initial commit of ebook 6242HEADmain

2 files changed, 2395 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/gp69w10.txt b/old/gp69w10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b0a1c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/gp69w10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2395 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook Lane Parables Of A Province, by G. Parker
+#69 in our series by Gilbert Parker
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+                    
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: Parables Of A Province
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: August, 2004  [EBook #6242]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 17, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARABLES OF A PROVINCE, PARKER ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+
+
+PARABLES OF A PROVINCE
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN PIPES
+THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE
+BY THAT PLACE CALLED PERADVENTURE
+THE SINGING OF THE BEES
+THE WHITE OMEN
+THE SOJOURNERS
+THE TENT OF THE PURPLE MAT
+THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY
+THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN PIPES
+
+They hung all bronzed and shining, on the side of Margath Mountain--the
+tall and perfect pipes of the organ which was played by some son of God
+when the world was young.  At least Hepnon the cripple said this was so,
+when he was but a child, and when he got older he said that even now a
+golden music came from the pipes at sunrise and sunset.  And no one
+laughed at Hepnon, for you could not look into the dark warm eyes,
+dilating with his fancies, or see the transparent temper of his face, the
+look of the dreamer over all, without believing him, and reproving your
+own judgment.  You felt that he had travelled ways you could never
+travel, that he had had dreams beyond you, that his fanciful spirit had
+had adventures you would give years of your dull life to know.
+
+And yet he was not made only as women are made, fragile and trembling in
+his nerves.  For he was strong of arm, and there was no place in the
+hills to be climbed by venturesome man, which he could not climb with
+crutch and shrivelled leg.  Also, he was a gallant horseman, riding with
+his knees and one foot in stirrup, his crutch slung behind him.  It may
+be that was why rough men listened to his fancies about the Golden Pipes.
+Indeed they would go out at sunrise and look across to where the pipes
+hung, taking the rosy glory of the morning, and steal away alone at
+sunset, and in some lonely spot lean out towards the flaming instrument
+to hear if any music rose from them.  The legend that one of the Mighty
+Men of the Kimash Hills came here to play, with invisible hands, the
+music of the first years of the world, became a truth, though a truth
+that none could prove.  And by-and-by, no man ever travelled the valley
+without taking off his hat as he passed the Golden Pipes--so had a
+cripple with his whimsies worked upon the land.
+
+Then, too, perhaps his music had to do with it.  As a child he had only
+a poor concertina, but by it he drew the traveller and the mountaineer
+and the worker in the valley to him like a magnet.  Some touch of the
+mysterious, some sweet fantastical melody in all he played, charmed them,
+even when he gave them old familiar airs.  From the concertina he passed
+to the violin, and his skill and mastery over his followers grew; and
+then there came a notable day when up over a thousand miles of country a
+melodeon was brought him.  Then a wanderer, a minstrel outcast from a far
+country, taking refuge in those hills, taught him, and there was one long
+year of loving labour together, and merry whisperings between the two,
+and secret drawings, and worship of the Golden Pipes; and then the
+minstrel died, and left Hepnon alone.
+
+And now they said that Hepnon tried to coax out of the old melodeon the
+music of the Golden Pipes.  But a look of sorrow grew upon his face, and
+stayed for many months.  Then there came a change, and he went into the
+woods, and began working there in the perfect summer weather; and the
+tale went abroad that he was building an organ, so that he might play for
+all who came, the music he heard on the Golden Pipes--for they had
+ravished his ear since childhood, and now he must know the wonderful
+melodies all by heart, they said.
+
+With consummate patience Hepnon dried the wood and fashioned it into long
+tuneful tubes, beating out soft metal got from the forge in the valley to
+case the lips of them, tanning the leather for the bellows, stretching
+it, and exposing all his work to the sun of early morning, which gave
+every fibre and valve a rich sweetness, like a sound fruit of autumn.
+People also said that he set all the pieces out at sunrise and sunset
+that the tone of the Golden Pipes might pass into them, so that when the
+organ was built, each part should be saturated with such melody as it had
+drawn in, according to its temper and its fibre.
+
+So the building of the organ went on, and a year passed, and then
+another, and it was summer again; and soon Hepnon began to build also--
+while yet it was sweet weather--a home for his organ, a tall nest of
+cedar added to his father's house.  And in it every piece of wood, and
+every board had been made ready by his own hands, and set in the sun and
+dried slowly to a healthy soundness; and he used no nails of metal, but
+wooden pins of the iron-wood or hickory tree, and it was all polished,
+and there was no paint or varnish anywhere; and when you spoke in this
+nest your voice sounded pure and strong.
+
+At last the time came when, piece by piece, the organ was set up in its
+home; and as the days and weeks went by, and autumn drew to winter, and
+the music of the Golden Pipes stole down the flumes of snow to their
+ardent lover, and spring came with its sap, and small purple blossoms,
+and yellow apples of mandrake, and summer stole on luxurious and dry; the
+face of Hepnon became thinner and thinner, a strange deep light shone in
+his eyes, and all his person seemed to exhale a kind of glow.  He ceased
+to ride, to climb, to lift weights with his strong arms, as he had--poor
+cripple--been once so proud to do.  A delicacy came upon him, and more
+and more he withdrew himself to his organ, and to those lofty and lonely
+places where he could see--and hear--the Golden Pipes boom softly over
+the valley.
+
+At last it all was done, even to the fine-carved stool of cedar whereon
+he should sit when he played his organ.  Never yet had he done more than
+sound each note as he made it, trying it, softening it by tender devices
+with the wood; but now the hour was come when he should gather down the
+soul of the Golden Pipes to his fingers, and give to the ears of the
+world the song of the morning stars, the music of Jubal and his comrades,
+the affluent melody to which the sons of men, in the first days, paced
+the world in time with the thoughts of God.  For days he lived alone in
+the cedar-house--and who may know what he was doing dreaming, listening,
+or praying?  Then the word went through the valley and the hills, that
+one evening he would play for all who came; and that day was "Toussaint,"
+or the Feast of All Souls.
+
+So they came both old and young, and they did not enter the house, but
+waited outside, upon the mossy rocks, or sat among the trees, and watched
+the heavy sun roll down and the Golden Pipes flame in the light of
+evening.  Far beneath in the valley the water ran lightly on, but there
+came no sound from it, none from anywhere; only a general pervasive
+murmur quieting to the heart.
+
+Now they heard a note come from the organ--a soft low sound that seemed
+to rise out of the good earth and mingle with the vibrant air, the song
+of birds, the whisper of trees, and the murmuring water.  Then came
+another, and another note, then chords, and chords upon these, and by-
+and-by, rolling tides of melody, until, as it seemed to the listeners,
+the air ached with the incomparable song; and men and women wept, and
+children hid their heads in the laps of their mothers, and young men and
+maidens dreamed dreams never to be forgotten.  For one short hour the
+music went on, then twilight came.  Presently the sounds grew fainter,
+and exquisitely painful, and now a low sob seemed to pass through all the
+heart of the organ, and then silence fell, and in the sacred pause,
+Hepnon came out among them all, pale and desolate.  He looked at them a
+minute most sadly, and then lifting up his arms towards the Golden Pipes,
+now hidden in the dusk, he cried low and brokenly:
+
+"O my God, give me back my dream!"
+
+Then his crutch seemed to give way beneath him, and he sank upon the
+ground, faint and gasping.
+
+They raised him up, and women and men whispered in his ear
+
+"Ah, the beautiful, beautiful music, Hepnon!"  But he only said: "O my
+God, O my God, give me back my dream!"  When he had said it thrice, he
+turned his face to where his organ was in the cedar-house, and then his
+eyes closed, and he fell asleep: and they could not wake him.  But at
+sunrise the next morning a shiver passed through him, and then a cold
+quiet stole over him, and Hepnon and the music of the Golden Pipes
+departed from the Voshti Hills, and came again no more.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE
+
+"Height unto height answereth knowledge."
+
+His was the first watch, the farthest fire, for Shaknon Hill towered
+above the great gulf, and looked back also over thirty leagues of country
+towards the great city.  There came a time again when all the land was
+threatened.  From sovereign lands far off, two fleets were sailing hard
+to reach the wide basin before the walled city, the one to save, the
+other to destroy.  If Tinoir, the Guardian of the Fire, should sight the
+destroying fleet, he must light two fires on Shaknon Hill, and then, at
+the edge of the wide basin, in a treacherous channel, the people would
+send out fire-rafts to burn the ships of the foe.  Five times in the past
+had Tinoir been the Guardian of the Fire, and five times had the people
+praised him; but praise and his scanty wage were all he got.
+
+The hut in which he lived with his wife on another hill, ten miles from
+Shaknon, had but two rooms, and their little farm and the garden gave
+them only enough to live--no more.  Elsewhere there was good land in
+abundance, but it had been said years ago to Tinoir by the great men,
+that he should live not far from Shaknon, so that in times of peril he
+might guard the fire and be sentinel for all the people.  Perhaps Tinoir
+was too dull to see that he was giving all and getting naught; that while
+he waited and watched he was always poor, and also was getting old.
+There was no house or home within fifty miles of them, and only now and
+then some wandering Indians lifted the latch, and drew in beside their
+hearth, or a good priest with a soul of love for others, came and said
+Mass in the room where a little Calvary had been put up.  Two children
+had come and gone, and Tinoir and Dalice had dug their graves and put
+them in a warm nest of maple leaves, and afterwards lived upon the
+memories of them.  But after these two, children came no more; and Tinoir
+and Dalice grew closer and closer to each other, coming to look alike in
+face, as they had long been alike in mind and feeling.  None ever lived
+nearer to nature than they, and wild things grew to be their friends; so
+that you might see Dalice at her door tossing crumbs with one hand to
+birds, and with the other bits of meat to foxes, martens, and wild dogs,
+which came and went unharmed by them.  Tinoir shot no wild animals for
+profit--only for food and for skins and furs to wear.  Because of this he
+was laughed at by all who knew, save the priest of St. Sulpice, who, on
+Easter Day, when the little man came yearly to Mass over two hundred
+miles of country, praised him to his people, and made much of him, though
+Tinoir was not vain enough to see it.
+
+When word came down the river, and up over the hills to Tinoir, that war
+was come and that he must go to watch for the hostile fleet and for the
+friendly fleet as well, he made no murmur, though it was the time of
+harvest, and Dalice had had a sickness from which she was not yet
+recovered.
+
+"Go, my Tinoir," said Dalice, with a little smile, "and I will reap the
+grain.  If your eyes are sharp you shall see my bright sickle moving in
+the sun."
+
+"There is the churning of the milk too, Dalice," answered Tinoir; "you
+are not strong, and sometimes the butter comes slow; and there's the
+milking also."
+
+"Strength is coming to me fast, Tinoir," she said, and drew herself up;
+but her dress lay almost flat on her bosom.  Tinoir took her arm and felt
+it above the elbow.
+
+"It is like the muscle of a little child," he said.
+
+"But I will drink those bottles of red wine the Governor sent the last
+time you watched the fire on Shaknon," she said, brightening up, and
+trying to cheer him.  He nodded, for he saw what she was trying to do,
+and said: "Also a little of the gentian and orange root three times a
+day-eh, Dalice?"
