + +"But your sleeping arrangements," she murmured, "are you going to +leave the house? Our bedroom is not exactly primitive." + +"No fear of it," he answered. "There is a little room beyond your +bathroom. Put an iron cot in there, with a soft mattress, linen +sheets, and light blankets. I'll do my morning wash at the pump in +the yard, for the sake of the picture. When I want a bath you'll +leave the door of the room open if you are not actually in the +tub." + +"Nicholas," she said, with a Mona Lisa smile, "for an author you +have a very clever way of putting things. But suppose we have +guests at the house, you can't come to dinner in dirty clothes and +with bare feet." + +"Certainly not," he answered. "I shall put on clean flannels, clean +velveteens, and sandals." + +"Sandals," she murmured, "sandals for dinner are simply wonderful. +Do you think I could--" + +"Not at all, my dear," said the Great Author firmly. "Your present +style of dress becomes you amazingly. I am the only one who has to +do the primitive." + +So the arrangements were completed. The interviewers who came +to the house described the Great Author in his loose flannels and +velveteens, with bare feet, returning from labor in the fields. +The moving pictures were full of him. But the sandals did not +appear. There were no flash-lights permitted at the part-primitive +dinner-table. + + + + + + +DIANA AND THE LIONS + + +In the darkest hour before the dawn, Diana floated away from her +Garden Tower and came down between the Lions on the Library Steps. + +At first, she did not know they were Lions. She thought they were +Cats, and so she was afraid. For she was very lightly clad; and +(except in Egypt) Cats are terrible to undomesticated goddesses. +Diana shivered as she strung her bow for defense. She felt that +she was divine, but she knew that she had cold feet. + +In truth, the Library Steps were wet and glistening, for there had +been a shower after midnight. But now the gibbous moon was giving +a silent imitation of an arc-light high in the western heaven. +Her beams silver-plated the weird architecture of the shrines of +Commerce which face the great Temple dedicated to the Three Muses +of New York--Astor, Lenox, and Tilden. + +But on the awful animals guarding the steps the light was florid, +like a flush of sunburn discovered by the ablution of a warranted +complexion cream. They were wonderfully pink, and Diana hastened +to draw an arrow from her quiver, for it seemed to her as if her +feline neighbors were beginning to glow with rage. + +"Do not shoot," said the ruddier one; "we are not angry, we are +only blushing." And he glanced at her costume. + +Diana was astonished to hear a masculine voice utter such a modest +sentiment. But being a woman, she knew that the first word does +not count. + +"Cats never blush," she answered boldly, "no matter how big they +are." + +"But we are not Cats," they cried, ramping suddenly like crests +on a millionaire's note-paper. "We are Lions!" + +Diana smiled at this, for now she felt safe, remembering that when +a male begins to boast he is not dangerous. + +"Roar a little for me, please," she said, laying down her unconcealed +weapon. + +"Impossible," said the Northern Lion, "a city ordinance forbids +unnecessary noise." + +"Nonsense!" interrupted the Southern Lion. "Who would not break +a law to oblige a lady?" + +"Let us compromise," said the Northern Lion, "and give her our +reproduction of an automobile horn." + +"No," said the Southern Lion, "we will give her our automatic record +of a Book-Advertisement; it is louder." + +Then Diana trembled, indeed. But she bravely continued smiling, +and said: "Thank you a thousand times for doing it once! And now +please tell me what kind of Lions you are." + +"Literary Lions," was their prompt and unanimous reply. + +"Ah," she cried, clapping her hands with a charming gesture, "how +glad I am to meet you! I have been in New York more than twenty +years and never seen any one like you before! Come and sit beside +me and talk." + +The Lions looked at each other rather sheepishly, and glanced up +and down the street, as if fearing the approach of a city ordinance. +But there was no one in sight except Diana, so they shook their +literary locks into a becoming disorder and sat on the steps with +her, purring gently. + +"Now tell me," she said, "who you are." + +If she had been less beautiful they would have resented this. But, +as it was, they looked sorry, and asked her if she had never read +"Who's Who in America"? She shook her head, and admitted that she +had not read it all through. + +"Well," said her neighbor on the south, "this is rather an offhand +_soiree,_ and we may as well cut out proper names. But I will +put you wise to the fact that I am the Magazine Lion. I got away +from Roosevelt in Africa. He called me 'Mucky,' and I made tracks. +Here he cannot hurt me, for they will never let that man do anything +in good old New York, not even touch a Tiger." + +"And I," said her neighbor on the north, "I am the Academic Lion, of +whom you must have heard. My character is noted for its concealed +sweetness, and my style leaves nothing to be hoped for. I am +literally a man of letters, for I have seventeen degrees. Usually +I look literary-lean and nobly dissatisfied, but yesterday I +swallowed a British Female Novelist by accident, and that accounts +for my inartistic air of cheerfulness. I won my splendid reputation +by telling other Lions how they ought to have done their little +tricks. But now, tired of that, I have gone into politics. This is +my first public office." + +Diana was somewhat confused and benumbed by these personally conducted +biographies, but she was too well-bred not to appear interested. + +"How lovely," she murmured, "to sit between two such Great +Personages! I wonder what brought poor little Me to such an honor. +And, by the way, how do you happen to be just here? What is this +beautiful building behind you? Is it your Palace?" + +"It is a Library," said the Academic Lion, with a superior tone. + +"The biggest book-heap in America," said the Magazine Lion in his +vivid way. "We have them all beaten to a finish--except the old +junk-shop down in Washington." + +"You forget Boston," said the Academic Lion. + +"Who wouldn't?" growled the Magazine Lion. + +"Do you mean to tell me," asked Diana, with her most engaging and +sprightly air, "that this splendid place is a Library, all full of +books, and that you are its most prominent figures, its figureheads, +so to speak? How interesting! I have travelled a great deal--under +the name of Pasht or Bast, in Egypt, where the Cats liked me; +and under the name of Artemis in Greece; and under my own name +in Italy. Believe me, I have seen all things that the moon shines +upon. But I do not remember having seen Lions on a Library before. +How original! How appropriate! How suggestive! But what does it +suggest? What are you here for?" + +"For educational purposes," said the Academic Lion. + +"To catch the eye," said the Magazine Lion, "same as head-lines in +a newspaper." + +"I see," exclaimed Diana. "You are here to keep the people from +getting at the books? How modern!" + +This remark made the Academic Lion look like a Sphinx, as if he +knew something but did not want to tell. But the Magazine Lion was +distinctly flattered. + +"Right you are," said he cheerfully, "or next door to it. We don't +propose to keep the people out, only the authors. Why, when this +place was publicly opened there was not a single author in the +exhibit, except John Bigelow." + +"Why did you not keep him out?" asked Diana. + +"We were not on the spot, then," said the Lion. "Besides, there +are some things that even a Lion does not dare to do." + +"But I do not understand," said Diana, "precisely why authors +should be kept away from a library." + +The Magazine Lion laughed. "Silly little thing!" he said, with a +fascinating tone of virile condescension. "An author's business is +to write books, not to read them. If he reads, he grows intelligent +and thoughtful and careful about his work. Those old books spoil +him for the modern market. But if he just goes ahead and writes +whatever comes into his head, he can do it with a bang, and everybody +sits up and pays attention. That's the only way to be original. +See?" + +"Excuse me," broke in the Academic Lion, "but you go too far, +brother. Authors should be encouraged to read, but only under +critical guidance and professorial direction. Otherwise they will +not be able to classify the books, and tabulate their writers, and +know which ones to admire and praise. How can you expect a mere +author to comprehend the faulty method of Shakespeare, or the ethical +commonplaceness of Dickens and Thackeray, or the vital Ibsenism of +Bernard Shaw and the other near-Ibsens, without assistance?" + +"But the other people," asked Diana, "what is going to happen to +them if you let them go in free and browse among the books?" + +"They are less important," answered the Academic Lion. "Besides we +expect soon to establish a cranial, neurological, and psychopathic +examination which will determine the subliminal, temperamental +needs of every applicant. Then we classify the readers in groups, +and the books in lists, and the whole thing works with automatic +precision." + +"And I am going to make the book-lists!" said the Magazine Lion, +ecstatically wagging his tail, and half-unconsciously putting his +paw around the lady's waist in a spirit of pure comradeship. + +But she gently slipped away, stood up, and gracefully covered a +yawn with her hand. + +"I am ever so much obliged to you Literary Lions for not eating +me," said she. "Probably I should have disagreed with you even +more than your conversation has with me. I am quite sleepy. And +the moon has almost disappeared. I must be going where I can bid +it good night." + +So Diana rose, with shining limbs, above the housetops, and +vanished toward her Garden Tower. The Lions looked disconcerted. +"Old-fashioned, Victorian prude!" said one, "Brazen hussy!" said +the other. And they climbed back on their Pedestals, resuming their +supercilious expression. There I suppose they will stay, no matter +what Diana may think of them. + + + + + + +THE HERO AND TIN SOLDIERS + + +On December twenty-fifth, 1918, that little white house in the park +was certainly the happiest dwelling in Calvinton. It was simply +running over with Christmas. + +You see, there had come to it a most wonderful present, a surprise +full of tears and laughter. Captain Walter Mayne reached home on +Christmas Eve. + +For a while they had thought that he would never come back at all. +News had been received that he was grievously wounded in France--shot +to pieces, in effect, leading his men near Chateau-Thierry. His +life hung on the ragged edge of those wounds. But his wife Katharine +always believed that he would pull through. So he did. But he was +lacking a leg, his right arm was knocked out of commission for the +present, and various other _souvenirs de la grande guerre_ +were inscribed upon his body. + +Then word arrived that he was coming on a transport, with other +wounded, to be patched up in a hospital on Staten Island. So his +wife Katharine smiled her way through innumerable entanglements +of red tape and went to nurse him. Then she set her steady hand to +pull all the wires necessary to get him discharged and sent home. +Christmas was in her heart and she would not be denied. So it came +to pass that the one-legged Hero was in his own house on the happy +day, and joy was bubbling all around him. + +When the old Pastor entered, late in the afternoon, the Christmas-tree +was twinkling with lights, the children swarming and buzzing all over +the place, so that he was dazed for a moment. There were Walter's +mother and his aunt and his sisters-in-law, boys and girls of various +sizes, and a jubilant and entrancing baby. The Pastor took it all +in, and was glad of it, but his mind was on the Hero. + +Katharine, who always understood everything, whispered softly: +"Walter is waiting to see you, Doctor. He is in his study, just +across the hall." + +_Waiting?_ Well, what can a man whose right leg has been cut +off above the knee, and who has not yet been able to get an artificial +one--what can he do but wait? + +The room was rather dimly lighted; brilliance is not good for the +eyes of the wounded. Walter was in a long chair in the corner; his +face was bronzed, drawn and lined a little by suffering; but steady +and cheerful as ever, with the eager look which had made his students +listen to him when he talked to them about English literature. + +"My dear Walter," said the Pastor, "my dear boy, we are so glad +to have you home with us again. We are very proud of you. You are +our Hero." + +"Thank you," said Walter, "it is mighty good to be home again. But +there is no hero business about it. I only did what all the other +Americans who went over there did--fought my--excuse me, my best, +against the beastly Germans." + +"But your leg," said the Pastor impulsively, "it is gone. Aren't +you angry about that?" + +Walter was silent for a moment. Then he answered. + +"No, I don't think angry is the right word. You remember that story +about Nathan Hale in the Revolution--'I only regret that I have +but one life to give to my country.' Well, I'm glad that I had two +legs to give for my country, and particularly glad that she only +needed one of them." + +"Tell me a bit about the fighting," said the Pastor, "I want to +know what it was like--the hero-touch--you understand?" + +"Not for me," said Walter, "and certainly not now. Later on I can +tell you something, perhaps. But this is Christmas Day. And war? +Well, Doctor, believe me, war is a horrible thing, full of grime and +pain, madness, agony, hell--a thing that ought not to be. I have +fought alongside of the other fellows to put an end to it, and +now--" + +The door swung open, and Sammy, the eldest son of the house, pranced +in. + +"Look, Daddy," he cried, "see what Aunt Emily has sent me for +Christmas--a big box of tin soldiers!" + +Mayne smiled as the little boy carefully laid the box on his knee; +but there was a shadow of pain in his eyes, and he closed them +for a few seconds, as if his mind were going back, somewhere, far +away. Then he spoke, tenderly, but with a grave voice. + +"That's fine, sonny--all those tin soldiers. But don't you think +they ought to belong to me? You have lots of other toys, you know. +Would you give the soldiers to me?" + +The child looked up at him, puzzled for a moment; then a flash of +comprehension passed over his face, and he nodded valiantly. + +"Sure, Father," he said, "You're the Captain. Keep the soldiers. +I'll play with the other toys," and he skipped out of the room. + +Mayne's look followed him with love. Then he turned to the old +Pastor and a strange expression came into his face, half whimsical +and half grim. + +"Doctor," he said, "will you do me a favor? Poke up that fire till +it blazes. That's right. Now lay this box in the hottest part of +the flames. That's right. It will soon be gone." + +The elder man did what was asked, with an air of slight bewilderment, +as one humors the fancies of an invalid. He wondered whether Mayne's +fever had quite left him. He watched the fire bulging the lid and +catching round the edges of the box. Then he heard Mayne's voice +behind him, speaking very quietly. + +"If ever I find my little boy _playing with tin soldiers,_ I +shall spank him well. No, that wouldn't be quite fair, would it? +But I shall tell him why he must not do it, and _I shall make +him understand that it's an impossible thing."_ + +Then the old Pastor comprehended. There was no touch of fever. The +one-legged Hero had come home from the wars completely well and +sound in mind. So the two men sat together in love by the Christmas +fire, and saw the tin soldiers melt away. + + + + + + +SALVAGE POINT + + +The Hermanns built their house at the very end of the island, five +or six miles from the more or less violently rustic "summer-cottages" +which adorned the hills and bluffs around the native village of +Winterport. + +There was a long point running out to the southward at the mouth +of the great bay, rough and rocky for the most part, with little +woods of pointed firs on it, some acres of pasture, and a few +pockets of fertile soil lying between the stony ridges. A yellow +farmhouse, with a red barn beside it, had nestled for near a hundred +years in one of these hollows, buying shelter from the winter winds +at the cost of an outlook over sea and shore. + +It was a large price to pay. The view from the summit of the little +hill a few hundred yards away was superb--a wonder even on that +wonderful coast of Maine where mountain and sea meet together, +forest and flood kiss each other. + +But I suppose the old Yankee farmer knew what he wanted when he +paid the price and snuggled his house in the hollow. I am certain +the Hermanns knew what they wanted when they bought the whole +point and perched their house on the very top of the hill, where +all the winds of heaven might visit it as roughly as they pleased, +but where nothing could rob the outlook of its ever-changing splendor +and mystery, its fluent wonder and abiding charm. + +You see, the Hermanns knew what they wanted because they had come +through a lot of trouble. I met them when they were young--no matter +how many years ago--when they were in the thick of it. + +Alice Mackaye and Will Hermann had the rare luck to fall in love--a +very real and great love--when they were in their early twenties. +You would think that extraordinary piece of good fortune would have +been enough to set them up for life, wouldn't you? But no. There +was an Obstacle. And that Obstacle came very near wrecking them +both. + +Will Hermann was an artist and the son of an artist. The love of +beauty ran in his blood. Otherwise he was poor. He earned a decent +living by his painting, but each year's living depended on each +year's work. Hence he was in the proletarian class. + +Alice Mackaye, on the other hand, belonged to the capitalist class. +I say "belonged," because that is precisely the word to describe her +situation. Her father was a millionaire sugar-merchant, who lived +in an ugly palace near Morristown, New Jersey, and was accustomed +to have his own way in that and other States. He was the Obstacle. + +He was a florid, handsome old Scotchman, orthodox in religion, +shrewd in business, correct in conduct, but with no more sentiment +than a hard-shell crab, and obstinate as the devil. His fixed +idea was that none of his daughters should ever be carried off by +a fortune-hunter. The two older girls apparently escaped this danger +by making fairly wealthy matches. But Alice--come away! why should +she take up with this impecunious painter? He was good-looking and +had the gift of the gab, but what was that worth? If he would come +into the sugar-business, where a place was waiting for him, and +make good there, it would be all right. Otherwise, the affair must +be broken off, absolutely, finally, and forever. From this you can +see that the Obstacle was not bad-hearted, but only pig-headed. + +Well, for five or six years things drifted rather miserably along +this way. Will Hermann was forbidden the house at Morristown. Alice +was practically a captive; her correspondence was censored. But +of course, even before Marconi, wireless communication in matters +of this kind has always been possible. + +The trouble was that the state of affairs between them, while +conventionally correct, was thoroughly unnatural and full of peril. +Alice, a very good girl, obedient and tractable, was in danger of +becoming a recalcitrant and sour old maid. Will, a healthy and +normal young man, with no bad habits, was in danger of being driven +to them by the emptiness and exasperation of his mind. The worst +of it all was that both of the young people were, in accordance +with a well-known law of nature, growing older with what seemed +to them a frightful and unreasonable rapidity. The years crawled +like snails. But the sum of them rose by leaps and bounds to an +appalling total. Alice found two grey hairs in her red-gold locks. +Will had to use glasses for reading fine print at night. From +their point of view, decrepitude, senility, dotage stared them in +the face, while the bright voyage of life which they were resolved +to make only together, was threatened with shipwreck among the +shoals of interminable delay. + +It was at this juncture of affairs that they came to me, as fine-looking +a young couple as ever I saw. They were good, as mortals go; they +were loyal and upright, they wanted no scandal, no rumpus in the +family, no trouble or pain for anybody else; but they wanted to +belong to each other much more than they wanted to belong to any +class, artistic, proletarian, or capitalist. And they were desperate +because of the pertinacity of the Obstacle, whom they both respected +fully as much as he deserved. + +When they had stated their case, I made my answer. + +"So far as I can see, the salvage