SHORT STORIES
FOR HIGH SCHOOLS
EDITED
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
ROSA M. R. MIKELS
SHORTRIDGE HIGH SCHOOL, INDIANAPOLIS, IND.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
[Illustration: LOGO]
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION
REQUIREMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY xi
HOW THIS BOOK MAY BE USED xviii
THE FIRST CHRISTMAS-TREE Henry van Dyke 1
A FRENCH TAR-BABY Joel Chandler Harris 27
SONNY’S CHRISTENIN’ Ruth McEnery Stuart 35
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN John Fox, Jr. 51
A NEST-EGG James Whitcomb Riley 67
WEE WILLIE WINKLE Rudyard Kipling 79
THE GOLD BUG Edgar Allan Poe 95
THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF O. Henry 143
THE FRESHMAN FULL-BACK Ralph D. Paine 159
GALLEGHER Richard Harding Davis 181
THE JUMPING FROG Mark Twain 221
THE LADY OR THE TIGER? Frank R. Stockton 231
THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT Francis Bret Harte 243
THE REVOLT OF MOTHER Mary E. Wilkins Freeman 259
MARSE CHAN Thomas Nelson Page 283
“POSSON JONE’” George W. Cable 315
OUR AROMATIC UNCLE Henry Cuyler Bunner 341
QUALITY John Galsworthy 361
THE TRIUMPH OF NIGHT Edith Wharton 373
A MESSENGER Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews 407
MARKHEIM Robert Louis Stevenson 431
PREFACE
WHY must we confine the reading of our children to the older literary
classics? This is the question asked by an ever-increasing number of
thoughtful teachers. They have no wish to displace or to discredit the
classics. On the contrary, they love and revere them. But they do wish
to give their pupils something additional, something that pulses with
present life, that is characteristic of to-day. The children, too,
wonder that, with the great literary outpouring going on about them,
they must always fill their cups from the cisterns of the past.
The short story is especially adapted to supplement our high-school
reading. It is of a piece with our varied, hurried, efficient American
life, wherein figure the business man’s lunch, the dictagraph, the
telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, and the railway “limited.”
It has achieved high art, yet conforms to the modern demand that our
literature—since it must be read with despatch, if read at all—be
compact and compelling. Moreover, the short story is with us in almost
overwhelming numbers, and is probably here to stay. Indeed, our boys
and girls are somewhat appalled at the quantity of material from which
they must select their reading, and welcome any instruction that
enables them to know the good from the bad. It is certain, therefore,
that, whatever else they may throw into the educational discard when
they leave the high school, they will keep and use anything they
may have learned about this form of literature which has become so
powerful a factor in our daily life.
This book does not attempt to select the greatest stories of the time.
What tribunal would dare make such a choice? Nor does it attempt to
trace the evolution of the short story or to point out natural types
and differences. These topics are better suited to college classes.
Its object is threefold: to supply interesting reading belonging to
the student’s own time, to help him to see that there is no divorce
between classic and modern literature, and, by offering him material
structurally good and typical of the qualities represented, to assist
him in discriminating between the artistic and the inartistic. The
stories have been carefully selected, because in the period of
adolescence “nothing read fails to leave its mark”;[1] they have also
been carefully arranged with a view to the needs of the adolescent boy
and girl. Stories of the type loved by primitive man, and therefore
easily approached and understood, have been placed first. Those which
appealed in periods of higher development follow, roughly in the
order of their increasing difficulty. It is hoped, moreover, that
this arrangement will help the student to understand and appreciate
the development of the story. He begins with the simple tale of
adventure and the simple story of character. As he advances he sees the
story develop in plot, in character analysis, and in setting, until
he ends with the psychological study of _Markheim_, remarkable for
its complexity of motives and its great spiritual problem. Both the
selection and the arrangement have been made with this further purpose
in view—“to keep the heart warm, reinforcing all its good motives,
preforming choices, universalizing sympathies.”[2]
It is a pleasure to acknowledge, in this connection, the suggestions
and the criticism of Mr. William N. Otto, Head of the Department of
English in Shortridge High School, Indianapolis; and the courtesies of
the publishers who have permitted the use of their material.
INTRODUCTION
I
REQUIREMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY
CRITICS have agreed that the short story must conform to certain
conditions. First of all, the writer must strive to make one and only
one impression. His time is too limited, his space is too confined, his
risk of dividing the attention of the reader is too great, to admit
of more than this one impression. He therefore selects some moment of
action or some phase of character or some particular scene, and focuses
attention upon that. Life not infrequently gives such brief, clear-cut
impressions. At the railway station we see two young people hurry to
a train as if fearful of being detained, and we get the impression
of romantic adventure. We pass on the street corner two men talking,
and from a chance sentence or two we form a strong impression of the
character of one or both. Sometimes we travel through a scene so
desolate and depressing or so lovely and uplifting that the effect is
never forgotten. Such glimpses of life and scene are as vivid as the
vignettes revealed by the searchlight, when its arm slowly explores a
mountain-side or the shore of a lake and brings objects for a brief
moment into high light. To secure this single strong impression, the
writer must decide which of the three essentials—plot character, or
setting—is to have first place.
As action appeals strongly to most people, and very adequately reveals
character, the short-story writer may decide to make plot pre-eminent.