+
+After arranging for certain signs, by little fires, which they were to
+light upon the hills and so speak with each other, they said, "Good day,
+Dalice," and "Good day, Tinoir," drank a glass of the red wine, and
+added: "Thank the good God;" then Tinoir wiped his mouth with his sleeve,
+and went away, leaving Dalice with a broken glass at her feet, and a look
+in her eyes which it was well that Tinoir did not see.
+
+But as he went he was thinking how, the night before, Dalice had lain
+with her arm round his neck hour after hour as she slept, as she did
+before they ever had a child; and that even in her sleep, she kissed him
+as she used to kiss him before he brought her away from the parish of
+Ste. Genevieve to be his wife.  And the more he thought about it the
+happier he became, and more than once he stopped and shook his head in
+pleased retrospection.  And Dalice thought of it too as she hung over the
+churn, her face drawn and tired and shining with sweat; and she shook her
+head, and tears came into her eyes, for she saw further into things
+than Tinoir.  And once as she passed his coat on the wall, she rubbed it
+softly with her hand, as she might his curly head when he lay beside her.
+
+From Shaknon Tinoir watched; but of course he could never see her bright
+sickle shining, and he could not know whether her dress still hung loose
+upon her breast, or whether the flesh of her arms was still like a
+child's.  If all was well with Dalice a little fire should be lighted at
+the house door just at the going down of the sun, and it should be at
+once put out.  If she was ill, a fire should be lit and then put out two
+hours after sundown.  If she should be ill beyond any help, this fire
+should burn on till it went out.
+
+Day after day Tinoir, as he watched for the coming fleet, saw the fire
+lit at sundown, and then put out.  But one night the fire did not come
+till two hours after sundown, and it was put out at once.  He fretted
+much, and he prayed that Dalice might be better, and he kept to his post,
+looking for the fleet of the foe.  Evening after evening was this other
+fire lighted and then put out at once; and a great longing came to him to
+leave this guarding of the fire, and go to her--"For half a day," he
+said--"just for half a day!"  But in that half day the fleet might pass,
+and then it would be said that Tinoir had betrayed his country.  At last
+sleep left him, and he fought a demon night and day; and always he
+remembered Dalice's arm about his neck, and her kisses that last night
+they were together.  Twice he started away from his post to go to her,
+but before he had gone a hundred paces he came back.
+
+At last one afternoon he saw ships, not far off, rounding the great cape
+in the gulf, and after a time, at sunset, he knew by their shape it was
+the fleet of the foe; and so he lighted his great fires, and they were
+answered leagues away towards the city by another beacon.
+
+Two hours after sunset of this day the fire in front of Tinoir's home was
+lighted, and was not put out, and Tinoir sat and watched it till it died
+away.  So he lay in the light of his own great war-fire till morning, for
+he could not travel at night, and then, his duty over, he went back to
+his home.  He found Dalice lying beside the ashes of her fire, past
+hearing all he said in her ear, unheeding the kiss he set upon her lips.
+
+Two nights afterwards, coming back from laying her beside her children,
+he saw a great light in the sky towards the city, as of a huge fire.
+When the courier came to him bearing the Governor's message and the
+praise of the people, and told of the enemy's fleet destroyed by the
+fire-rafts, he stared at the man, then turned his head to a place where a
+pine cross showed against the green grass, and said:
+
+"Dalice--my wife--is dead."
+
+"You have saved your country, Tinoir," answered the courier kindly.
+
+"I have lost Dalice!" he said, and fondled the rosary Dalice used to
+carry when she lived; and he would speak to the man no more.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BY THAT PLACE CALLED PERADVENTURE
+
+By that place called Peradventure in the Voshti Hills dwelt Golgothar the
+strong man, who, it was said, could break an iron pot with a blow, or
+pull a tall sapling from the ground.
+
+"If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgothar, "I would go and
+conquer Nooni, the city of our foes."
+
+Because he had not the hundred men he did not go; and Nooni still sent
+insults to the country of Golgothar, and none could travel safe between
+the capitals.  And Golgothar was sorry.
+
+"If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgothar, "I would build a dyke
+to keep the floods back from the people crowded on the lowlands."
+
+Because he had not the hundred men, now and again the floods came down,
+and swept the poor folk out to sea, or laid low their habitations.  And
+Golgothar pitied them.
+
+"If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgothar, "I would clear the
+wild boar from the forests, that the children should not fear to play
+among the trees."
+
+Because he had not the hundred men the graves of children multiplied, and
+countless mothers sat by empty beds and mourned.  And Golgothar put his
+head between his knees in trouble for them.
+
+"If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgothar, "I would with great
+stones mend the broken pier, and the bridge between the islands should
+not fall."  Because he had not the hundred men, at last the bridge gave
+way, and a legion of the king's army were carried to the whirlpool, where
+they fought in vain.  And Golgothar made a feast of remembrance to them,
+and tears dripped on his beard when he said: "Hail and Farewell!"
+
+"If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgothar, "I would go against
+the walls of chains our rebels built, and break them one by one."
+
+Because he had not the hundred men, the chain walls blocked the only pass
+between the hills, and so cut in two the kingdom: and they who pined for
+corn went wanting, and they who yearned for fish stayed hungry.  And
+Golgothar, brooding, said his heart bled for his country.
+
+"If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgothar, "I would go among the
+thousand brigands of Mirnan, and bring again the beloved daughter of our
+city."
+
+Because he had not the hundred men the beloved lady languished in her
+prison, for the brigands asked as ransom the city of Talgone which they
+hated.  And Golgothar carried in his breast a stone image she had given
+him, and for very grief let no man speak her name before him.
+
+"If I had a hundred men so strong--" said Golgothar, one day, standing on
+a great point of land and looking down the valley.
+
+As he said it, he heard a laugh, and looking down he saw Sapphire, or
+Laugh of the Hills, as she was called.  A long staff of iron-wood was in
+her hands, with which she jumped the dykes and streams and rocky
+fissures; in her breast were yellow roses, and there was a tuft of pretty
+feathers in her hair.  She reached up and touched him on the breast with
+her staff, then she laughed again, and sang a snatch of song in mockery:
+
+                        "I am a king,
+                         I have no crown,
+                         I have no throne to sit in--"
+
+"Pull me up, boy," she said.  She wound a leg about the staff, and,
+taking hold, he drew her up as if she had been a feather.
+
+"If I had a hundred mouths I would kiss you for that," she said, still
+mocking; "but having only one, I'll give it to the cat, and weep for
+Golgothar."
+
+"Silly jade," he said, and turned towards his tent.
+
+As they passed a slippery and dangerous place, where was one strong
+solitary tree, she suddenly threw a noose over him, drew it fast and
+sprang far out over the precipice into the air.  Even as she did so, he
+jumped behind the tree, and clasped it, else on the slippery place he
+would have gone over with her.  The rope came taut, and presently he drew
+her up again to safety, and while she laughed at him and mocked him, he
+held her tight under his arm, and carried her to his lodge, where he let
+her go.
+
+"Why did you do it, devil's madcap?" he asked.
+
+"Why didn't you wait for the hundred men so strong?" she laughed.
+
+"Why did you jump behind the tree?
+
+             "'If I had a hundred men, heigho,
+               I would buy my corn for a penny a gill.
+               If I had a hundred men or so,
+               I would dig a grave for the maid of the hill, heigho!'"
+
+He did not answer her, but stirred the soup in the pot and tasted it, and
+hung a great piece of meat over the fire.  Then he sat down, and only
+once did he show anger as she mocked him, and that was when she thrust
+her hand into his breast, took out the little stone image, and said:
+
+              "If a little stone god had a hundred hearts,
+               Would a little stone goddess trust in one?"
+
+Then she made as if she would throw it into the fire, but he caught her
+hand and crushed it, so that she cried out for pain and anger, and said:
+
+"Brute of iron, go break the posts in the brigands' prison-house, but
+leave a poor girl's wrist alone.  If I had a hundred men--" she added,
+mocking wildly again, and then, springing at him, put her two thumbs at
+the corners of his eyes, and cried: "Stir a hand, and out they will come
+--your eyes for my bones!"
+
+He did not stir till her fury was gone.  Then he made her sit down and
+eat with him, and afterwards she said softly to him, and without a laugh:
+"Why should the people say, 'Golgothar is our shame, for he has great
+strength, and yet he does nothing but throw great stones for sport into
+the sea'?"
+
+He had the simple mind of a child, and he listened to her patiently, and
+at last got up and began preparing for a journey, cleaning all his
+weapons, and gathering them together.  She understood him, and she said,
+with a little laugh like music: "One strong man is better than a hundred
+--a little key will open a great door easier than a hundred hammers.
+What is the strength of a hundred bullocks without this?" she added,
+tapping him on the forehead.
+
+Then they sat down and talked together quietly for a long time; and at
+sunset she saw him start away upon great errands.
+
+Before two years had gone, Nooni, the city of their foes, was taken; the
+chain wall of the rebels opened to the fish and corn of the poor; the
+children wandered in the forest without fear of wild boars; the dyke was
+built to save the people in the lowlands; and Golgothar carried to the
+castle the King had given him the daughter of the city, freed from
+Mirnan.
+
+"If Golgothar had a hundred wives--" said a voice to the strong man as he
+entered the castle gates.  Looking up he saw Sapphire.  He stretched out
+his hand to her in joy and friendship.
+
+"--I would not be one of them," she added, with a mocking laugh, as she
+dropped from the wall, leaped the moat by the help of her staff, and
+danced away laughing.  There are those who say, however that tears fell
+down her cheeks as she laughed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SINGING OF THE BEES
+
+"Mother, didst thou not say thy prayers last night?"
+
+"Twice, my child."
+
+"Once before the little shrine, and once beside my bed--is it not so?"
+
+"It is so, my Fanchon.  What hast thou in thy mind?"
+
+"Thou didst pray that the storm die in the hills, and the flood cease,
+and that my father come before it was again the hour of prayer.  It is
+now the hour.  Canst thou not hear the storm and the wash of the flood?
+And my father does not come!"
+
+"Dear Fanchon, God is good."
+
+"When thou wast asleep I rose from my bed, and in the dark I kissed the
+feet of--Him--on the little Calvary; and I did not speak, but in my heart
+I called."
+
+"What didst thou call, my child?"
+
+"I called to my father: 'Come back-come back!'"
+
+"Thou shouldst have called to God, my Fanchon."
+
+"I loved my father, and I called to him."
+
+"Thou shouldst love God."
+
+"I knew my father first.  If God loved thee, He would answer thy prayer.
+Dost thou not hear the cracking of the cedar trees and the cry of the
+wolves--they are afraid.  All day and all night the rain and wind come
+down, and the birds and wild fowl have no peace.  I kissed--His feet, and
+my throat was full of tears; but I called in my heart.  Yet the storm and
+the dark stay, and my father does not come."
+
+"Let us be patient, my Fanchon."
+
+"He went to guide the priest across the hills.  Why does not God guide
+him back?"
+
+"My Fanchon, let us be patient."