of your ship of love depends +entirely on yourselves. Mr. Hermann is not after a fortune, he +only wants his girl; is that so? [Hermann nodded vigorously.] And +Miss Mackaye does not care about being supported in the manner of +living to which she has been accustomed; she only wants to live +with the man whom she has chosen; is that so? [Alice blushed and +nodded.] Well, then, why shouldn't you lay your course and sail +ahead together? You are both of age, aren't you?" + +They smiled at each other. "Yes, and a little over." + +"But my father!" said Alice. "You know I honor him, and I can +never deny his authority over me." + +Here was the turn of the talk, the critical moment, the point where +the chosen counsellor had to fall back upon the ultimate reality +of his faith. + +"Well," I said, "you are absolutely correct, dear daughter, in +your feeling toward your father. He has earned his money and has +a right to dispose of it as he will. But, you know, there is a +statute of limitations in regard to the authority of parents over +the _lives_ of their children. You have passed the limitation. +What do you want to do?" + +"To be married to Will Hermann," she said, "for better for worse, +for richer for poorer, I don't care. But I don't want a family +quarrel, a runaway match, all that horrid newspaper talk." Here +she was evidently a little excited and on the verge of tears. + +"Certainly not," I hastened to reassure her, "you can't possibly +have a runaway match, because there is nothing for you to run away +from. There is not a single duty in your father's house which you +have not fulfilled, and of which your sisters can not now relieve +you. There is no authority in the world which has the right to +command the sacrifice of your life to another's judgment. There +is only one thing that stands in your way, and that is your claim +on a large inheritance. I understand you are quite willing to let +that go. You are not even 'running away' from it--that is not the +word--you are ready to _jettison_ it." + +She looked puzzled, and murmured; "I don't exactly understand what +that means." + +"To jettison," I said, in that learned and dispassionate manner +which is sometimes useful in relieving an emotional situation, +"is a seafaring phrase. It means throwing overboard a part or the +whole of a cargo in order to save the ship. As far as I can see +that is the question which is up to you and your best friend at +the present moment. Are you prepared to jettison the claim on a +big fortune for the sake of making your voyage of life together?" + +They looked at each other and a kind of radiance spread over their +faces. "Surely," they answered with one voice. "But how can the +marriage be arranged," asked Alice, "without a row in the family?" + +"Very easily," I answered. "Both of you are over age, though you +don't look it. Our good lawyer friend Harrison will help you to +get the license. Fix your day for the wedding, neither secret nor +notorious; invite anybody you like, and come to me on the day you +have chosen. The arrangements will be made. You shall be married, +all right." + +So they came, and I married them, and it was a very good job. + +They had some years of difficulty and uncertainty during which +I caught brief glimpses of them now and then, always cheerful and +happy together. In the course of time the Obstacle, being not at +all bad-hearted but only pig-headed, probably relented a little, and +finally was gathered to his fathers, according to the common lot +of man. The older sisters behaved very well about the inheritance, +and Alice was not left portionless. She brought three fine boys +into the world. The house on Salvage Point was built by her and +Will together. + +It was there that I spent a day with them, in the summer of 1918, +after many years during which we had not met. I was on naval duty, +with Commander Kidd, of a certain station on the Maine coast. By +invitation we put in with the motorboat S.P. 297, at Salvage Point. +So it was that I met my old friends again, and knew what had become +of their barque of love which I had helped to save from shipwreck. + +The house on the peak of the hill was just what it ought to be; +not aggressively rustic, not obtrusively classic--white pillars +in front of it, and a terrace, but nothing dominating--it had the +air of a very large and habitable lighthouse. + +The extraordinary thing was the arrangement of the grounds. At +every point one came upon some reminder of salvage. On the glorious +August day when I was there, shipwreck seemed impossible: the +Southern Way which opened to the Ocean was dancing with gay waves; +the blue mountains of Maine were tranquil on the horizon. + +"But you see," said Will Hermann, "this is really rather a dangerous +point, though it is so beautiful. It is the gateway of the open sea, +and there are three big ledges across it. A ship that has lost her +bearings a little, or is driving in through thick weather, easily +comes to grief. But there is not often a loss of life, only the +ship goes to pieces. And we save the pieces." + +It was true. There was a terrace west of the house, with a balustrade +made of the taffrail of a wrecked brigantine. The gateway to the +garden was the door of an old wheel-house. There was a pergola +constructed from the timbers of a four-masted schooner that had +broken up on the third ledge. The bow of the sloop _Christabel,_ +with the name still painted on it, was just outside the garden-gate. +Everywhere you saw old anchor-bits, and rudder-posts, and knees, +all silver-greyed by the weather, and fitted in to the _decor_ +of the place. + +The prettiest thing of all was a crow's-nest from a wrecked +brigantine, perched on the highest point of the hill, and looking +out over the marvellous panorama of sea and shore, island and +mountain. Here we sat, after a hearty luncheon with Alice and her +three boys and half-a-dozen others who were with them in a kind +of summer camp-school; and while we smoked our pipes, Will Hermann +told this story. + +"You see, Alice and I have a mania for things that have been +salvaged. We don't like the idea of the wrecks, of course. But they +would happen any way, whether we were here or not. And since that +is so, we like to live here on the point and help save what we +can. Sometimes we get a chance to do something for the crews of +the little ships that come ashore--hot supper and dry clothes and +so forth. But the most interesting salvage case that we ever had +on the point was one in which there was really no wreck at all. + +"It was a bright September afternoon ten years ago--one of those +silver-blue days when there is a little quivering haze in the air +everywhere, but no fog. We were sitting up here and looking out to +sea. Just beyond the end of Dunker Rock a large motor-boat came in +sight through the haze. She was about sixty feet long, with a low +cabin forward, a cockpit aft, and a raised place for the steersman +amidship--a good-looking craft, and evidently very speedy. She +carried no flag or pennant. She came driving on, full tilt, straight +toward us. We supposed of course she would turn east through the +narrow channel to Winterport, or sheer off to the west into the +Southern Way and go up the bay. But not a point did she swerve. +Steady on she came, toward the three big ledges that lie out there +beyond that bit of shingly beach at the end of the point. + +"'I can't see any helmsman,' said Alice, 'those people must be +asleep or crazy. Give them a hail through the megaphone. Perhaps +you can make them hear.' + +"So I yelled at the top of my lungs, and Alice waved her jersey. +We might as well have hailed a comet. That boat ran straight for +the ledges as if she meant to hurdle them. She came near doing it, +too. Over the first she scraped, as if her heel had hit it. Over +the second she shivered, hanging there for a second till a wave +lifted her. On the third she bumped hard and checked her way for +a moment, but the engine kept going, and finally she got herself +over somehow and ran head on to the beach. + +"Of course we were excited, and everybody hurried down to see what +this crazy performance meant. There was not a creature on the +boat, alive or dead. + +"Everything was shipshape. The little craft had evidently been +used for fishing. There were rough men's clothes on board, rubber +boots and oilskins, fresh water and provisions, blankets in +the cabin, fishing-lines and bait in the cockpit, gasolene in the +tanks--a nice little outfit, all complete, and no one to run it. + +"Where had she come from? There were no names on bow or stern, no +papers in the cabin. Who had started her on this crazy voyage? How +did she get away from them? Had they perhaps abandoned her and +cast her adrift for some mysterious reason? Undoubtedly there were +men--apparently three--on board when she set out. What had happened +to them? A drunken quarrel? Or possibly one of the men had fallen +overboard; the others had jumped in to save him; the engine had +started up and the boat left them all in the lurch. Perhaps one +or all of them may have had some reason for wanting to 'disappear +without a trace,' so they hit upon the plan of going ashore at +some lonely place and turning the boat loose to wreck herself. That +would have been a stupid scheme of course, but not too stupid to +be human. + +"It was just a little piece of sea mystery to which we had no clew. +So we debated it for an hour, and then set about the more important +work of salvaging the stranded derelict. Fortunately she went +ashore near the last of the ebb, and now lay comfortably in the +mud, apparently little damaged except for some long scratches on +her side, and a broken blade in her propeller. We dug away the mud +at bow and stern, made fast a tow-line, and when the tide came in +my small cruiser pulled her off easily. In the morning the mysterious +stranger lay at anchor in the cove round the corner, as quiet as +a China duck. + +"Of course we advertised in the coast newspapers, giving a description +of the boat--'came ashore,' etc. + +"Three days later a boy about thirteen years old turned up at +Winterport. He came from a village at the northeast corner of the +bay forty miles away. He guessed the boat was his father's, but +couldn't say for sure until he had seen it. So he came down to +the point and identified it beyond a doubt. He told his story very +simply. + +"The boat belonged to his father, who was a widow-man with only one +child. He used the boat for fishing, and sometimes he took Johnny +with him, sometimes