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Hear me, thou broken outline of a man. I shall lie this night by my work-camp upon my battle-field. And I shall pray that thou wilt not disturb me with thy moanings. Go, eat thy lazy fill-thy untended fruits: I have got my corn to grind, my slabs to heat for my cakes. God grant thee a more valiant spirit--away."

The vapid creature glided back, as the Giant advanced-still muttering: "Come, come: there is danger in every foot-fall. Come." Day by day the Giant wrought along the wall. He tore the roots out of the foundations; picked the vermin from the holes; mended the crevices; rooted out the fungus. The Shadow of a Man came now and again—more shame-faced and timid and silent as the labours advanced. The wall rose clear and smooth, and of even line against the sky, wooing the sun from the south. Deep trenches of upturned earth stretched from its foundations. The very rottenness of the wilderness, became the foundation-glory of the garden. The wall stretched even, in shapely lines, between orderly rows of good growths. Under Spring showers and kissing winds, and coaxing baths of sunny air, the brick that had been the home of vermin, was clothed with flowers. The expanse around, under the Giant's brawny hands, spread ever. The Shadow of a Man disappeared, at length, covered with shame. The wall that had laughed with flowers, glowed with fruit. As the years passed, a kingdom of happy faces gathered to the north and south of the wall. And they made the Giant their king; and blessed him for the perpetual lesson wrought by his hand upon the wall that sheltered them and gave them food.

The Christian Vagabond, folding the grey paper, and finding its place in his wallet, said-" The poor Flemish scholar used to say that the blank, poisonous wall, the weeds and all the corruption, were meant to represent the hundred hideous growths of Ignorance. The mild and beaming Giant was the Schoolmaster. For there is wisdom of this complexion stored in odd places. I picked up a proverb once, among the Indians. They said, "The wise man knows and inquires: but the ignorant man knows not, and cannot tell how to know."

A bell of liquid sound rang in the corridor. The Vagabond rose, and saying, "Brothers all, let us rest in God"-went forth to the musical summons.

fructueuses et utiles, et partant nous luy faisons service agréable d'en avoir soin.”Introduction à la Vie Devote de Saint François de Sales, Evêque et Prince de Genève. Lyon. 1668.

CHAPTER VII.

THE VAGABOND'S STORY.

"My father smote a white-headed beggar, who craved help at his gate, one cold morning; and I saw the blow, as I stood in the lodge with the son of his gate-keeper, to whose society I escaped whenever the opportunity offered, or I could make one."

Thus the Christian Vagabond began, speaking in the refectory to the Lady of Charity and the Sisters. He passed his hands wearily over his eyes, and hesitated.

I

"It is so long ago, my sisters. It plagues me to hold a thread which stretches so far. Yea, but I remember Felix; for, in my early wanderings he was my companion, and my comforter through dark days. On that morning when my father harmed the beggar, Felix hid his face within his hands, and crept to a dark corner of the Lodge. He had a heart of gold. My eyes flashed fire: my limbs shook. was but fourteen. I said to my father, 'Nay, sir, with all filial respect-the man's hair is white, and his knees shake under him. See, his staff has fallen from his unnerved hand.'-' Peace, boy, and go within the castle,' was my answer, as the author of my mortal being rode forth and the beggar smiling upon me through his grief, so that he drew a flood of tears from my eyes, turned away. I picked his staff from the earth for him: it was my duty; and I begged him to enter the Lodge. Felix came forth and entreated him, but he was proud and held on away from us and as he went up the road, Felix laid his hand on my arm, and said, 'See, master, the blood!' A red stream was trickling from under his tattered hat over the silver locks.

"That sight made me a wanderer."

The Vagabond ceased: and again passed his hands slowly over his eyes.

"Not to-day-not to-day."

The Lady of Charity softly interposed,—

"Our Brother is weary."

"Felix was a

"It is coming: it comes," the Vagabond replied, his face brightening with the beams of the returning light in his brain. good, brave boy: child of a pious mother. It is upon the mother's knee the destinies of empires are shaped. I shared the counsel that was Felix's most precious portion, learning with him upon his mother's lap. They were my father's servants, and born to be mine: and they were my highest teachers. Under the thatch of the Lodge

at my father's gates, I found homely, holy lessons, and saw all the glorious power of gentleness. The story that knit my heart with the heart of the gate-keeper's son Felix was that of Clotilda, which we read together under a hedge, while Felix was playing the part of gosherd to a flock his father kept. And is it not a sweet story of the white hand subduing the mailed arm? It sank deep into us when the mother of Felix, in her rude peasant speech, applied it to the folk of her own condition; and ruled her rough husband by it."