+
+"The priest was young, and my father has grey hair."
+
+"Wilt thou not be patient, my child?"
+
+"He filled the knapsack of the priest with food better than his own, and
+--thou didst not see it--put money in his hand."
+
+"My own, the storm may pass."
+
+"He told the priest to think upon our home as a little nest God set up
+here for such as he."
+
+"There are places of shelter in the hills for thy father, my Fanchon."
+
+"And when the priest prayed, 'That Thou mayst bring us safely to this
+place where we would go,' my father said so softly, 'We beseech Thee to
+hear us, good Lord!'"
+
+"My Fanchon, thy father hath gone this trail many times."
+
+"The prayer was for the out-trail, not the in-trail, my mother."
+
+"Nay, I do not understand thee."
+
+"A swarm of bees came singing through the room last night, my mother.
+It was dark and I could not see, but there was a sweet smell, and I heard
+the voices."
+
+"My child, thou art tired with watching, and thy mind is full of fancies.
+Thou must sleep."
+
+"I am tired of watching.  Through the singing of the bees as they passed
+over my bed, I heard my father's voice.  I could not hear the words, they
+seemed so far away, like the voices of the bees; and I did not cry out,
+for the tears were in my throat.  After a moment the room was so still
+that it made my heart ache."
+
+"Oh, my Fanchon, my child, thou dost break my heart!  Dost thou not know
+the holy words?"
+
+"'And their souls do pass like singing bees, where no man may follow.
+These are they whom God gathereth out of the whirlwind and the desert,
+and bringeth home in a goodly swarm.'"
+
+Night drew close to the earth, and as suddenly as a sluice-gate drops and
+holds back a flood the storm ceased.  Along the crest of the hills there
+slowly grew a line of light, and then the serene moon came up and on,
+persistent to give the earth love where it had had punishment.  Divers
+flocks of clouds, camp-followers of the storm, could not abash her.  But
+once she drew shrinking back behind a slow troop of them; for down at the
+bottom of a gorge lay a mountaineer, face upward and unmoving, as he had
+lain since a rock loosened beneath him, and the depths swallowed him.  If
+he had had ears to hear, he would have answered the soft, bitter cries
+which rose from a but on the Voshti Hills above him:
+
+"Michel, Michel, art thou gone?"
+
+"Come back, oh, my father, come back!"
+
+But perhaps it did avail that there were lighted candles before a little
+shrine, and that a mother, in her darkness, kissed the feet of One on a
+Calvary.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WHITE OMEN
+
+"Ah, Monsieur, Monsieur, come quick!"
+
+"My son, wilt thou not be patient?"
+
+"But she--my Fanchon--and the child!"
+
+"I knew thy Fanchon, and her father, when thou wast yet a child."
+
+"But they may die before we come, Monsieur."
+
+"These things are in God's hands, Gustave."
+
+"You are not a father; you have never known what makes the world seem
+nothing."
+
+"I knew thy Fanchon's father."
+
+"Is that the same?"
+
+"There are those who save and those who die for others.  Of thy love thou
+wouldst save--the woman hath lain in thine arms, the child is of this.
+But to thy Fanchon's father I was merely a priest--we had not hunted
+together nor met often about the fire, and drew fast the curtains for the
+tales which bring men close.  He took me safely on the out-trail, but on
+the home-trail he was cast away.  Dost thou not think the love of him
+that stays as great as the love of him that goes?"
+
+"Ah, thou wouldst go far to serve my wife and child!"
+
+"Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the
+stars, its feet for the swords; it continueth, though an army lay waste
+the pasture; it comforteth when there are no medicines; it hath the
+relish of manna; and by it do men live in the desert."
+
+"But if it pass from a man, that which he loves, and he is left alone,
+Monsieur?"
+
+"That which is loved may pass, but love hath no end."
+
+"Thou didst love my Fanchon's father?"
+
+"I prayed him not to go, for a storm was on, but there was the thought of
+wife and child on him--the good Michel--and he said: 'It is the home-
+trail, and I must get to my nest.'  Poor soul, poor soul!  I who carry my
+life as a leaf in autumn for the west wind was saved, and he--!"
+
+"We are on the same trail now, Monsieur?"
+
+"See: how soft a night, and how goodly is the moon!"
+
+"It is the same trail now as then, Monsieur?"
+
+"And how like velvet are the shadows in the gorge there below--like
+velvet-velvet."
+
+"Like a pall.  He travelled this trail, Monsieur?"
+
+"I remember thy Fanchon that night--so small a child was she, with deep
+brown eyes, a cloud of hair that waved about her head, and a face that
+shone like spring.  I have seen her but once since then, and yet thou
+sayest thy Fanchon has now her great hour, that she brings forth?"
+
+"Yes.  In the morning she cried out to me twice, for I am not easy of
+waking--shame to me--and said: 'Gustave, thou shalt go for the priest
+over the hills, for my time is at hand, and I have seen the White Omen
+on the wall.'  The White Omen--you know, Monsieur?"
+
+"What does such as she with the legend of the White Omen, Gustave?"
+
+"Who can tell what is in the heart of a mother?  Their eyes are not the
+eyes of such as we."
+
+"Neither the eyes of man nor priest--thou sayest well.  How did she see
+it?"
+
+"She was lying in a soft sleep, when something like a pain struck through
+her eyes, and she waked.  There upon the wall over the shrine was the
+white arrow with the tuft of fire.  It came and went three times, and
+then she called me."
+
+"What tale told the arrow to thy Fanchon, Gustave?"
+
+"That for the child which cometh into the world a life must go from the
+world."
+
+"The world is wide and souls are many, Gustave."
+
+"Most true; but her heart was heavy, and it came upon her that the child
+might be spared and herself taken."
+
+"Is not that the light of thy home--yonder against the bunch of firs?"
+
+"Yes, yes, good father, they have put a light in the window.  See, see,
+there are two lights.  Ah, merci, merci, they both live!  She hath had
+her hour!  That was the sign our mother promised me."
+
+"Michel's wife--ah, yes, Michel's wife!  Blessed be God.  A moment,
+Gustave; let us kneel here .  .  ."
+
+.  .  .  "Monsieur, did you not see a white arrow shoot down the sky as
+the prayer ended?"
+
+"My son, it was a falling star."
+
+"It seemed to have a tuft of fire."
+
+"Hast thou also the mind of a woman, Gustave?"
+
+"I cannot tell.  If it was not a human soul it was a world, and death is
+death."
+
+"Thou shalt think of life, Gustave.  In thy nest there are two birds
+where was but one.  Keep in thy heart the joy of life and the truth of
+love, and the White Omen shall be naught to thee."
+
+"May I say 'thou' as I speak?"
+
+"Thou shalt speak as I speak to thee."
+
+"Thy face is pale-art thou ill, mon pere?"
+
+"I have no beard, and the moon shines in my face."
+
+"Thy look is as that of one without sight."
+
+"Nay, nay, I can see the two lights in thy window, my son."
+
+"Joy--joy, a little while, and I shall clasp my Fanchon in my arms!"
+
+"Thy Fanchon, and the child--and the child."
+
+The fire sent a trembling glow through the room of a hut on a Voshti
+hill, and the smell of burning fir and camphire wood filtered through the
+air with a sleepy sweetness.  So delicate and faint between the quilts
+lay the young mother, the little Fanchon, a shining wonder still in her
+face, and the exquisite touch of birth on her--for when a child is born
+the mother also is born again.  So still she lay until one who gave her
+into the world stooped, and drawing open the linen at her breast, nestled
+a little life there, which presently gave a tiny cry, the first since it
+came forth.  Then Fanchon's arms drew up, and, with eyes all tenderly
+burning, she clasped the babe to her breast, and as silk breast touched
+silk cheek, there sprang up in her the delight and knowledge that the
+doom of the White Omen was not for herself.  Then she called the child by
+its father's name, and said into the distance: "Gustave, Gustave, come
+back!"
+
+And the mother of Fanchon, remembering one night so many years before,
+said, under her breath: "Michel, Michel, thou art gone so long!"
+
+With their speaking, Gustave and the priest entered on them; and Fanchon
+crying out for joy, said:
+
+"Kiss thy child--thy little Gustave, my husband."  Then, to the priest:
+
+"Last night I saw the White Omen, mon pere; and one could not die, nor
+let the child die, without a blessing.  But we shall both live now."
+
+The priest blessed all, and long time he talked with the wife of the lost
+Michel.  When he rose to go to bed she said to him: "The journey has been
+too long, mon pere.  Your face is pale and you tremble.  Youth has no
+patience.  Gustave hurried you."
+
+"Gustave yearned for thy Fanchon and the child.  The White Omen made him
+afraid."
+
+"But the journey was too much.  It is a hard, a bitter trail."
+
+"I have come gladly as I went once with thy Michel.  But, as thou sayest,
+I am tired--at my heart.  I will get to my rest."
+
+Near dawn Gustave started from the bed where he sat watching, for he saw
+the White Omen over against the shrine, and then a voice said, as it were
+out of a great distance:
+
+"Even me also, O my father!"
+
+With awed footsteps, going to see, he found that a man had passed out
+upon that trail by which no hunter from life can set a mark to guide a
+comrade; leaving behind the bones and flesh which God set up, too heavy
+to carry on so long a journey.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SOJOURNERS
+
+"My father, shall we soon be there?"
+
+The man stopped, and shading his eyes with his hand, looked long before
+him into the silver haze.  They were on the southern bank of a wide
+valley, flanked by deep hills looking wise as grey-headed youth, a legion
+of close comrades, showing no gap in their ranks.  They seemed to
+breathe; to sit, looking down into the valley, with heads dropped on
+their breasts, and deep overshadowed eyes, that never changed, in mist or
+snow, or sun, or any kind of weather: dark brooding lights that knew
+the secrets of the world, watchful yet kind.  Races, ardent with longing,
+had come and gone through the valley, had passed the shining porches in
+the North on the way to the quiet country; and they had never come again,
+though shadows flitted back and forth when the mists came down: visiting
+spirits, hungering on the old trail for some that had dropped by the way.
+As the ages passed, fewer and fewer travelled through the valley-no
+longer a people or a race, but twos and threes, and sometimes a small
+company, like soldiers of a battered guard, and oftener still solitary
+pilgrims, broken with much travel and bowed with loneliness.  But they
+always cried out with joy when they beheld far off in the North, at the
+end of the long trail, this range of grey and violet hills break into
+golden gaps with scarlet walls, and rivers of water ride through them
+pleasantly.  Then they hurried on to the opal haze that hung at the end
+of the valley--and who heard ever of any that wished to leave the Scarlet
+Hills and the quiet country beyond!
+
+The boy repeated his question: "My father, shall we soon be there?"
+
+The man withdrew his hand from over his eyes, and a strange smile came to
+his lips.
+
+"My son," he answered, "canst thou not see?  Yonder, through the gentle
+mist, are the Scarlet Hills.  Our journey is near done."
+
+The boy lifted his head and looked.  "I can see nothing but the mist, my
+father--not the Scarlet Hills.  I am tired, I would sleep."