not. On the trips without the boy he used to +stay out longer, sometimes a week or ten days. About a week ago +he had started out on one of these trips with two other men. They +had a dory in tow. They hadn't come back. Johnny had seen the piece +in the paper. Here was the boat, for sure, but no dory. As for the +rest of the story--well, that was all that Johnny had to tell us +about it--the mystery was as far away as ever. + +"He was a fine, sturdy little chap, with tanned face and clear +blue eyes. He was rather shaken by his experience, of course, but +he wouldn't cry--not for the world. We were glad to take him in +for the night, while we verified his story by telegraph. It seemed +the boat was practically his only inheritance, and the first question +he asked, after we had gone over it, was how much we wanted him to +pay for salvage. + +"'Just one cent,' said Alice, taking the words out of my mouth, 'and +what is more, we are going to have her repaired for you. She isn't +much hurt.' So the boy stammered out the best kind of a 'thank you' +that he could manage, and the look in his eyes made up for the lack +of words. That was the time that he came nearest to crying. But +Alice saved him by asking what he was going to do with the boat. + +"He had an idea that he could run her himself, perhaps with another +man to help him, for fishing in the fall, and for pleasure parties +in the summer. He didn't want to cut loose from home altogether +and sell the boat. Perhaps Dad might come back, some day, or send +a letter. Anyway Johnny wanted to stay by a seafaring life. + +"So we arranged the repairs and all that, and got a man to help +on the homeward trip, and after a few days Johnny sailed off with +his patrimony. That is what Alice and I consider our neatest job +of salvage." + +"Did it work all right?" I asked. + +"Finely," said Will Hermann, "like a charm." + +"And where is the lad now?" + +"Bo'sun's mate on a certain destroyer somewhere off the coast of +France, fighting in the U. S. Navee." + +"And the father?" I inquired, being one of those old-fashioned +persons who like all the loose ends of a story to be tied up. "Was +anything ever heard of him?" + +"That," answered my friend, carefully shaking out the ashes of +his pipe beyond the crow's-nest rail, "that belongs in a different +compartment of the ship." + + + + + + +THE BOY OF NAZARETH DREAMS + + +There was a Boy in Nazareth long ago whose after-life was wonderful, +and whose story is written in the heart of mankind. His birth was +predicted in dreams foretelling marvellous things of him, and in +later years there were many true visions wherein he played a wondrous +part. + +Did he not also dream, in the days of his youth, while he was growing +in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man? It would be +strange indeed if his boyhood was not often visited and illumined +by those swift flashes of insight and clear unveilings of hidden +things, which we call dreams but which are in truth rays from "the +fountain light of all our day." + +The first journey that he made, his earliest visit to a great city, +the three days and nights when he was lost there--surely these +were times when visions must have come to him, full of mystery and +wonder, yet clothed in the simple, real forms of this world, which +he was learning to know. So I let my revery follow him on that +unrecorded path, remembering where it led him, and imagining, in +the form of dreams, what may have met him on his way. + + + + + +I. THE JOURNEY TO THE CITY + + +There was not a lad in the country town of Nazareth, nestled high +on the bosom of the Galilean hills, who did not often look eagerly +southward over the plain toward the dark mountains of Samaria, and +think of the great city which lay beyond them, and long for the +time when he would be old enough to go with his family on pilgrimage +to Jerusalem. + +That journey would carry him out of childhood. It would mark the +beginning of his life as a "son of the commandment," a member of +the Hebrew nation. Moreover it would be an adventure--a very great +and joyous adventure, which youth loves. + +Palestine, in the days when Augustus Caesar was Lord of the World, +was an exciting country to travel in. It was full of rovers and +soldiers of fortune from many lands. It was troubled by mobs and +tumults and rebellions, infested with landlopers and brigands. +Jerusalem itself was not only a great city, it was a boisterous and +boiling city, crowded with visitors from all parts of the world, +merchants and travellers, princes and beggars, citizens of Rome +and children of the Desert. There were strange sights to be seen +there, and all kinds of things were sold in the markets. So while +the heart of young Nazareth longed for it, the heart of older +Nazareth was not without anxieties and apprehensions in regard to +the first pilgrimage. + +This was doubly true in the home of the Boy of whom I speak. He was +the first-born, the darling of his parents, a lad beloved by all +who knew him. His mother hung on him with mystical joy and hope. +He was the apple of her eye. Deep in her soul she kept the memory +of angelic words which had come to her while she carried him under +her heart--words which made her believe that her son would be +the morning-star of Israel and a light unto the Gentiles. So she +cherished the Boy and watched over him with tender, unfailing care, +as her most precious possession, her living, breathing, growing +treasure. + +When he reached the age of twelve, he was old enough to go up to +the Temple and take part in the national feast of the Passover. So +she clad him in the garments of youth and made him ready for the +four days' pilgrimage. + +It was a camping-trip, a wonder-walk, full of variety, with a spice +of danger and a feast of delight. + +The Boy was the joy of the journey. His keen interest in all things +seen and heard was like a refreshing spring of water to the older +pilgrims. They had so often travelled the same road that they had +forgotten that it might be new every morning. His unwearying vigor +and gladness as he ran down the hillsides, or scrambled among the +rocks far above the path, or roamed through the fields filling his +hands with flowers, was like a merry song that cheered the long +miles of the way. He was glad to be alive, and it made the others +glad to look at him. + +There were sixty or seventy kinsfolk and neighbors, plain rustic +men and women, in the little company that set out from Nazareth. +The men carried arms to protect the caravan from robbers or +marauders. As they wound slowly down the steep, stony road to the +plain of Esdraelon the Boy ran ahead, making short cuts, turning +aside to find a partridge's nest among the bushes, jumping from +rock to rock like a young gazelle, or poising on the edge of some +cliff in sheer delight of his own sure-footedness. + +His body was outlined against the sky; his blue eyes (like those +of his mother, who was a maid of Bethlehem) sparkled with the joy +of living; his long hair was lifted and tossed by the wind of April. +But his mother's look followed him anxiously, and her heart often +leaped in her throat. + +"My son," she said, as they took their noon-meal in the valley at +the foot of dark Mount Gilboa, "you must be more careful. Your +feet might slip." + +"Mother," answered the Boy, "I am truly very careful. I always +put my feet in the places that God has made for them--on the big, +strong rocks that will not roll. It is only because I am so happy +that you think I am careless." + +The tents were pitched, the first night, under the walls of Bethshan, +a fortified city of the Romans. Set on a knoll above the river +Jordan, the town loomed big and threatening over the little camp +of the Galilean pilgrims. But they kept aloof from it, because it +was a city of the heathen. Its theatres and temples and palaces +were accursed. The tents were indifferent to the city, and when +the night opened its star-fields above them and the heavenly lights +rose over the mountains of Moab and Samaria, the Boy's clear voice +joined in the slumber-song of the pilgrims: + + + "I will lift up mine eyes to the hilis, + From whence cometh my help; + My help cometh from the Lord, + Who made heaven and earth. + He will not suffer thy foot to stumble, + He who keepeth thee will not slumber. + Behold, He who guardeth Israel + Will neither slumber nor sleep." + + +Then they drew their woollen cloaks over their heads and rested on +the ground in peace. + +For two days their way led through the wide valley of the Jordan, +along the level land that stretched from the mountains on either +side to the rough gulch where the river was raging through its +jungle. They passed through broad fields of ripe barley and ripening +wheat, where the quail scuttled and piped among the thick-growing +stalks. There were fruit-orchards and olive-groves on the foothills, +and clear streams ran murmuring down through glistening oleander +thickets. Wild flowers sprang in every untilled corner; tall spikes +of hollyhocks, scarlet and blue anemones, clusters of mignonette, +rock-roses, and cyclamens, purple iris in the moist places, and +many-colored spathes of gladiolus growing plentifully among the +wheat. + +The larks sang themselves into the sky in the early morn. Hotter +grew the sun and heavier the air in that long trough below the +level of the sea. The song of birds melted away. Only the hawks +wheeled on motionless wings above silent fields, watching for the +young quail or the little rabbits, hidden among the grain. + +The pilgrims plodded on in the heat. Companies of soldiers with +glittering arms, merchants with laden mules jingling their bells, +groups of ragged thieves and bold beggars met and jostled the +peaceful travellers on the road. Once a little band of robbers, +riding across the valley to the land of Moab, turned from a distance +toward the Nazarenes, circled swiftly around them like hawks, +whistling and calling shrilly to one another. But there was small +booty in that country caravan, and the men who guarded it looked +strong and tough; so the robbers whirled away as swiftly as they +had come. + +The Boy had stood close to his father in this moment of danger, +looking on with surprise at the actions of the horsemen. + +"What did those riders want?" he asked. + +"All we have," answered the man. + +"But it is very little," said the Boy. "Nothing but our clothes +and some food for our journey. If they were hungry, why did they +not ask of us?" + +The man laughed. "These are not the kind that ask," he