"The early vision of Clotilda that filled every nook and corner of my heart and mind is the grandest I have known. We lay poring over the book-no bigger than a thumb-nail-in which it was folded, and carried our eyes along the lines of the pages which we had to spell, with blades of grass we plucked at our elbows. What a gentle figure, brave with the most heavenly spirit of faith and endurance ! The patient mother, with her head bowed under the stroke of God over her dead child, and not murmuring. Brute force, uncouth men, pagan ferocity, all around; a glowering idolater for lord and master, brought to her under his long hair, upon a warrior's shield! Clovis was a noble beast of pagan instincts, smitten by the gentle beauty of Princess Clotilda. With quickly beating hearts we followed Aurelianus, the messenger of Clovis to the Court of Burgundy, whither he was despatched, to seek the hand of the princess for his rude master. In the guise of a beggar, Aurelianus stood in the porch of the church, where Clotilda distributed alms, on coming away from prayers. The man in rags spake to her. She dealt no blow to his seeming misery, my sisters; but gentle and quiet at heart, because strong in faith, she passed aside from the crowd with her supplicant. He put his rags apart, discovered the ambassador, and discharged the message Clovis had given him,-tendering the prince's ring. The gentle Christian girl was not troubled, nor astonished, the chronicler related. She took the ring of Clovis, and gave her own in exchange to Aurelianus. We drew pictures of her departing in her chariot drawn by oxen and laden with treasures, to the north of Gaul. Pursued, she left the slow oxen for the fleetest horse, and was at the feet of Clovis, even before his ambassador Aurelianus had returned -bringing with her to the kingdom of the barbaric Franks, the vivifying faith of the Christian, and the irresistible example of her all conquering gentleness.

"She treated the beggar in the porch as the possible angel robed in poverty. We praised her the live-long day: and the mother of

b Bossuet.

And out of that humble home of

Felix could not tire of her name. my father's servants, did I see him draw blood through the white hairs of a wanderer who sought no greater sacrifice than a crust!

"I tell you, sisters, that blow made a wanderer of me.

Re

"The life of Clotilda, battling against the Pagan court, with her sweetness, her resignation in affliction, her patience when her lusty husband, smeared with the strife of the field, scoffed at her God; penetrated our young souls-and often Felix's flock strayed out of all bounds, while we pored over the greasy pages of the book. proached with the death of her child, in this, that she had carried it to Christian baptism; she bowed her head, and prayed. And when Clodomir was born to her-amid the furious pagans who surged about her brave weakness, her invincible timidity, her dominant mildness-she carried the second of her flesh to the font, and the infant was on the point of death; her sublime faith bore her again through all the fiery wrath of her husband. It is a glorious thought of old that it is in the abyss of abysses, the saints can, with the greatest comfort, spread their wings.

"Clotilda wept and prayed, and prayed and wept and she was comforted with the return of her child to health. Within those precious tears was arched the rainbow-promise of brighter days. The German hordes swept to the banks of the Rhine: fire-breathing Pagan Clovis flew to meet them and fight the battle of Tolbiac. The day was against Clovis; his hosts were bending back before the furious German strength-when the heart of the king's gentle wife stirred against his breast, and the memory of her faith broke, as a light, upon him.

"God of Clotilda!' he cried, 'Give me victory, and I am thine !'"

The Christian Vagabond's voice had cleared and become dulcet, as he travelled over this passage of his boyhood.

:

"Remember the God of Clotilda,' the mother of Felix would say when there was a trouble in her household. The God of Clotilda was familiar to my lips and day by day we fought over again the battle of Tolbiac; talked of the beggar-ambassador of Clovis ; and, I hope, were gentle in our daily duties, remembering these things, carried forward to us by the grace of God, through some thirteen generations. When Felix was impatient, or unruly: his mother would raise her finger (her arm, my sisters, never) and bring him back to willing duty, with the simple words, 'Felix, Remember the God of Clotilda !'

"The warrior Clovis returned to Clotilda, and was true to the vow

of the battle-field; and henceforth-is not this exquisite ?-we hear no more of the Christian Princess, whose gentle arms were the cradle of Christian France. Her softness, and resignation under suffering; her weakness that was mightier than all the brute force of Clovis and his blood-thirsty legions-produced in the hearts of Felix and myself a happy light which guided us every day. 'God of Clotilda!' we exclaimed, whenever a bit of temper showed itself in either of us.

"Imagine, then, dear sisters, how woful was the day on which my father smote the beggar at our gates-smote Aurelianus, the messenger of Clovis! The blow closed my heart on my home-for already my mother had been carried away from it, and a lamp burned ever in the village church where she lay, and where my steps were heard every morning. I was heir to my father's vast estate, and inheritor of my mother's fortune. I heard that my coffers were of prodigious build, and that there were kings not richer than your humble servant. I was not stirred by the news, nor elated by the homage which avaricious, expectant men paid my baby foot-prints. My father scoffed at me for a girl-because my words were soft, he said, and I had no taste for the arts of war. Yet I was, in muscle, a lion. He told men that my strength was wasted. My arm was shaped to bear the standard into the thickest of the fray; and I used it to lift and toss peasant urchins in the village. He despised my mildness. I should have been at broad-sword or in the saddle when I was at the church by my mother's grave, or thumbing the little library of the gate-house.

"My father went forth, with clanging retinue, to a great war. As he passed out through the gates, and I stood bare-headed to take dutiful leave of him, he looked disdainfully and pitifully down upon me, and placed his hand upon my skull and blessed me with only half his heart. When, however, he reached the first bend of the road, he turned in his saddle, and looked upon me, it was consolation to me afterwards to remember, with something of a father's face.

"Felix and I were more than ever together, when I was left master of the domain. For they who were appointed over me, humoured me in all things, as the heir-expectant is generally humoured-especially when his father is gone forth to war. I was melted to tears very often, as we passed through the village (every stone and mud-wall of which was to be mine) and I looked upon the misery of the women and children- and saw the skeleton shapes of the aged, who could no longer creep to work in the fields. "How many centuries ago is it, my Felix?' I would say to my peasant companion, 'since the pagan Clovis was baptised at Rheims?

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