+
+"Thou shalt sleep soon.  The wise men told us of the Delightful Chateau
+at the gateway of the hills.  Courage, my son!  If I gave thee the golden
+balls to toss, would it cheer thee?"
+
+"My father, I care not for the golden balls; but if I had horse and sword
+and a thousand men, I would take a city."
+
+The man laid his hand upon the boy's shoulder.
+
+"If I, my son," he said, "had a horse and sword and a thousand men, I
+would build a city."
+
+"Why dost thou not fly thy falcon, or write thy thoughts upon the sand,
+as thou didst yesterday, my father?"
+
+The man loosed the falcon from his wrist, and watched it fly away.
+
+"My son, I care not for the falcon, nor any more for writing on the
+sands."
+
+"My father, if thou didst build a city, I would not tear it down, but I
+would keep it with my thousand men.
+
+"Thou hast well said, my son."  And the man stooped and kissed the lad on
+the forehead.
+
+And so they travelled on in silence for a long time, and slowly they came
+to the opal haze, which smelled sweet as floating flowers, and gave their
+hearts a halcyon restfulness.  And glancing down at him many times, the
+father saw the lad's face look serenely wise, without becoming old, and
+his brown hair clustered on his forehead with all the life of youth in
+it.  Yet in his eyes the lad seemed as old as himself.
+
+"My father," said the lad again, "wouldst thou then build a city?"
+
+And the father answered: "Nay, my son, I would sow seed, and gather it
+into harvest--enough for my needs, no more; and sit quiet in my doorway
+when my work was done, and be grateful to the gods."
+
+The lad waited a moment, then answered: "When thou wast a governor in our
+own country, thou hadst serfs and retainers without number, and fifty men
+to beat upon the shields of brass to tell of thy coming through the gates
+of the King's house; now thou wouldst sow a field and sit quiet in thy
+doorway, like the blind seller of seed-cakes 'gainst the temple."
+
+"Even so, my son."  Then he stooped down, knelt upon his knees, and
+kissed the earth solemnly, and when he rose there was a smile upon his
+face.
+
+Then the lad said: "When I was the son of a governor I loved to play with
+the golden balls, to shoot at the target for pearls, and to ride the
+flamingo down; now I would grind the corn which thou didst reap, and with
+oil make seed-cakes for our supper, and sit quiet with thee in thy
+doorway."  Then he too stooped down and kissed the earth, and rose up
+again with a smile upon his face.
+
+And as they went the earth seemed suddenly to blossom anew, the glory of
+the Scarlet Hills burst upon them, and they could hear bugles calling far
+off and see giant figures trooping along the hills, all scarlet too,
+with streaming hair.  And presently, near to a lake, there was a great
+gateway, and perched upon a rock near it a chateau of divine proportions,
+on which was written above the perfect doorway:
+
+"The Keeper of the House awaits thee.  Enter into Quiet."
+
+And they entered, and were possessed of an incomparable peace.  And then
+came to them an old man of noble countenance, with eye neither dimmed nor
+sunken, and cheek dewy as a child's, and his voice was like an organ when
+it plays the soft thanksgiving of a mother.
+
+"Why did ye kiss the earth as ye travelled?" he asked.  Then they told
+him, each with his own tongue, and he smiled upon them and questioned
+them of all their speech by the way; and they answered him all honestly
+and with gladness, for the searching of their hearts was a joy and
+relief.  But he looked most lovingly upon the lad.
+
+"Wouldst thou, then, indeed enter the quiet country?" he asked.
+
+And the lad answered: "I have lived so long in the noise!"
+
+"Thou hast learned all, thou hast lived all," he answered the boy.
+"Beyond the Hills of Scarlet there is quiet, and thou shalt dwell there,
+thou and he.  Ye have the perfect desire--Go in peace, and know that
+though ye are of different years, as men count time, God's clock strikes
+the same for both; for both are of equal knowledge, and have the same
+desire at last."
+
+Then, lifting up his hands, he said: "O children of men!  O noisy world!
+when will ye learn the delectable way?"
+
+Slowly they all three came from the Chateau, and through the great
+gateway, and passed to the margin of a shining lake.  There the two
+stepped into a boat that waited for them, of which the rowers were nobly
+fashioned, like the Keeper of the House, and as they bowed their heads to
+a melodious blessing, the boat drew away.  Soon, in the sweet haze, they
+looked transfigured and enlarged, majestic figures moving through the
+Scarlet Hills to the quiet country.  Now the valley through which they
+had passed was the Valley of Death, where the young become old, and the
+old young, and all become wise.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TENT OF THE PURPLE MAT
+
+The Tent stands on the Mount of Lost Winters, in that bit of hospitable
+land called the Fair Valley, which is like no other in the North.  Whence
+comes the soft wind that comforts it, who can tell?  It swims through the
+great gap in the mountains, and passing down the valley, sinks upon the
+prairie of the Ten Stars, where it is lost.  What man first placed the
+Tent on the Mount none knows, though legends are many.  It has a clear
+outlook to the north, whence comes the gracious wind, and it is sheltered
+at the south by a stout wall of commendable trees; yet these are at some
+small distance, so that the Tent has a space all about it, and the figure
+of the general land is as that of an amphitheatre.
+
+It is made of deerskin, dyed by a strange process which turned it white,
+and doctored by some cunning medicine.  It is like a perfect parchment,
+and shows no decay.  It has a centre-pole of excellent fir, and from its
+peak flies a strip of snake-skin, dyed a red which never fades.  For the
+greater part of the year the plateau whereon the Tent stands is covered
+with a sweet grass, and when the grass dies there comes a fine white
+frost, ungoverned by the sun, in which the footstep sinks, as into an
+unfilled honeycomb.
+
+The land has few clouds, and no storms, save of the lightest-rain which
+is as mist, and snow which is as frosty haze.  The sun cherishes the
+place continually, and the moon rises on it with a large rejoicing.
+
+Yet no man dwells in the valley.  It is many scores of leagues from any
+habitation, from the lodges of the Indians or the posts of the Company's
+people.  There are few tribes that know of it, and these go not to it as
+tribes, but as one man or one woman has need.  Men say that beyond it, in
+another amphitheatre of the hills, is the White Valley, the Place of
+Peace, where the sleepers are, and the Scarlet Hunter is sentinel.  Yet
+who knows--since any that have been there are constrained to be silent,
+or forget what they have seen?
+
+But this valley where the Tent stands is for those who have broken the
+commandment, "Thou shalt not sell thy soul."  Hither they come and wait
+and desire continually; and this delightful land is their punishment, for
+they have no relish for goodly things, the power to enjoy going from them
+when they bargained their souls away.  The great peace, the noble
+pasturage, the equal joy of day and night wherein is neither heat nor
+cold, where life is like the haze on a harvest-field, are for
+chastisement, till that by great patience and striving, some one, having
+the gift of sacrifice, shall give his life to buy back that soul.  For it
+is in the minds of this people of the North that for every life that
+comes into the world one passes out, and for every soul which is bartered
+away another must be set free ere it can be redeemed.
+
+Men and women whom life and their own sins had battered came seeking the
+Tent; but they were few and they were chiefly old, for conscience cometh
+mostly when man can work and wanton no more.  Yet one day, when the sight
+of the valley was most fair to their eyes, there came out of the
+southmost corner a girl, who, as soon as she set foot in the valley, laid
+aside her knapsack in the hollow of a tree, also her moccasins and a
+little cap of fur, and came on with bare head and feet towards the Mount
+of the Lost Winters.
+
+She was of good stature, ripely made, not beautiful of face, but with a
+look which would make any man turn twice to see, a very glory of fine
+hair, and a hand which spoke oftener than the lips.  She had come a
+month's travel, scarcely halting from sunrise to sunset, and she was as
+worn in body as in spirit.  Now, as she passed up the valley she stood
+still several times, and looked round in a kind of dream, as well one
+might who had come out of an inclement south country to this sweet
+nourishment.  Yet she stood not still for joy and content, but for pain.
+Once or twice she lifted up her hands above her head as though appealing,
+but these pauses were only for brief moments, for she kept moving on
+towards the mountain with a swift step.  When she had climbed the plateau
+where the delicate grass yielded with a tender spring to the feet, she
+paused long and gazed round, as though to take a last glance at all;
+then, turning to the Tent, looked steadfastly at it, awe and wonder, and
+something more difficult of interpretation, in her face.  At last she
+slowly came to the curtain of the Tent, and lifting it, without a pause
+stepped inside, the curtain falling behind her.
+
+The Tent was empty save for the centre-pole, a wooden trough of dried
+fruit, a jar of water, and a mat of the most gentle purple colour, which
+was laid between the centre-pole and the tent-curtain.  The mat was of
+exquisite make, as it seemed from the chosen fibres of some perfect wood,
+and the hue was as that of a Tyrian dye.  A soft light pervaded the
+place, perhaps filtered through the parchment-like white skin of the
+Tent, for it seemed to have no other fountain.  Upon the farther side a
+token was drawn in purple on the tentskin, and the girl, seeing it,
+turned quickly to the curtain through which she had passed.  Upon the
+curtain were other signs.  She read them slowly, and repeated them out
+loud in a low uncertain voice, like a bird's note blundering in a flute:
+
+"Four hours shalt thou look northward, kneeling on the Mat of Purple, and
+thinking of the Camp of the Delightful Fires, around which is the Joyous
+City; four hours shalt thou lie prone, thy face upon the soothing earth,
+desiring sleep; and four hours shalt thou look within thine own breast,
+thinking of thy sin; four hours also shalt thou go through the valley,
+calling out that thou art lost, and praying the Scarlet Hunter to bring
+thee home.  Afterwards thou shalt sleep, and thou shalt comfort thyself
+with food when thou wilt.  If the Scarlet Hunter comes not, and thy life
+faileth for misery, and none comprehending thy state offereth his life,
+that thy soul may be free once more--then thou shalt gladly die, and,
+yielding thine own body, shall purchase back thy soul; but this is not
+possible until thou hast dwelt here a year and a day."
+
+Having read, the girl threw herself face forward on the ground, her body
+shaking with grief, and she cried out a man's name many times with great
+bitterness "Ambroise!  Ambroise!  Ambroise!"
+
+A long time she lay prone, crying so; but at last arose and, folding back
+the curtain with hot hands, began her vigil for the redemption of a soul.
+
+And while her sorrow grew, a father mourned for his daughter and called
+his God to witness that he was guiltless of her loss, though he had said
+hard words to her by reason of a man called Ambroise.  Then, too, the
+preacher had exhorted her late and early till her mind was in a maze--it
+is enough to have the pangs of youth and love, to be awakened by the pain
+of mere growth and knowledge, without the counsel of the overwise to go
+jolting through the soul.
+
+The girl was only eighteen.  She had never known her mother, she had
+lived as the flowers do, and when her hour of trial came she felt herself
+cast like a wandering bird out of the nest.  In her childhood she had
+known no preachers, no teaching, save the wholesome catechism of a
+father's love and the sacred intimacy of Nature.  Living so, learning by
+signs the language of law and wisdom, she had indrawn the significance of
+legend, the power of the awful natural.  She had made her own
+commandments.