said, "they +are the kind that take--what they will and when they can." + +"I do not like them," said the Boy. "Their horses were beautiful, +but their faces were hateful--like a jackal that I saw--in the +gulley behind Nazareth one night. His eyes were burning red as +fire. Those men had fires inside of them." + +For the rest of that afternoon he walked more quietly and with +thoughtful looks, as if he were pondering the case of men who looked +like jackals and had flames within them. + +At sunset, when the camp was made outside the gates of the new +city of Archelaus, on a hillock among the corn-fields, he came to +his mother with his hands full of the long lavender and rose and +pale-blue spathes of the gladiolus-lilies. + +"Look, mother," he cried, "are they not fine--like the clothes of +a king?" + +"What do you know of kings?" she answered, smiling. "These are +only wild lilies of the field. But a great king, like Solomon, +has robes of thick silk, and jewels on his neck and his fingers, +and a big crown of gold on his head." + +"But that must be very heavy," said the Boy, tossing his head +lightly. "It must tire him to wear a crown-thing and such thick +robes. Besides, I think the lilies are really prettier. They look +just as if they were glad to grow in the field." + +The third night they camped among the palm-groves and heavy-odored +gardens of Jericho, where Herod's splendid palace rose above the +trees. The fourth day they climbed the wild, steep, robber-haunted +road from the Jordan valley to the highlands of Judea, and so came +at sundown to their camp-ground among friends and neighbors on the +closely tented slope of the Mount of Olives, over against Jerusalem. + +What an evening that was for the Boy! His first sight of the holy +city, the city of the great king, the city lifted up and exalted +on the sides of the north, beautiful for situation, the joy of the +whole earth! He had dreamed of her glory as he listened at his +mother's knee to the wonder-tales of David and Solomon and the +brave adventures of the fighting Maccabees. He had prayed for the +peace of Jerusalem every night as he kneeled by his bed and lifted +his hands toward the holy place. He had tried a thousand times to +picture her strength and her splendor, her marvels and mysteries, +her multitude of houses and her vast bulwarks, as he strayed among +the humble cottages of Nazareth or sat in the low doorway of his +own home. + +Now his dream had come true. He looked into the face of Jerusalem, +just across the deep, narrow valley of the Kidron, where the shadows +of the evening were rising among the tombs. The huge battlemented +walls, encircling the double mounts of Zion and Moriah--the vast +huddle of white houses, covering hill and hollow with their flat +roofs and standing so close together that the streets were hidden +among them--the towers, the colonnades, the terraces--the dark bulk +of the Roman castle--the marble pillars and glittering roof of the +Temple in its broad court on the hilltop--it was a city of stone +and ivory and gold, rising clear against the soft saffron and rose +and violet of the sunset sky. + +The Boy sat with his mother on the hillside while the light waned, +and the lamps began to twinkle in the city, the stars to glow in +the deepening blue. He questioned her eagerly--what is that black +tower?--why does the big roof shine so bright?--where was King +David's house?--where are we going to-morrow? + +"To-morrow," she answered, "you will see. But now it is the +sleep-time. Let us sing the psalm that we used to sing at night in +Nazareth--but very softly, not to disturb the others--for you know +this psalm is not one of the songs of the pilgrimage." + +So the mother and her Child sang together with low voices: + + + "In peace will I both lay me down and sleep, + For thou, Lord, makest me dwell in safety." + + +The tune and the words quieted the Boy. It was like a bit of home +in a far land. + + + + +II. THE GILDED TEMPLE + + +The next day was full of wonder and excitement. It was the first +day of the Feast, and the myriad of pilgrims crowded through the +gates and streets of the city, all straining toward the enclosure +of the Temple, within whose walls two hundred thousand people could +be gathered. On every side the Boy saw new and strange things: +soldiers in their armor, and shops full of costly wares; richly +dressed Sadducees with their servants following; Jews from far-away +countries, and curious visitors from all parts of the world; ragged +children of the city, and painted women of the street, and beggars +and outcasts of the lower quarters, and rich ladies with their +retinues, and priests in their snowy robes. + +The family from Nazareth passed slowly through the confusion, and +the Boy, bewildered by the changing scene, longed to get to the +Temple. He thought everything must be quiet and holy there. But +when they came into the immense outer court, with its porticos +and alcoves, he found the confusion worse than ever. For there the +money-changers and the buyers and sellers of animals for sacrifice +were bargaining and haggling; and the thousands of people were +jostling and pushing one another; and the followers of the Pharisees +and the Sadducees were disputing; and on many faces he saw that +strange look which speaks of a fire in the heart, so that it seemed +like a meeting-place of robbers. + +His father had bought a lamb for the Passover sacrifice, at one of +the stalls in the outer court, and was carrying it on his shoulder. +He pressed on through the crowd at the Beautiful Gate, the Boy and +his mother following until they came to the Court of the Women. +Here the mother stayed, for that was the law--a woman must not go +farther. But the Boy was now "a son of the Commandment," and he +followed his father through the Court of Israel to the entrance +of the Court of the Priests. There the little lamb was given to a +priest, who carried it away to the great stone altar in the middle +of the court. + +The Boy could not see what happened then, for the place was crowded +and busy. But he heard the blowing of trumpets, and the clashing +of cymbals, and the chanting of psalms. Black clouds of smoke went +up from the hidden altar; the floor around was splashed and streaked +with red. After a long while, as it seemed, the priest brought back +the dead body of the lamb, prepared for the Passover supper. + +"Is this our little lamb?" asked the Boy as his father took it +again upon his shoulder. + +The father nodded. + +"It was a very pretty one," said the Boy. "Did it have to die?" + +The father looked down at him curiously. "Surely," he said, +"it had to be offered on the altar, so that we can keep our feast +according to the law of Moses to-night." + +"But why," persisted the Boy, "must all the lambs be killed in the +Temple? Does God like that? How many do you suppose were brought +to the altar to-day?" + +"Tens of thousands," answered the father. + +"It is a great many," said the Boy, sighing. "I wish one was enough." + +He was silent and thoughtful as they made their way through the +Court of the Women and found the mother and went back to the camp +on the hillside. That night the family ate their Paschal feast, +with their loins girded as if they were going on a journey, in +memory of the long-ago flight of the Israelites from Egypt. There +was the roasted lamb, with bitter herbs, and flat cakes of bread +made without yeast. A cup of wine was passed around the table four +times. The Boy asked his father the meaning of all these things, +and the father repeated the story of the saving of the first-born +sons of Israel in that far-off night of terror and death when they +came out of Egypt. While the supper was going on, hymns were sung, +and when it was ended they all chanted together: + + + "Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; + For His loving-kindness endureth for ever." + + +So the Boy lay down under his striped woollen cloak of blue and +white and drifted toward sleep, glad that he was a son of Israel, +but sorry when he thought of the thousands of little lambs and the +altar floor splashed with red. He wondered if some day God would +not give them another way to keep that feast. + +The next day of the festival was a Sabbath, on which no work could +be done. But the daily sacrifice of the Temple, and all the services +and songs and benedictions in its courts, continued as usual, and +there was a greater crowd than ever within its walls. As the Boy +went thither with his parents they came to a place where a little +house was beginning to burn, set on fire by an overturned lamp. The +poor people stood by, wringing their hands and watching the flames. + +"Why do they not try to save their house?" cried the Boy. + +The father shook his head. "They can do nothing," he answered. "They +follow the teaching of the Pharisees, who say that it is unlawful +to put out a fire on the Sabbath, because it is a labor." + +A little later the Boy saw a cripple with a crutch, sitting in the +door of a cottage, looking very sad and lonely. + +"Why does he not go with the others," asked the Boy, "and hear the +music at the Temple? That would make him happier. Can't he walk?" + +"Yes," answered the father, "he can hop along pretty well with his +crutch on other days, but not on the Sabbath, for he would have to +carry his crutch, and that would be labor." + +All the time he was in the Temple, watching the procession of priests +and Levites and listening to the music, the Boy was thinking what +the Sabbath meant, and whether it really rested people and made +them happier. + +The third day of the festival was the offering of the first-fruits +of the new year's harvest. That was a joyous day. A sheaf of ripe +barley was reaped and carried into the Temple and presented before +the high altar with incense and music. The priests blessed the +people, and the people shouted and sang for gladness. + +The Boy's heart bounded in his breast as he joined in the song and +thought of the bright summer begun, and the birds building their +nests, and the flowers clothing the hills with beautiful colors, +and the wide fields of golden grain waving in the wind. He was happy +all day as he walked through the busy streets with his parents, +buying some things that were needed for the home in Nazareth; and +he was happy at night when he lay down under an olive-tree beside +the tent, for the air was warm and gentle, and he fell asleep under +the tree, dreaming of what he would see and do to-morrow. + + + + +III. HOW THE BOY WAS LOST + + +Now comes the secret of the way he was lost--a way so simple that +the wonder is that no one has ever dreamed of it before. + +The three important days of the Passover were ended, and the time +had come when those pilgrims who wished to return to their homes +might leave Jerusalem without offense, though it was more commendable +to remain through the full seven days. The people from Nazareth +were anxious to be gone--they had a long road to travel--their +harvests were waiting. While the Boy, tired out, was sleeping under +the tree, the question of going home was talked out and decided. +They would break camp at sunrise, and, joining with others of their +countrymen who were tented around them, they would take the road +for Galilee. + +But the Boy awoke earlier than any one else the next morning. Before +the dawn a linnet in the tree overhead called him with twittering +songs. He was rested by his long sleep. His breath came lightly. +The spirit of youth was beating in his limbs, His heart was eager +for adventure. He longed for the top of a high hill--for the wide, +blue sky--for the world at his feet--such a sight as he had often +found in his rambles among the heights near Nazareth. Why not? He +would return in time for the next visit to the Temple. + +Quietly he stepped among the sleeping-tents in the dark. A footpath +led through the shadowy olive-grove, up the hillside, into the +open. There the light was clearer, and the breeze that runs before +the daybreak was dancing through the grass. The Boy turned to +the left, following along one of the sheep-trails that crossed the +high, sloping pastures. Then he bore to the right, breasting the +long ridge, and passed the summit, running lightly to the eastward +until he came to a rounded, rocky knoll. There he sat down among +the little bushes to wait for sunrise. + +Far beyond the wrinkled wilderness of Tekoa, and the Dead Sea, and +the mountain-wall of Moab, the rim of the sky was already tinged +with silvery gray. The fading of the stars travelled slowly upward, +and the brightening of the rose of dawn followed it, until all the +east was softly glowing and the deep blue of the central heaven +was transfused with turquoise light. Dark in the gulfs and chasms +of the furrowed land the night lingered. Bright along the eastern +peaks and ridges the coming day, still hidden, revealed itself in +a fringe of dazzling gold, like the crest of a long mounting wave. +Shoots and flashes of radiance sprang upward from the glittering +edge. Streamers of rose-foam and gold-spray floated in the sky. +Then over the barrier of the hills the sun surged royally-crescent, +half-disk, full-orb--and overlooked the world. The luminous tide +flooded the gray villages of Bethany and Bethphage, and all the +emerald hills around Bethlehem were bathed in light. + +The Boy sat entranced, watching the miracle by which God makes His +sun to shine upon the good and the evil. How strange it was that +God should do that--bestow an equal light upon those who obeyed Him +and those who broke His law! Yet it was splendid, it was King-like +to give in that way, with both hands. No, it was Father-like--and +that was what the Boy had learned from his mother--that God who made +and ruled all things was his Father. It was the name she had taught +him to use in his prayers. Not in the great prayers he learned +from the book--the name there was Adonai, the Lord, the Almighty. +But in the little prayers that he said by himself it was "my Father!" +It made the Boy feel strangely happy and strong to say that. The +whole world seemed to breathe and glow around him with an invisible +presence. For such a Father, for the sake of His love and favor, +the Boy felt he could do anything. + +More than that, his mother had told him of something special that +the Father had for him to do in the world. In the evenings during +the journey and when they were going home together from the Temple, +she had repeated to him some of the words that the angel-voices +had spoken to her heart, and some of the sayings of wise men from +the East who came to visit him when he was a baby. She could not +understand all the mystery of it; she did not see how it was going +to be brought to pass. He was a child of poverty and lowliness; +not rich, nor learned, nor powerful. But with God all things were +possible. The choosing and calling of the eternal Father were more +than everything else. It was fixed in her heart that somehow her +Boy was sent to do a great work for Israel. He was the son of God +set apart to save his people and bring back the glory of Zion. +He was to fulfil the promises made in olden time and bring in the +wonderful reign of the Messiah in the world--perhaps as a forerunner +and messenger of the great King, or perhaps himself--ah, she did +not know! But she believed in her Boy with her whole soul; and she +was sure that his Father would show him what to do. + +These sayings, coming amid the excitements of his first journey, +his visit to the Temple, his earliest sight of the splendor and +confusion and misery of the great city, had sunken all the more +deeply into the Boy's mind. Excitement does not blur the impressions +of youth; it sharpens them, makes them more vivid. Half-covered +and hardly noticed at the time, they spring up into life when the +quiet hour comes. + +So the Boy remembered his mother's words while he lay watching the +sunrise. It would be great to make them come true. To help everybody +to feel what he felt there on the hilltop--that big, free feeling +of peace and confidence and not being afraid! To make those robbers +in the Jordan valley see how they were breaking the rule of the +world and burning out their own hearts! To cleanse the Temple from +the things that filled it with confusion and pain, and drive away +the brawling buyers and sellers who were spoiling his Father's great +house! To go among those poor and wretched and sorrowful folks who +swarmed in Jerusalem and teach them that God was their Father too, +and that they must not sin and quarrel any more! To find a better +way than the priests' and the Pharisees' of making people good! To +do great things for Israel--like Moses, like Joshua, like David--or +like Daniel, perhaps, who prayed and was not afraid of the +lions--or like Elijah and Elisha, who went about speaking to the people +and healing them-- + +The soft tread of bare feet among the bushes behind him roused the +Boy. He sprang up and saw a man with a stern face and long hair and +beard looking at him mysteriously. The man was dressed in white, +with a leathern girdle round his waist, into which a towel was +thrust. A leathern wallet hung from his neck, and he leaned upon +a long staff. + +"Peace be with you, Rabbi," said the Boy, reverently bowing at the +stranger's feet. But the man looked at him steadily and did not +speak. + +The Boy was confused by the silence. The man's eyes troubled him +with their secret look, but he was not afraid. + +"Who are you, sir," he asked, "and what is your will with me? Perhaps +you are a master of the Pharisees or a scribe? But no--there are +no broad blue fringes on your garments. Are you a priest, then?" + +The man shook his head, frowning. "I despise the priests," he +answered, "and I abhor their bloody and unclean sacrifices. I am +Enoch the Essene, a holy one, a perfect keeper of the law. I live +with those who have never defiled themselves with the eating of +meat, nor with marriage, nor with wine; but we have all things in +common, and we are baptized in pure water every day for the purifying +of our wretched bodies, and after that we eat the daily feast of +love in the kingdom of the Messiah which is at hand. Thou art called +into that kingdom, son; come with me, for thou art called." + +The Boy listened with astonishment. Some of the things that the man +said--for instance, about the sacrifices and about the nearness of +the kingdom--were already in his heart. But other things puzzled +and bewildered him. + +"My mother says that I am called," he answered, "but it is to serve +Israel and to help the people. Where do you live, sir, and what +is it that you do for the people?" + +"We live among the hills of that wilderness," he answered, pointing +to the south, "in the oasis of Engedi. There are palm-trees and +springs of water, and we keep ourselves pure, bathing before we eat +and offering our food of bread and dates as a sacrifice to God. We +all work together, and none of us has anything that he calls his +own. We do not go up to the Temple nor enter the synagogues. We +have forsaken the uncleanness of the world and all the impure ways +of men. Our only care is to keep ourselves from defilement. If we +touch anything that is forbidden we wash our hands and wipe them +with this towel that hangs from our girdle. We alone are serving +the kingdom. Come, live with us, for I think thou art chosen." + +The Boy thought for a while before he answered. "Some of it is +good, my master," he said, "but the rest of it is far away from +my thoughts. Is there nothing for a man to do in the world but to +think of himself--either in feasting and uncleanness as the heathen +do, or in fasting and purifying yourself as you do? How can you +serve the kingdom if you turn away from the people? They do not see +you or hear you. You are separate from them--just as if you were +dead without dying. You can do nothing for them. No, I do not want +to come with you and live at Engedi. I think my Father will show +me something better to do." + +"Your Father!" said Enoch the Essene. "Who is He?" + +"Surely," answered the Boy, "He is the same as yours. He that made +us and made all that we see--the great world for us to live in." + +"Dust," said the man, with a darker frown--"dust and ashes! It will +all perish, and thou with it. Thou art not chosen--not pure!" + +With that he went away down the hill; and the Boy, surprised and +grieved at his rude parting, wondered a little over the meaning +of his words, and then went back as quickly as he could toward the +tents. + +When he came to the olive-grove they were gone! The sun was +already high, and his people had departed hours ago. In the hurry +and bustle of breaking camp each of the parents had supposed that the +Boy was with the other, or with some of the friends and neighbors, +or perhaps running along the hillside above them as he used to do. +So they went their way cheerfully, not knowing that they had left +their son behind. This is how it came to pass that he was lost. + + + + +IV. HOW THE BOY WENT HIS WAY + + +When the Boy saw what had happened he was