+
+When Ambroise the courier came, she had looked into his eyes and seen her
+own--indeed, it was most wonderful, for those two pairs of eyes were as
+those of one person.  And each, as each looked, smiled--that smile which
+is the coming laughter of a heart at itself.  Yet they were different--he
+a man, she a woman; he versed in evil, she taught in good; he a vagrant
+of the snows, the fruit of whose life was like the contemptible stones of
+the desert; she the keeper of a goodly lodge, past which flowed a water
+that went softly, making rich the land, the fountain of her perfect
+deeds.  He, looking into her eyes, saw himself when he had no sin on his
+soul; and she into his--as it seemed, her own always--saw herself as it
+were in a cobweb of evils which she could not understand.  As his heart
+grew lighter, hers grew sick, even when she knew that these were the only
+eyes in which she could ever see happiness.
+
+It grew upon her that Ambroise's sins were hers and not his; that she,
+not he, had bartered a soul for the wages of sin.  When they said at the
+Fort that her eyes and Ambroise's, and her face and his, were as of one
+piece, the pain of the thought deepened, and other pains came likewise,
+for her father and the preacher urged that a man who had sold himself to
+the devil was no comrade for her in little or much.  Yet she loved him as
+only they can who love for the first time, and with the deep primitive
+emotions which are out of the core of nature.  But her heart had been
+cloven as by a wedge, and she would not, and could not, lie in his arms,
+nor rest her cheek to his, nor seek that haven where true love is
+fastened like a nail on the wall of that inn called home.  He was
+herself, he must be brought back; and so, one night, while yet the winter
+was on, she stole away out of the Fort, pausing at his door a moment
+only, laying her hand upon it as one might tenderly lay it on the brow of
+a sick sleeper.  Then she stepped away out on the plains, pointing her
+course by the moon, for the Mount of Lost Winters and the Tent of the
+Purple Mat.
+
+When the people of the Fort waked, and it was found that she was gone,
+search parties sallied out, but returned as they went after many days.
+And at last, because Ambroise suffered as one ground between rolling
+stones, even the preacher and the father of the girl relented towards
+him.  After some weeks there came word through a wandering tribe that the
+body of a girl had been found on the Child o' Sin River, and black pelts
+were hung as mourning on the lodges and houses and walls of the Fort, and
+the father shut himself in his room, admitting no one.  Still, they
+mourned without great cause.
+
+But, if the girl had taken the sins of Ambroise with her, she had left
+him beside that soft flowing river of her goodness; and the savour of the
+herbs on its banks was to him like the sun on a patch of pennyroyal,
+bringing medicine to the sick body through the nostrils.  So one morning,
+after many months, having crept from the covert of remorse, he took a
+guide to start him in the right trail, and began his journey to the
+Valley, whither she had gone before him, though he knew it not.  From the
+moment that his guide left him dangers beset him, and those spirits
+called the Mockers, which are the evil deeds of a man crying to Heaven,
+came crying about him from the dead white trees, breathing through the
+powdery air, whistling down the moonlight; so that to cheer him he called
+out again and again, like any heathen:
+
+              "Keeper, O Keeper of the Kimash Hills!
+               I am as a dog in the North Sea,
+               I am as a bat in a cave,
+               As a lizard am I on a prison wall,
+               As a tent with no pole,
+               As a bird with one wing;
+               I am as a seal in the desert,
+               I am as a wild horse alone.
+               O Scarlet Hunter of the Kimash Hills!
+               Thou hast an arm like a shooting star,
+               Thou hast an eye like the North Sky fires,
+               Thou hast a pouch for the hungry,
+               Thou hast a tent for the lost:
+               Hear me, O Keeper of the Kimash Hills!"
+
+And whether or not this availed him, who can tell?  There be many names
+of the One Thing, and the human soul hath the same north and south, if
+there be any north and south and east and west, save in the words of men.
+But something availed; and one day a footworn traveller, entering the
+Valley at the southmost corner, laid his cap and bag, moccasins, bow and
+arrow, and an iron weapon away in a hollow log, seeing not that there
+were also another bag and cap, and a pair of moccasins there.  Then,
+barefooted and bareheaded, he marched slowly up the Valley, and all its
+loveliness smote him as a red iron is buffeted at the forge; and an
+exquisite agony coursed through his veins, so that he cried out, hiding
+his face.  And yet he needs must look and look, all his sight aching with
+this perfection, never overpowering him, but keeping him ever in the
+relish of his torture.
+
+At last he came to the door of the Tent in the late evening, and, intent
+not only to buy back the soul he had marketed--for the sake of the memory
+of the woman, and believing that none would die for him and that he must
+die for himself--he lifted the curtain and entered.  Then he gave a great
+cry, for there she lay asleep, face downward, her forehead on the Purple
+Mat.
+
+"Sherah!  Sherah!" he cried, dropping on his knees beside her and
+lifting up her head.
+
+"Ambroise!" she called out faintly, her pale face drawing away from his
+breast.
+
+"Sherah, why didst thou come here?" he said.  "Thou!  thou!"
+
+"To buy back my soul, Ambroise.  And this is the last day of the year
+that I have spent here.  Oh, why, why didst thou come?  To-morrow all
+should have been well!"
+
+"To buy back thy soul--thou didst no wrong!"  But at that moment their
+eyes drew close, and changed, and he understood.
+
+"For me--for me!" he whispered.
+
+"Nay, for me!" she replied.
+
+Then they noticed that the Purple Mat on which they knelt was red under
+their knees, and a goodly light shone through the Tent, not of the day or
+night.  And as they looked amazed, the curtain of the Tent drew open, and
+one entered, clothed in red from head to foot; and they knew him to be
+the Scarlet Hunter, the lover of the lost, the Keeper of the Kimash
+Hills.
+
+Looking at them steadfastly he said to Sherah: "Thou has prevailed.
+To-night, at the setting of the sun, an old man died in Syria who uttered
+thy name as in a dream when he passed.  The soul of Ambroise hath been
+bought back by thee."
+
+Then he spoke to Ambroise.  "Because thy spirit was willing, and for the
+woman's sake thou shalt have peace; but this year which she has spent for
+thee shall be taken from thy life, and added to hers.  Come, and I will
+start ye on the swift trail to your own country, and ye shall come here
+no more."
+
+As they rose, obeying him, they saw that the red of the Mat had gone a
+perfect white, and they knew not what to think, for they had acted after
+the manner of the heathen; but that night, as they travelled with joy
+towards that Inn called Home, down at the Fort, a preacher with rude
+noise cried to those who would hear him: "Though your sins be as scarlet
+they shall become whiter than snow."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY
+
+It lay between the mountains and the sea, and a river ran down past it,
+carrying its good and ill news to a pacific shore, and out upon soft
+winds, travelling lazily to the scarlet east.  All white and a tempered
+red, it nestled in a valley with other valleys on lower steppes, which
+seemed as if built by the gods, that they might travel easily from the
+white-topped mountains, Margath, Shaknon, and the rest, to wash their
+feet in the sea.  In the summer a hot but gracious mistiness softened the
+green of the valleys, the varying colours of the hills, the blue of the
+river, the sharp outlines of the cliffs.  Along the high shelf of the
+mountain, muletrains travelled like a procession seen in dreams--slow,
+hazy, graven yet moving, a part of the ancient hills themselves; upon the
+river great rafts, manned by scarlet-vested crews, swerved and swam,
+guided by the gigantic oars which needed five men to lift and
+swayargonauts they from the sweet-smelling forests to the salt-smelling
+main.  In winter the little city lay still under a coverlet of pure
+white, with the mists from the river and the great falls above frozen
+upon the trees, clothing them as graciously as with white samite; so that
+far as eye could see there was a heavenly purity upon all, covering every
+mean and distorted thing.  There were days when no wind stirred anywhere,
+and the gorgeous sun made the little city and all the land round about a
+pretty silver kingdom, where Oberon and his courtiers might have danced
+and been glad.  Often, too, you could hear a distant wood-cutter's axe
+make a pleasant song in the air, and the wood-cutter himself, as the
+hickory and steel swung in a shining half-circle to the bole of balsam,
+was clad in the bright livery of frost, his breath issuing in grey smoke
+like life itself, mystic and peculiar, man, axe, tree, and breath one
+common being.  And when, by-and-by, the woodcutter added a song of his
+own to the song his axe made, the illusion was not lost, but rather
+heightened; for it, too, was part of the unassuming pride of nature,
+childlike in its simplicity, primeval in its suggestion and
+expression.  The song had a soft monotony, swinging backwards and
+forwards to the waving axe like the pendulum of a clock.  It began with a
+low humming, as one could think man made before he heard the Voice which
+taught him how to speak.  And then came the words:
+
+              "None shall stand in the way of the lord,
+               The lord of the Earth--of the rivers and trees,
+               Of the cattle and fields and vines!
+               Hew!
+               Here shall I build me my cedar home,
+               A city with gates, a road to the sea
+               For I am the lord of the Earth!
+               Hew!  Hew!
+               Hew and hew, and the sap of the tree
+               Shall be yours, and your bones shall be strong,
+               Shall be yours, and your heart shall rejoice,
+               Shall be yours, and the city be yours,
+               And the key of its gates be the key
+               Of the home where your little ones dwell.
+               Hew and be strong!  Hew and rejoice!
+               For man is the lord of the Earth,
+               And God is the Lord over all!"
+
+And so long as the little city stands will this same wood-cutter's name
+and history stand also.  He had camped where it stood now, when nothing
+was there save the wild duck in the reeds, the antelopes upon the hills,
+and all manner of furred and feathered things; and it all was his.  He
+had seen the yellow flashes of gold in the stream called Pipi, and he had
+not gathered it, for his life was simple, and he was young enough to
+cherish in his heart the love of the open world, beyond the desire of
+cities and the stir of the market-place.  In those days there was not a
+line in his face, not an angle in his body--all smoothly rounded and
+lithe and alert, like him that was called "the young lion of Dedan."  Day
+by day he drank in the wisdom of the hills and the valleys, and he wrote
+upon the dried barks of trees the thoughts that came as he lay upon the
+bearskin in his tent, or cooled his hands and feet, of a hot summer day,
+in the moist sandy earth, and watched the master of the deer lead his
+cohorts down the passes of the hills.
+
+But by-and-by mule-trains began to crawl along the ledges of Margath
+Mountain, and over Shaknon came adventurers, and after them, wandering
+men seeking a new home, women and children coming also.  But when these
+came he had passed the spring-time of his years, and had grown fixed in
+the love of the valley, where his sole visitors had been passing tribes
+of Indians, who knew his moods and trespassed not at all on his domain.
+The adventurers hungered for the gold in the rivers, and they made it one
+long washing-trough, where the disease that afflicted them passed on from
+man to man like poison down a sewer.  Then the little city grew, and with
+the search for gold came other seekings and findings and toilings, and
+men who came as one stops at an inn to feed, stayed to make their home,
+and women made the valley cheerful, and children were born, and the pride
+of the place was as great as that of some village of the crimson East,
+where every man has ancestors to Mahomet and beyond.