surprised and troubled, +but not frightened. He did not know what to do. He might hasten +after them, but he could not tell which way to go. He was not even +sure that they had gone home; for they had talked of paying a visit +to their relatives in the south before returning to Nazareth; and +some of the remaining pilgrims to whom he turned for news of his +people said that they had taken the southern road from the Mount +of Olives, going toward Bethlehem. + +The Boy was at a loss, but he was not disheartened, nor even cast +down. He felt that somehow all would be well with him; he would be +taken care of. They would come back for him in good time. Meanwhile +there were kind people here who would give him food and shelter. +There were boys in the other camps with whom he could play. Best +of all, he could go again to the city and the Temple. He could see +more of the wonderful things there, and watch the way the people +lived, and find out why so many of them seemed sad or angry, and a +few proud and scornful, and almost all looked unsatisfied. Perhaps +he could listen to some of the famous rabbis who taught the people +in the courts of the Temple and learn from them about the things +which his Father had chosen him to do. + +So he went down the hill and toward the Sheep Gate by which he had +always gone into the city. Outside the gate a few boys about his +own age, with a group of younger children, were playing games. + +"Look there," they cried--"a stranger! Let us have some fun with +him. Halloo, Country, where do you come from?" + +"From Galilee," answered the Boy. + +"Galilee is where all the fools live," cried the children. "Where +is your home? What is your name?" + +He told them pleasantly, but they laughed at his country way of +speaking and mimicked his pronunciation. + +"Yalilean! Yalilean!" they cried. "You can't task. Can you play? +Come and play with us." + +So they played together. First, they had a mimic wedding-procession. +Then they made believe that the bridegroom was killed by a robber, +and they had a mock funeral. The Boy took always the lowest part. +He was the hired mourner who followed the body, wailing; he was the +flute-player who made music for the wedding-guests to dance to. + +So readily did he enter into the play that the children at first were +pleased with him. But they were not long contented with anything. +Some of them would dance no more for the wedding; others would +lament no more for the funeral. Their caprices made them quarrelsome. + +"Yalilean fool," they cried, "you play it all wrong. You spoil the +game. We are tired of it. Can you run? Can you throw stones?" + +So they ran races; and the Boy, trained among the hills, outran +the others. But they said he did not keep to the course. Then they +threw stones; and the Boy threw farther and straighter than any of +the rest. This made them angry. + +Whispering together, they suddenly hurled a shower of stones at +him. One struck his shoulder, another made a long cut on his cheek. +Wiping away the blood with his sleeve, he turned silently and ran +to the Sheep Gate, the other boys chasing him with loud shouts. + +He darted lightly through the crowd of animals and people that +thronged the gateway, turning and dodging with a sure foot among +them and running up the narrow street that led to the sheep-market. +The cries of his pursuers grew fainter behind him. Among the stalls +of the market he wound this way and that way like a hare before +the hounds. At last he had left them out of sight and hearing. + +Then he ceased running and wandered blindly on through the northern +quarter of the city. The sloping streets were lined with bazaars and +noisy workshops. The Roman soldiers from the castle were sauntering +to and fro. Women in rich attire, with ear-rings and gold chains, +passed by with their slaves. Open market-places were still busy, +though the afternoon trade was slackening. + +But the Boy was too tired and faint with hunger and heavy at heart +to take an interest in these things. He turned back toward the +gate, and, missing his way a little, came to a great pool of water, +walled in wit, white stone, with five porticos around it. In some +of these porticos there were a few people lying upon mats. But one +of the porches was empty, and here the Boy sat down. + +He was worn out. His cheek was bleeding again, and the drops +trickled down his neck. He went down the broad steps to the pool +to wash away the blood. But he could not do it very well. His head +ached too much. So he crept back to the porch, unwound his little +turban, curled himself in a corner on the hard stones, his head +upon his arm, and fell sound asleep. + +He was awakened by a voice calling him, a hand laid upon his +shoulder. He looked up and saw the face of a young woman, dark-eyed, +red-lipped, only a few years older than himself. She was clad in +silk, with a veil of gauze over her head, gold coins in her hair, +and a phial of alabaster hanging by a gold chain around her neck. +A sweet perfume like the breath of roses came from it as she moved. +Her voice was soft and kind. + +"Poor boy," she said, "you are wounded; some one has hurt you. What +are you doing here? You look like a little brother that I had long +ago. Come with me. I will take care of you." + +The Boy rose and tried to go with her. But he was stiff and sore; he +could hardly walk; his head was swimming. The young woman beckoned +to a Nubian slave who followed her. He took the Boy in his big +black arms and so carried him to a pleasant house with a garden. + +There were couches and cushions there, in a marble court around +a fountain. There were servants who brought towels and ointments. +The young woman bathed the Boy's wound and his feet. The servants +came with food, and she made him eat of the best. His eyes grew +bright again, and the color came into his cheeks. He talked to her +of his life in Nazareth, of the adventures of his first journey, +and of the way he came to be lost. + +She listened to him intently, as if there were some strange charm +in his simple talk. Her eyes rested upon him with pleasure. A new +look swept over her face. She leaned close to him. + +"Stay with me, boy," she murmured, "for I want you. Your people are +gone. You shall sleep here to-night--you shall live with me and I +will be good to you--I will teach you to love me." + +The Boy moved back a little and looked at her with wide eyes, as +if she were saying something that he could not understand. + +"But you have already been good to me, sister," he answered, "and +I love you already, even as your brother did. Is your husband here? +Will he come soon, so that we can all say the prayer of thanks-giving +together for the food?" + +Her look changed again; her eyes filled with pain and sorrow; she +shrank back and turned away her face. + +"I have no husband," she said. "Ah, boy, innocent boy, you do +not understand. I eat the bread of shame and live in the house of +wickedness. I am a sinner, a sinner of the city. How could I pray?" + +With that she fell a-sobbing, rocking herself to and fro, and the +tears ran through her fingers like rain. The Boy looked at her, +astonished and pitiful. He moved nearer to her, after a moment, +and spoke softly. + +"I am very sorry, sister," he said; and as he spoke he felt her +tears falling on his feet. "I am more sorry than I ever was in my +life. It must be dreadful to be a sinner. But sinners can pray, for +God is our Father, and fathers know how to forgive. I will stay +with you and teach you some of the things my mother has taught me." + +She looked up and caught his hand and kissed it. She wiped away +her tears, and rose, pushing back her hair. + +"No, dear little master," she said, "you shall not stay in this +house--not an hour. It is not fit for you. My Nubian shall lead you +back to the gate, and you will return to your friends outside of +the city, and you will forget one whom you comforted for a moment." + +The Boy turned back as he stood in the doorway. "No," he said. "I +will not forget you. I will always remember your love and kindness. +Will you learn to pray, and give up being a sinner?" + +"I will try," she answered; "you have made me want to try. Go in +peace. God knows what will become of me." + +"God knows, sister," replied the Boy gravely. "Abide in peace." + +So he went out into the dusk with the Nubian and found the camp on +the hillside and a shelter in one of the friendly tents, where he +slept soundly and woke refreshed in the morning. + +This day he would not spend in playing and wandering. He would go +straight to the Temple, to find some of the learned teachers who +gave instruction there, and learn from them the wisdom that he +needed in order to do his work for his Father. + +As he went he thought about the things that had befallen him +yesterday. Why had the man dressed in white despised him? Why had +the city children mocked him and chased him away with stones? Why +was the strange woman who had been so kind to him afterward so +unhappy and so hopeless? + +There must be something in the world that he did not understand, +something evil and hateful and miserable that he had never felt in +himself. But he felt it in the others, and it made him so sorry, so +distressed for them, that it seemed like a heavy weight, a burden +on his own heart. It was like the work of those demons, of whom +his mother had told him, who entered into people and lived inside +of them, like worms eating away a fruit. + +Only these people of whom he was thinking did not seem to have a +demon that took hold of them and drove them mad and made them foam +at the mouth and cut themselves with stones, like a man he once +saw in Galilee. This was something larger and more mysterious-like +the hot wind that sometimes blew from the south and made people +gloomy and angry--like the rank weeds that grew in certain fields, +and if the sheep fed there they dropped and died. + +The Boy felt that he hated this unknown, wicked, unhappy thing more +than anything else in the world. He would like to save people from +it. He wanted to fight against it, to drive it away. It seemed as +if there were a spirit in his heart saying to him, "This is what +you must do, you must fight against this evil, you must drive out +the darkness, you must be a light, you must save the people--this +is your Father's work for you to do." + +But how? He did not know. That was what he wanted to find out. And +he went into the Temple hoping that the teachers there would tell +him. + +He found the vast Court of the Gentiles, as it had been on