+
+And he, Felion, who had been lord and master of the valley, worked with
+them, but did not seek for riches, and more often drew away into the
+hills to find some newer place unspoiled by man.  But again and again he
+returned; for no fire is like the old fire, and no trail like the old
+trail.  And at last it seemed as if he had driven his tent-peg in the
+Long Valley for ever; for, from among the women who came, he chose one
+comely and wise and kind, and for five years the world grew older, and
+Felion did not know it.  When he danced his little daughter on his knee,
+he felt that he had found a new world.
+
+But? a day came when trouble fell upon the little city, for of a sudden
+the reef of gold was lost, and the great crushing-mills stood idle, and
+the sound of the hammers was stayed.  And they came to Felion, because in
+his youth he had been of the best of the schoolmen; and he got up from
+his misery--only the day before his wife had taken a great and lonely
+journey to that Country which welcomes, but never yields again--and
+leaving his little child behind, he went down to the mines.  And in three
+days they found the reef once more; for it had curved like the hook of a
+sickle, and the first arc of the yellow circle had dropped down into the
+bowels of the earth.
+
+And so he saved the little city from disaster, and the people blessed him
+at the moment; and the years went on.
+
+Then there came a time when the little city was threatened with a woeful
+flood, because of a breaking flume; but by a simple and wise device
+Felion stayed the danger.
+
+And again the people blessed him; and the years went on.
+
+By-and-by an awful peril came, for two-score children had set a great
+raft loose upon the river, and they drifted down towards the rapids in
+the sight of the people; and mothers and helpless fathers wrung their
+hands, for on the swift tide no boat could reach them, and none could
+intercept the raft.  But Felion, seeing, ran out upon the girders of a
+bridge that was being builded, and there, before them all, as the raft
+passed under, he let himself fall, breaking his leg as he dropped among
+the timbers of the fore-part of the raft; for the children were all
+gathered at the back, where the great oars lay motionless, one dragging
+in the water behind.  Felion drew himself over to the huge oar, and with
+the strength of five men, while the people watched and prayed, he kept
+the raft straight for the great slide, else it had gone over the dam and
+been lost, and all that were thereon.  A mile below, the raft was brought
+to shore, and again the people said that Felion had saved the little city
+from disaster.
+
+And they blessed him for the moment; and the years went on.
+
+Felion's daughter grew towards womanhood, and her beauty was great, and
+she was welcome everywhere in the valley, the people speaking well of her
+for her own sake.  But at last a time came when of the men of the valley
+one called, and Felion's daughter came quickly to him, and with tears for
+her father and smiles for her husband, she left the valley and journeyed
+into the east, having sworn to love and cherish him while she lived.  And
+her father, left solitary, mourned for her, and drew away into a hill
+above the valley in a cedar house that he built; and having little else
+to love, loved the earth, and sky, and animals, and the children from the
+little city when they came his way.  But his heart was sore; for by-and-
+by no letters came from his daughter, and the little city, having
+prospered, concerned it self no more with him.  When he came into its
+streets there were those who laughed, for he was very tall and rude, and
+his grey hair hung loose on his shoulders, and his dress was still a
+hunter's.  They had not long remembered the time when a grievous disease,
+like a plague, fell upon the place, and people died by scores, as sheep
+fall in a murrain.  And again they had turned to him, and he, because he
+knew of a miraculous medicine got from Indian sachems, whose people had
+suffered of this sickness, came into the little city, and by his
+medicines and fearless love and kindness stayed the plague.
+
+And thus once more he saved the little city from disaster, and they
+blessed him for the moment; and the years went on.
+
+In time they ceased to think of Felion at all, and he was left alone;
+even the children came no more to visit him; and he had pleasure only in
+hunting and shooting and in felling trees, with which he built a high
+stockade and a fine cedar house within it.  And all the work of this he
+did with his own hands, even to the polishing of the floors and the
+carved work of the large fireplaces.  Yet he never lived in the house,
+nor in any room of it, and the stockade gate was always shut; and when
+any people passed that way they stared and shrugged their shoulders, and
+thought Felion mad or a fool.  But he was wise in his own way, which was
+not the way of those who had reason to bless him for ever, and who forgot
+him, though he had served them through so many years.  Against the little
+city he had an exceeding bitterness; and this grew, and had it not been
+that his heart was kept young by the love of the earth, and the beasts
+about him in the hills, he must needs have cursed the place and died.
+But the sight of a bird in the nest with her young, and the smell of a
+lair, and the light of the dawn that came out of the east, and the winds
+that came up from the sea, and the hope that would not die kept him from
+being of those who love not life for life's sake, be it in ease or in
+sorrow.  He was of those who find all worth the doing, even all worth the
+suffering; and so, though he frowned and his lips drew tight with anger
+when he looked down at the little city, he felt that elsewhere in the
+world there was that which made it worth the saving.
+
+If his daughter had been with him he would have laughed at that which his
+own hands had founded, protected, and saved.  But no word came from her,
+and laughter was never on his lips--only an occasional smile when,
+perhaps, he saw two sparrows fighting, or watched the fish chase each
+other in the river, or a toad, too lazy to jump, walk stupidly like a
+convict, dragging his long, green legs behind him.  And when Felion
+looked up towards Shaknon and Margath, a light came in his eyes, for they
+were wise and quiet, and watched the world, and something of their
+grandeur drew about him like a cloak.  As age cut deep lines in his face
+and gave angles to his figure, a strange, settled dignity grew upon him,
+whether he swung his axe by the balsams or dressed the skins of the
+animals he had killed, piling up the pelts in a long shed in the
+stockade, a goodly heritage for his daughter, if she ever came back.
+Every day at sunrise he walked to the door of his house and looked
+eastward steadily, and sometimes there broke from his lips the words:
+"My daughter-Carille!"  Again, he would sit and brood with his chin in
+his hand, and smile, as though remembering pleasant things.
+
+One day at last, in the full tide of summer, a man, haggard and troubled,
+came to Felion's house, and knocked, and, getting no reply, waited; and
+whenever he looked down at the little city he wrung his hands, and more
+than once he put them up to his face and shuddered, and again looked for
+Felion.  Just when the dusk was rolling down, Felion came back, and,
+seeing the man, would have passed him without a word, but that the man
+stopped with an eager, sorrowful gesture and said: "The plague has come
+upon us again, and the people, remembering how you healed them long ago,
+beg you to come."
+
+At that Felion leaned his fishing-rod against the door and answered:
+
+"What people?"
+
+The other then replied: "The people of the little city below, Felion."
+
+"I do not know your name," was the reply; "I know naught of you or of
+your city."
+
+"Are you mad?" cried the man.  "Do you forget the little city down
+there?  Have you no heart?"
+
+A strange smile passed over Felion's face, and he answered: "When one
+forgets, why should the other remember?"
+
+He turned and went into the house and shut the door, and though the man
+knocked, the door was no opened, and he went back angry and miserable;
+and the people could not believe that Felion would no come to help them,
+as he had done all his life.  A dawn three others came, and they found
+Felion looking out towards the east, his lips moving as though he prayed.
+Yet it was no prayer, only a call, that was on his lips.  They felt a
+sort of awe in his presence, for now he seemed as if he had lived more
+than a century, so wise and old was the look of his face, so white his
+hair, so set and distant his dignity.  They begged him to come, and,
+bringing his medicines, save the people, for death was galloping through
+the town, knocking at many doors.
+
+"One came to heal you," he answered--"the young man of the schools, who
+wrote mystic letters after his name; it swings on a brass by his door-
+where is he?"
+
+"He is dead of the plague," they replied, "and the other also that came
+with him, who fled before the sickness, fell dead of it on the roadside,
+going to the sea."
+
+"Why should I go?" he replied, and he turned threateningly to his
+weapon, as if in menace of their presence.
+
+"You have no one to leave behind," they answered eagerly, "and you are
+old."
+
+"Liars," he rejoined, "let the little city save itself!" and he wheeled
+and went into his house, and they saw that they had erred in not
+remembering his daughter, whose presence they had once prized.  They saw
+that they had angered him beyond soothing; and they went back in grief,
+for two of them had lost dear relatives by the fell sickness.  When they
+told what had happened, the people said: "We will send the women; he will
+listen to them--he had a daughter."
+
+That afternoon, when all the hills lay still and dead, and nowhere did
+bird or breeze stir, the women came, and they found him seated with his
+back turned to the town.  He was looking into the deep woods, into the
+hot shadows of the trees.
+
+"We have come to bring you to the little city," they said to him; "the
+sick grow in numbers every hour."
+
+"It is safe in the hills," he answered, not looking at them.  "Why do the
+people stay in the valley?"
+
+"Every man has a friend, or a wife, or a child, ill or dying, and every
+woman has a husband, or a child, or a friend, or a brother.  Cowards have
+fled, and many of them have fallen by the way."
+
+"Last summer I lay sick here many weeks and none came near me--why should
+I go to the little city?" he demanded austerely.  "Four times I saved
+it, and of all that I saved none came to give me water to drink, or food
+to eat, and I lay burning with fever, and thirsty and hungry--God of
+heaven, how thirsty!"
+
+"We did not know," they answered humbly; "you came to us so seldom, we
+had forgotten; we were fools."
+
+"I came and went fifty years," he answered bitterly, "and I have
+forgotten how to rid the little city of the plague!"
+
+At that one of the women, mad with anger, made as if to catch him by his
+beard, but she forbore, and said: "Liar--the men shall hang you to your
+own rooftree!"
+
+His eyes had a wild light, but he waved his hand quietly, and answered:
+"Begone, and learn how great a sin is ingratitude."
+
+He turned away from them gloomily, and would have entered his home, but
+one of the women, who was young, plucked his sleeve, and said
+sorrowfully: "I loved Carille, your daughter."
+
+"And forgot her and her father.  I am three-score and ten years, and she
+has been gone fifteen, and for the first time I see your face," was his
+scornful reply.
+
+She was tempted to say: "I was ever bearing children and nursing them,
+and the hills were hard to climb, and my husband would not go;" but she
+saw how dark his look was, and she hid her face in her hands and turned
+away to follow after the others.  She had five little children, and her
+heart was anxious for them and her eyes full of tears.
+
+Anger and remorse seized on the little city, and there were those who
+would have killed Felion, but others saw that the old man had been sorely
+wronged in the past, and these said: "Wait until the morrow and we will
+devise something."
+
+That night a mule-train crept slowly down the mountain side and entered
+the little city, for no one who came with them knew of the plague.  The
+caravan had come from the east across the great plains, and not from the
+west, which was the travelled highway to the sea.  Among them was a woman
+who already was ill of a fever, and knew naught of what passed round her.
+She had with her a beautiful child; and one of the women of the place
+devised a thing.  "This woman," she said, "does not belong to the little
+city, and he can have nothing against her; she is a stranger.  Let one of
+us take this beautiful lad to him, and he shall ask Felion to come and
+save his mother."
+
+Every one approved the woman's wisdom, and in the early morning she
+herself, with another, took the child and went up the long hillside in
+the heavy heat; and when they came near Felion's house the women stayed
+behind, and the child went forward, having been taught what to say to the
+old man.