his first +visit, swarming with people. Jews and Syrians and foreigners of +many nations were streaming into it through the eight open gates, +meeting and mingling and eddying round in confused currents, +bargaining and haggling with the merchants and money-changers, +crowding together around some group where argument had risen to a +violent dispute, drifting away again in search of some new excitement. + +The morning sacrifice was ended, but the sound of music floated +out from the enclosed courts in front of the altar, where the more +devout worshippers were gathered. The Roman soldiers of the guard +paced up and down, or leaned tranquilly upoa their spears, looking +with indifference or amused contempt upon the turbulent scenes of +the holy place where they were set to keep the peace and prevent +the worshippers from attacking one another. + +The Boy turned into the long, cool cloisters, their lofty marble +columns and carved roofs, which ran around the inside of the walls. +Here he found many groups of people, walking in the broad aisles +between the pillars, or seated in the alcoves of Solomon's Porch +around the teachers who were instructing them. From one to another +of these open schools he wandered, listening eagerly to the different +rabbis and doctors of the law. + +Here one was reading from the Torah and explaining the laws about +the food which a Jew must not eat, and the things which he must not +do on the Sabbath. Here another was expounding the doctrine of the +Pharisees about the purifying of the sacred vessels in the Temple; +while another, a Sadducee, was disputing with him scornfully and +claiming that the purification of the priests was the only important +thing. "You would wash that which needs no washing," he cried, +"the Golden Candlestick, one day in every week! Next you will want +to wash the sun for fear an unclean ray of light may fall on the +altar!" + +Other teachers were reciting from the six books of the Talmud which +the Pharisees were making to expound the law. Others repeated the +histories of Israel, recounted the brave deeds of the Maccabees, +or read from the prophecies of Enoch and Daniel. Others still were +engaged in political debate: the Zealots talking fiercely of the +misdeeds of the house of Herod and the outrages committed by the +Romans; the Sadducees contemptuously mocking at the hopes of the +revolutionists and showing that the dream of freedom for Judea +was foolish. "Freedom," they said, "belongs to those who are well +protected. We have the Temple and priesthood because Rome takes care +of us." To this the Zealots answered angrily: "Yes, the priesthood +belongs to you unbelieving Sadducees; that is why you are content +with it. Look, now, at the place where you let Herod hang an accursed +eagle of gold on the front of Jehovah's House." + +So from group to group the Boy passed, listening intently, but +hearing little to his purpose. All day long he listened, now to +one, now to another, completely absorbed by what he heard, yet not +satisfied. Late in the afternoon he came into the quietest part +of Solomon's Porch, where two large companies were seated around +their respective teachers, separated from each other by a distance +of four or five columns. + +As he stood on the edge of the first company, whose rabbi was a +lean, dark-bearded, stern little man, the Boy was spoken to by a +stranger at his side, who asked him what he sought in the Temple. + +"Wisdom," answered the Boy. "I am looking for some one to give a +light to my path." + +"That is what I am seeking, too," said the stranger, smiling. "I +am a Greek, and I desire wisdom. Let us see if we can get it from +this teacher. Listen." + +He made his way to the centre of the circle and stood before the +stern little man. + +"Master," said the Greek, "I am willing to become thy disciple if +thou wilt teach me the whole law while I stand before thee thus--on +one foot." + +The rabbi looked at him angrily, and, lifting up his stick, smote +him sharply across the leg. "That is the whole law for mockers," +he cried. The stranger limped away amid the laughter of the crowd. + +"But the little man was too angry; he did not see that I was in +earnest," said he, as he came back to the Boy. "Now let us go to +the next school and see if the master there is any better." + +So they went to the second company, which was gathered around a +very old man, with long, snowy beard and a gentle face. The stranger +took his place as before, standing on one foot, and made the same +request. The rabbi's eyes twinkled and his lips were smiling as he +answered promptly: + +"Do nothing to thy neighbor that thou wouldst not have him do to +thee, this is the whole law; all the rest follows from this." + +"Well," said the stranger, returning, "what think you of this +teacher and his wisdom? Is it better?" + +"It is far better," replied the Boy eagerly: "it is the best of +all I have heard to-day. I am coming back to hear him to-morrow. +Do you know his name?" + +"I think it is Hillel," answered the Greek, "and he is a learned +man, the master of the Sanhedrim. You will do well, young Jew, to +listen to such a man. Socrates could not have answered me better. +But now the sun is near setting. We must go our ways. Farewell." + +In the tent of his friends the Boy found welcome and a supper, but +no news of his parents. He told his experiences in the Temple, and +the friends heard him, wondering at his discernment. They were in +doubt whether to let him go again the next day; but he begged so +earnestly, arguing that they could tell his parents where he was +if they should come to the camp seeking him, that finally he won +consent. + + + + +V. HOW THE BOY WAS FOUND + + +He was in Solomon's Porch long before the schools had begun to +assemble. He paced up and down under the triple colonnade, thinking +what questions he should ask the master. + +The company that gathered around Hillel that day was smaller, but +there were more scribes and doctors of the law among them, and +they were speaking of the kingdom of the Messiah--the thing that +lay nearest to the Boy's heart. He took his place in the midst of +them, and they made room for him, for they liked young disciples +and encouraged them to ask after knowledge. + +It was the prophecy of Daniel that they were discussing, and the +question was whether these things were written of the First Messiah +or of the Second Messiah; for many of the doctors held that there +must be two, and that the first would die in battle, but the second +would put down all his enemies and rule over the world. + +"Rabbi," asked the Boy, "if the first was really the Messiah, could +not God raise him up again and send him back to rule?" + +"You ask wisely, son," answered Hillel, "and I think the prophets +tell us that we must hope for only one Messiah. This book of Daniel +is full of heavenly words, but it is not counted among the prophets +whose writings are gathered in the Scripture. Which of them have +you read, and which do you love most, my son?" + +"Isaiah," said the Boy, "because he says God will have mercy with +everlasting-kindness. But I love Daniel, too, because he says they +that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever +and ever. But I do not understand what he says about the times +and a half-time and the days and the seasons before the coming of +Messiah." + +With this there rose a dispute among the doctors about the meaning +of those sayings, and some explained them one way and some another, +but Hillel sat silent. At last he said: + +"It is better to hope and to wait patiently for Him than to reckon +the day of His coming. For if the reckoning is wrong, and He does +not come, then men despair, and no longer make ready for Him." + +"How does a man make ready for Him, Rabbi?" asked the Boy. + +"By prayer, son, and by study of the law, and by good works, and +by sacrifices." + +"But when He comes He will rule over the whole world, and how can +all the world come to the Temple to sacrifice?" + +"A way will be provided," answered the old man, "though I do not +know how it will be. And there are offerings of the heart as well +as of the altar. It is written, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.'" + +"Will His kingdom be for the poor as well as for the rich, and for +the ignorant as well as for the wise?" + +[Illustration: From a painting by Holman Junt. The Finding of Christ +in The Temple] + +"Yes, it will be for the poor and for the rich alike. But it will +not be for the ignorant, my son. For he who does not know the law +cannot be pious." + +"But, Rabbi," said the Boy eagerly, "will He not have mercy on them +just because they are ignorant? Will He not pity them as a shepherd +pities his sheep when they are silly and go astray?" + +"He is not only a Shepherd," answered Hillel firmly, "but a great +King. They must all keep the law, even as it is written and as the +elders have taught it to us. There is no other way." + +The Boy was silent for a time, while the others talked of the law, +and of the Torah, and of the Talmud in which Hillel in those days +was writing down the traditions of the elders. When there was an +opportunity he spoke again. + +"Rabbi, if most of the people should be both poor and ignorant +when the Messiah came, so ignorant that they did not even know Him, +wouldn't He save them just because they were poor?" + +Hillel looked at the Boy with love, and hesitated before he answered. + +At that moment a man and a woman came through the colonnade with +hurried steps. The man stopped at the edge of the circle, astonished +at what he saw. But the woman came into the centre and put her arm +around the Boy. + +"My boy," she cried, "why hast thou done this to us? See how sorrowful +thou hast made me and thy father, looking everywhere for thee." + +"Mother," he answered, "why did you look everywhere for me with +sorrow? Did you not know that I would be in my Father's house? Must +I not begin to think of the things my Father wants me to do?" + +Thus the lost Boy was found again, and went home with, his parents +to Nazareth. The old rabbi blessed him as he left the Temple. + +But had he really been lost, or was he finding his way? + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Valley of Vision, by Henry Van Dyke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VALLEY OF VISION *** + +***** This file should be named 6009.txt or 6009.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/0/6009/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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