+
+Felion sat just within his doorway, looking out into the sunlight which
+fell upon the red and white walls of the little city, flanked by young
+orchards, with great, oozy meadows beyond these, where cattle ate, knee-
+deep in the lush grass and cool reed-beds.  Along the riverside, far up
+on the high banks, were the tall couches of dead Indians, set on poles,
+their useless weapons laid along the deerskin pall.  Down the hurrying
+river there passed a raft, bearing a black flag on a pole, and on it were
+women and children who were being taken down to the sea from the doomed
+city.  These were they who had lost fathers and brothers; and now were
+going out alone with the shadow of the plague over them, for there was
+none to say them nay.  The tall oarsmen bent to their task, and Felion
+felt his blood beat faster when he saw the huge oars swing high, then
+drop and bend in the water, as the raft swung straight in its course and
+passed on safe through the narrow slide into the white rapids below,
+which licked the long timbers as with white tongues, and tossed spray
+upon the sad voyagers.  Felion remembered the day when he left his own
+child behind and sprang from the bridge to the raft whereon were the
+children of the little city, and saved them.
+
+And when he tried to be angry now, the thought of the children as they
+watched him, with his broken leg striving against their peril, softened
+his heart.  He shook his head, for suddenly there came to him the memory
+of a time, three-score years before, when he and the foundryman's
+daughter had gone hunting flag-flowers by the little trout stream; of the
+songs they sang together at the festivals, she in her sweet Quaker garb
+and demure Quaker beauty, he lithe, alert, and full of the joy of life
+and loving.  As he sat so, thinking, he wondered where she was, and why
+he should be thinking of her now, facing the dreary sorrow of this
+pestilence and his own anger and vengeance.  He nodded softly to the
+waving trees far down in the valley, for his thoughts had drifted on to
+his wife as he first saw her.  She was standing bare-armed among the
+grape-vines by a wall of rock, the dew of rich life on her lip and
+forehead, her grey eyes swimming with a soft light; and looking at her he
+had loved her at once, as he had loved, on the instant, the little child
+that came to him later; as he had loved the girl into which the child
+grew, till she left him and came back no more.  Why had he never gone in
+search of her?
+
+He got to his feet involuntarily and stepped towards the door, looking
+down into the valley.  As his eyes rested on the little city his face
+grew dark, but his eyes were troubled and presently grew bewildered, for
+out of a green covert near there stepped a pretty boy, who came to him
+with frank, unabashed face and a half-shy smile.
+
+Felion did not speak at first, but stood looking, and presently the child
+said: "I have come to fetch you."
+
+"To fetch me where, little man?" asked Felion, a light coming into his
+face, his heart beating faster.
+
+"To my mother.  She is sick."
+
+"Where is your mother?"
+
+"She's in the village down there," answered the boy, pointing.
+
+In spite of himself, Felion smiled in a sour sort of way, for the boy had
+called the place a village, and he relished the unconscious irony.
+
+"What is the matter with her?" asked Felion, beckoning the lad inside.
+
+The lad came and stood in the doorway, gazing round curiously, while the
+old man sat down and looked at him, moved, he knew not why.
+
+The bright steel of Felion's axe, standing in the corner, caught the
+lad's eye and held it.  Felion saw, and said: "What are you thinking of?"
+
+The lad answered: "Of the axe.  When I'm bigger I will cut down trees and
+build a house, a bridge, and a city.  Aren't you coming quick to help my
+mother?  She will die if you don't come."
+
+Felion did not answer, and from the trees without two women watched him
+anxiously.
+
+"Why should I come?" asked Felion curiously.  "Because she's sick, and
+she's my mother."
+
+"Why should I do it because she's your mother?"
+
+"I don't know," the lad answered, and his brow knitted in the attempt to
+think it out, "but I like you."  He came and stood beside the old man and
+looked into his face with a pleasant confidence.  "If your mother was
+sick, and I could heal her, I would--I know I would--I wouldn't be afraid
+to go down into the village."
+
+Here were rebuke, love, and impeachment, all in one, and the old man half
+started from his seat.
+
+"Did you think I was afraid?" he asked of the boy, as simply as might a
+child of a child, so near are children and wise men in their thoughts.
+
+"I knew if you didn't it'd be because you were angry or were afraid, and
+you didn't look angry."
+
+"How does one look when one is angry?"
+
+"Like my father."
+
+"And how does your father look?"
+
+"My father's dead."
+
+"Did he die of the plague?" asked Felion, laying his hand on the lad's
+shoulder.
+
+"No," said the lad quickly, and shut his lips tight.
+
+"Won't you tell me?" asked Felion, with a strange inquisitiveness.
+
+"No.  Mother'll tell you, but I won't."  The lad's eyes filled with
+tears.
+
+"Poor boy--poor boy!" said Felion, and his hand tightened on the small
+shoulder.
+
+"Don't be sorry for me; be sorry for mother, please," said the boy, and
+he laid a hand on the old man's knee, and that touch went to a heart long
+closed against the little city below; and Felion rose and said: "I will
+go with you to your mother."
+
+Then he went into another room, and the boy came near the axe and ran his
+fingers along the bright steel, and fondled the handle, as does a hunter
+the tried weapon which has been his through many seasons.  When the old
+man came back he said to the boy: "Why do you look at the axe?"
+
+"I don't know," was the answer; "maybe because my mother used to sing a
+song about the wood-cutters."  Without a word, and thinking much, he
+stepped out into the path leading to the little city, the lad holding one
+hand.  Years afterwards men spoke with a sort of awe or reverence of
+seeing the beautiful stranger lad leading old Felion into the plague-
+stricken place, and how, as they passed, women threw themselves at
+Felion's feet, begging him to save their loved ones.  And a drunkard cast
+his arm round the old man's shoulder and sputtered foolish pleadings in
+his ear; but Felion only waved them back gently, and said: "By-and-by,
+by-and-by--God help us all!"
+
+Now a fevered hand snatched at him from a doorway, moanings came from
+everywhere, and more than once he almost stumbled over a dead body;
+others he saw being carried away to the graveyard for hasty burial.  Few
+were the mourners that followed, and the faces of those who watched the
+processions go by were set and drawn.  The sunlight and the green trees
+seemed an insult to the dead.
+
+They passed into the house where the sick woman lay, and some met him at
+the door with faces of joy and meaning; for now they knew the woman and
+would have spoken to him of her; but he waved them off, and put his
+fingers upon his lips and went where a fire burned in a kitchen, and
+brewed his medicines.  And the child entered the room where his mother
+lay, and presently he came to the kitchen and said: "She is asleep--my
+mother."
+
+The old man looked down on him a moment steadily, and a look of
+bewilderment came into his face.  But he turned away again to the
+simmering pots.  The boy went to the window and, leaning upon the sill,
+began to hum softly a sort of chant, while he watched a lizard
+running hither and thither in the sun.  As he hummed, the old man
+listened, and presently, with his medicines in his hands and a half-
+startled look, he came over to the lad.
+
+"What are you humming?" he asked.
+
+The lad answered: "A song of the wood-cutters."
+
+"Sing it again," said Felion.
+
+The lad began to sing:
+
+              "Here shall I build me my cedar house,
+               A city with gates, a road to the sea--
+               For I am the lord of the Earth!  Hew!  Hew!"
+
+The old man stopped him.  "What is your name?"  "My name is Felion,"
+answered the lad; and he put his face close to the jug that held the
+steaming tinctures: but the old man caught the little chin in his huge
+hand and bent back the head, looking long into the lad's eyes.  At last
+he caught little Felion's hand and hurried into the other room, where the
+woman lay in a stupor.  The old man came quickly to her and looked into
+her face.  Seeing, he gave a broken cry and said:
+
+"Carille, my daughter!  Carille!"
+
+He drew her to his breast, and as he did so he groaned aloud, for he knew
+that inevitable Death was waiting for her at the door.  He straightened
+himself up, clasped the child to his breast, and said: "I, too, am
+Felion, my little son."
+
+And then he set about to defeat that dark, hovering Figure at the door.
+
+For three long hours he sat beside her, giving her little by little his
+potent medicines; and now and again he stopped his mouth with his hand,
+lest he should cry out; and his eyes never wavered from her face, not
+even to the boy, who lay asleep in the corner.
+
+At last his look relaxed its vigilance, for a dewy look passed over the
+woman's face, and she opened her eyes and saw him, and gave a little cry
+of "Father!" and was straightway lost in his arms.
+
+"I have come home to die," she said.
+
+"No, no, to live!" he answered firmly.  "Why did you not send me word
+all these long years?"
+
+"My husband was in shame, in prison, and I in sorrow," she answered
+sadly.  "I could not."
+
+"He did evil?  He is--" he paused.
+
+"He is dead," she said.  "It is better so."  Her eyes wandered round the
+room restlessly, and then fixed upon the sleeping child, and a smile
+passed over her face.  She pointed to the lad.
+
+The old man nodded.  "He brought me here," he said gently.  Then he got
+to his feet.  "You must sleep now," he added, and he gave her a cordial.
+"I must go forth and save the sick."
+
+"Is it a plague?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.  "They said you would not come to save them," she continued
+reproachfully.  "You came to me because I was your Carille, only for
+that?"
+
+"No, no," he answered; "I knew not who you were.  I came to save a mother
+to her child."
+
+"Thank God!" she said.
+
+With a happy smile she hid her face in the pillow.  At last, leaving her
+and the child asleep, old Felion went forth into the little city, and the
+people flocked to him, and for many days he came and went ceaselessly.
+
+And once more he saved the city, and the people blessed him: and the
+years go on.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY
+
+He lay where he could see her working at the forge.  As she worked she
+sang:
+
+              "When God was making the world,
+                 (Swift is the wind and white is the fire)
+               The feet of his people danced the stars;
+               There was laughter and swinging bells,
+
+               And clanging iron and breaking breath,
+               The hammers of heaven making the hills,
+               The vales on the anvil of God.
+                 (Wild is the fire and low is the wind.)"
+
+His eyes were shining, and his face had a pale radiance from the
+reflected light, though he lay in the shadow where he could watch her,
+while she could not see him.  Now her hand was upon the bellows, and the
+low, white fire seethed hungrily up, and set its teeth upon the iron she
+held; now it turned the iron about upon the anvil, and the sparks
+showered about her very softly and strangely.  There was a cheerful
+gravity in her motions, a high, fine look in her face.
+
+They two lived alone in the solitudes of Megalon Valley.
+
+It was night now, and the pleasant gloom of the valley was not broken by
+any sound save the hum of the stream near by, and the song, and the
+ringing anvil.  But into the workshop came the moist, fragrant smell of
+the acacia and the maple, and a long brown lizard stretched its neck
+sleepily across the threshold of the door opening into the valley.
+
+The song went on:
+
+              "When God had finished the world
+                 (Bright was the fire and sweet was the wind)
+               Up from the valleys came song,
+               To answer the morning stars,
+               And the hand of man on the anvil rang;
+               His breath was big in his breast, his life
+               Beat strong on the walls of the world.
+                 (Glad is the wind and tall is the fire.)"
+
+He put his hands to his eyes, and took them away again, as though to make
+sure that the song was not a dream.  Wonder grew upon his thin, bearded
+face, he ran his fingers through his thick hair in a dazed way.  Then he
+lay and looked, and a rich warm flush crept over his cheek, and stayed
+there.
+
+There was a great gap in his memory.
+
+The evening wore on.  Once or twice the woman turned towards the room
+where the man lay, and listened--she could not see his face from where
+she stood.  At such times he lay still, though his heart beat quickly,
+like that of an expectant child.  His lips opened to speak, but still
+they remained silent.  As yet he was like a returned traveller who does
+not quickly recognise old familiar things, and who is struggling with
+vague suggestions and forgotten events.  As time went on, the woman
+turned towards the doorway oftener, and shifted her position so that she
+faced it, and the sparks, flying up, lighted her face with a wonderful
+irregular brightness.
+
+"Samantha," he said at last, and his voice sounded so strange to him that
+the word quivered timidly towards her.
+
+She paused upon a stroke, and some new note in his voice sent so sudden a
+thrill to her heart that she caught her breath with a painful kind of
+joy.  The hammer dropped upon the anvil, and, in a moment, she stood in
+the doorway of his room.
+
+"Francis, Francis," she responded in a low whisper.  He started up from
+his couch of skins.  "Samantha, my wife!" he cried, in a strong proud
+voice.
+
+She dropped beside him and caught his head, like a mother, to her
+shoulder, and set her warm lips on his forehead and hair with a kind of
+hunger; and then he drew her face down and kissed her on the lips.  Tears
+hung at her eyes, and presently dropped on her cheeks, a sob shook her,
+and then she was still, her hands grasping his shoulders.
+
+"Have I been ill?" he asked.
+
+"You have been very ill, Francis."
+
+"Has it been long?"
+
+Her fingers passed tenderly through his grizzled hair.  "Too long, too
+long, my husband," she replied.
+
+"Is it summer now?"
+
+"Yes, Francis, it is summer."
+
+"Was it in the spring, Samantha?--Yes, I think it was in the spring," he
+added, musing.
+
+"It was in a spring."
+
+"There was snow still on the mountain-top, the river was running high,
+and wild fowl were gathered on the island in the lake--yes, I remember,
+I think."
+
+"And the men were working at the mine," she whispered, her voice shaking
+a little, and her eyes eagerly questioning his face.
+
+"Ah, the mine--it was the mine, Samantha!" he said abruptly, his eyes
+flashing up.  "I was working at the forge to make a great bolt for the
+machinery, and some one forgot and set the engine in motion.  I ran out;
+but it was too late .  .  .  and then .  .  ."
+
+"And then you tried to save them, Francis, and you were hurt."
+
+"What month is this, my wife?"
+
+"It is December."
+
+"And that was in October?"
+
+"Yes, in October."
+
+"I have been ill since?  What happened?"
+
+"Many were killed, Francis, and you and I came away."
+
+"Where are we now?  I do not know the place."
+
+"This is Megalon Valley.  You and I live alone here."
+
+"Why did you bring me here?"
+
+"I did not bring you, Francis; you wished me to come.  One day you said
+to me: 'There is a place in Megalon Valley where, long ago, an old man
+lived, who had become a stranger among men--a place where the blackbird
+stays, and the wolf-dog troops and hides, and the damson grows as thick
+as blossoms on the acacia.  We will go there.'  And I came with you."
+
+"I do not remember.  What of the mine?  Was I a coward and left the mine?
+There was no one understood the ways of the wheel, and rod, and steam,
+save me.
+
+"The mine is closed, Francis," she answered gently.  "You were no coward,
+but--but you had strange fancies.
+
+"When did the mine close?" he said, with a kind of sorrow; "I put hard
+work and good years into it."  At that moment, when her face drew close
+to his, the vision of her as she stood at the anvil came to him with a
+new impression, and he said again in a half-frightened way: "When did it
+close, Samantha?"
+
+"The mine was closed--twelve years ago, my own dear husband."
+
+He got to his feet and clasped her to his breast.  A strength came to him
+which had eluded him twelve years, and she, womanlike, delighted in that
+strength, and, with a great gladness, changed eyes and hands with him;
+keeping her soul still her own, brooding and lofty, as is the soul of
+every true woman, though, like this one, she labours at a forge, and in a
+far, untenanted country is faithful friend, ceaseless apothecary to a
+comrade with a disordered mind; living on savage meats, clothing herself
+and the other in skins, and, with a divine persistence, keeping a
+cheerful heart, certain that the intelligence which was frightened from
+its home would come back one day.  It should be hers to watch for the
+great moment, and give the wanderer loving welcome, lest it should hurry
+madly away again into the desert, never to return.
+
+She had her reward, yet she wept.  She had carried herself before him
+with the bright ways of an unvexed girl these twelve years past; she had
+earned the salt of her tears.  He was dazed still, but, the doublet of
+his mind no longer unbraced, he understood what she had been to him, and
+how she had tended him in absolute loneliness, her companions the wild
+things of the valley--these and God.
+
+He drew her into the workshop, and put his hand upon the bellows and
+churned them, so that the fire roared joyously up, and the place was red
+with the light.  In this light he turned her to him and looked at her.
+The look was as that of one who had come back from the dead--that naked,
+profound, unconditional gaze which is as deep and honest as the primeval
+sense.  His eyes fell upon her rich, firm, stately body; it lingered for
+a moment on the brown fulness of her hair; then her look was gathered to
+his, and they fell into each other's arms.
+
+For long they sat in the solemn silence of their joy, and so awed were
+they by the thing which had come to them that they felt no surprise when
+a wolf-dog crawled over the lizard on the threshold, and stole along the
+wall with shining, bloody eyes to an inner room, and stayed there
+munching meat to surfeit and drowsiness, and at last crept out and lay
+beside the forge in a thick sleep.  These two had lived so much with the
+untamed things of nature, the bellows and the fire had been so long
+there, and the clang of the anvil was so familiar, that there was a
+kinship among them, man and beast, with the woman as ruler.
+
+"Tell me, Samantha," he said at last, "what has happened during these
+twelve years, all from the first.  Keep nothing back.  I am strong now."
+He looked around the workshop, then, suddenly, at her, with a strange
+pain, and they both turned their heads away for an instant, for the same
+thought was on them.  Then, presently, she spoke, and answered his shy,
+sorrowful thought before all else.  "The child is gone," she softly said.
+
+He sat still, but a sob was in his throat.  He looked at her with a kind
+of fear.  He wondered if his madness had cost the life of the child.  She
+understood.  "Did I ever see the child?" he asked.
+
+"Oh yes, I sometimes thought that through the babe you would be yourself
+again.  When you were near her you never ceased to look at her and fondle
+her, as I thought very timidly; and you would start sometimes and gaze at
+me with the old wise look hovering at your eyes.  But the look did not
+stay.  The child was fond of you, but she faded and pined, and one day as
+you nursed her you came to me and said: 'See, beloved, the little one
+will not wake.  She pulled at my beard and said, "Daddy," and fell
+asleep.'  And I took her from your arms.  .  .  .  There is a chestnut
+tree near the door of our cottage at the mine.  One night you and I
+buried her there; but you do not remember her, do you?"
+
+"My child, my child!" he said, looking out into the night; and he lifted
+up his arms and looked at them.  "I held her here, and still I never held
+her; I fondled her, and yet I never fondled her; I buried her, yet--
+to me--she never was born."
+
+"You have been far away, Francis; you have come back home.  I waited, and
+prayed, and worked with you, and was patient.  .  .  .  It is very
+strange," she continued.  "In all these twelve years you cannot remember
+our past, though you remembered about this place--the one thing, as if
+God had made it so--and now you cannot remember those twelve years."
+
+"Tell me now of the twelve years," he urged.
+
+"It was the same from day to day.  When we came from the mountain, we
+brought with us the implements of the forge upon a horse.  Now and again
+as we travelled we cut our way through the heavy woods.  You were changed
+for the better then; a dreadful trouble seemed to have gone from your
+face.  There was a strong kind of peace in the valley, and there were so
+many birds and animals, and the smell of the trees was so fine, that we
+were not lonely, neither you nor I."
+
+She paused, thinking, her eyes looking out to where the Evening Star was
+sailing slowly out of the wooded horizon, his look on her.  In the pause
+the wolf-dog raised its big, sleepy eyes at them, then plunged its head
+into its paws, its wildness undisturbed by their presence.
+
+Presently the wife continued: "At last we reached here, and here we have
+lived, where no human being, save one, has ever been.  We put up the
+forge, and in a little hill not far away we found coal for it.  The days
+went on.  It was always summer, though there came at times a sharp frost,
+and covered the ground with a coverlet of white.  But the birds were
+always with us, and the beasts were our friends.  I learned to love even
+the shrill cry of the reed hens, and the soft tap-tap of the wood-pecker
+is the sweetest music to my ear after the song of the anvil.  How often
+have you and I stood here at the anvil, the fire heating the iron, and
+our hammers falling constantly!  Oh, Francis, I knew that only here with
+God and His dumb creatures, and His wonderful healing world, all sun, and
+wind, and flowers, and blossoming trees, working as you used to work, as
+the first of men worked, would the sane wandering soul return to you.
+The thought was in you, too, for you led me here, and have been patient
+also in the awful exile of your mind."
+
+"I have been as a child, and not as a man," he said gravely.  "Shall I
+ever again be a man, as I once was, Samantha?"
+
+"You cannot see yourself," she said.  "A week ago you fell ill, and since
+then you have been pale and worn; but your body has been, and is, that of
+a great strong man.  In the morning I will take you to a spring in the
+hills, and you shall see yourself, beloved."
+
+He stood up, stretched himself, went to the door, and looked out into the
+valley flooded with moonlight.  He drew in a great draught of air, and
+said: "The world--the great, wonderful world, where men live, and love
+work, and do strong things!"--he paused, and turned with a trouble in his
+face.  "My wife," he said, "you have lived with a dead man twelve years,
+and I have lost twelve years in the world.  I had a great thought once--
+an invention--but now--" he hung his head bitterly.  She came to him, and
+her hands slid up along his breast to his shoulders, and rested there;
+and she said, with a glad smile: "Francis, you have lost nothing.  The
+thing--the invention--was all but finished when you fell ill a week ago.
+We have worked at it for these twelve years; through it, I think, you
+have been brought back to me.  Come, there is a little work yet to, do
+upon it;" and she drew him to where a machine of iron lay in the corner.
+With a great cry he fell upon his knees beside it, and fondled it.
+
+Then, presently, he rose, and caught his wife to his breast.
+
+Together, a moment later, they stood beside the anvil.  The wolf-dog fled
+out into the night from the shower of sparks, as, in the red light, the
+two sang to the clanging of the hammers:
+
+              "When God was making the world
+                 (Swift is the wind and white is the fire)"
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Counsel of the overwise to go jolting through the soul
+Love knows not distance; it hath no continent
+When a child is born the mother also is born again
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARABLES OF A PROVINCE, PARKER ***
+
+********* This file should be named gp69w10.txt or gp69w10.zip **********
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, gp69w11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gp69w10a.txt
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/gp69w10.zip b/old/gp69w10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..665d7bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/gp69w10.zip