He accordingly chooses his incidents carefully. Any that do not
really aid in developing the story must be cast aside, no matter how
interesting or attractive they may be in themselves. This does not
mean that an incident which is detached from the train of events may
not be used. But such an incident must have proper relations provided
for it. Thus the writer may wish to use incidents that belong to two
separate stories, because he knows that by relating them he can produce
a single effect. Shakespeare does this in _Macbeth_. Finding in the
lives of the historic Macbeth and the historic King Duff incidents
that he wished to use, he combined them. But he saw to it that they
had the right relation, that they fitted into the chain of cause and
effect. The reader will insist, as the writer knows, that the story be
logical, that incident 1 shall be the cause of incident 2, incident 2
of incident 3, and so on to the end. The triangle used by Freytag to
illustrate the plot of a play may make this clear.
[Illustration]
AC is the line of rising action along which the story climbs, incident
by incident, to the point C; C is the turning point, the crisis, or the
climax; CB is the line of falling action along which the story descends
incident by incident to its logical resolution. Nothing may be left
to luck or chance. In life the element of chance does sometimes seem
to figure, but in the story it has no place. If the ending is not the
logical outcome of events, the reader feels cheated. He does not want
the situation to be too obvious, for he likes the thrill of suspense.
But he wants the hints and foreshadowings to be sincere, so that he may
safely draw his conclusions from them. This does not condemn, however,
the “surprise” ending, so admirably used by O. Henry. The reader, in
this case, admits that the writer has “played fair” throughout, and
that the ending which has so surprised and tickled his fancy is as
logical as that he had forecast.
To aid in securing the element of suspense, the author often makes use
of what Carl H. Grabo, in his _The Art of the Short Story_, calls the
“negative” or “hostile” incident. Incidents, as he points out, are of
two kinds—positive and negative. The first openly help to untangle
the situation; the second seem to delay the straightening out of the
threads or even to make the tangle worse. He illustrates this by the
story of Cinderella. The appearance of the fairy and her use of the
magic wand are positive, or openly helpful incidents, in rescuing
Cinderella from her lonely and neglected state. But her forgetfulness
of the hour and her loss of the glass slipper are negative or hostile
incidents. Nevertheless, we see how these are really blessings in
disguise, since they cause the prince to seek and woo her.
The novelist may introduce many characters, because he has time and
space to care for them. Not so the short-story writer: he must employ
only one main character and a few supporting characters. However, when
the plot is the main thing, the characters need not be remarkable in
any way. Indeed, as Brander Matthews has said, the heroine may be “a
woman,” the hero “a man,” not any woman or any man in particular. Thus,
in _The Lady or the Tiger?_ the author leaves the princess without
definite traits of character, because his problem is not “what this
particular woman would do, but what a woman would do.” Sometimes, after
reading a story of thrilling plot, we find that we do not readily
recall the appearance or the names of the characters; we recall only
what happened to them. This is true of the women of James Fenimore
Cooper’s stories. They have no substantiality, but move like veiled
figures through the most exciting adventures.
Setting may or may not be an important factor in the story of incident.
What is meant by setting? It is an inclusive term. Time, place, local
conditions, and sometimes descriptions of nature and of people are
parts of it. When these are well cared for, we get an effect called
“atmosphere.” We know the effect the atmosphere has upon objects. Any
one who has observed distant mountains knows that, while they remain
practically unchanged, they never look the same on two successive
days. Sometimes they stand out hard and clear, sometimes they are soft
and alluring, sometimes they look unreal and almost melt into the
sky behind them. So the atmosphere of a story may envelop people and
events and produce a subtle effect upon the reader. Sometimes the plot
material is such as to require little setting. The incidents might have
happened anywhere. We hardly notice the absence of setting in our hurry
to see what happens. This is true of many of the stories we enjoyed
when we were children. For instance, in _The Three Bears_ the incidents
took place, of course, in the woods, but our imagination really
supplied the setting. Most stories, however, whatever their character,
use setting as carefully and as effectively as possible. Time and
place are often given with exactness. Thus Bret Harte says: “As Mr.
John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on
the morning of the twentythird of November, 1850, he was conscious
of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night.” This
definite mention of time and place gives an air of reality to the
story. As to descriptions, the writer sifts them in, for he knows that
few will bother to read whole paragraphs of description. He often uses
local color, by which we mean the employment of epithets, phrases, and
other expressions that impart a “feeling” for the place. This use of
local color must not be confused with that intended to produce what
is called an “impressionistic” effect. In the latter case the writer
subordinates everything to this effect of scene. This use of local
color is discussed elsewhere.
Perhaps the writer wishes to make character the dominant element.
Then he subordinates plot and setting to this purpose and makes them
contribute to it. In selecting the character he wishes to reveal he
has wide choice. “Human nature is the same, wherever you find it,”
we are fond of saying. So he may choose a character that is quite
common, some one he knows; and, having made much of some one trait
and ignored or subordinated others, bring him before us at some
moment of decision or in some strange, perhaps hostile, environment.
Or the author may take some character quite out of the ordinary:
the village miser, the recluse, or a person with a peculiar mental
or moral twist. But, whatever his choice, it is not enough that the
character be actually drawn from real life. Indeed, such fidelity to
what literally exists may be a hinderance to the writer. The original
character may have done strange things and suffered strange things that
cannot be accounted for. But, in the story, inconsistencies must be
removed, and the conduct of the characters must be logical. Life seems
inconsistent to all of us at times, but it is probably less so than
it seems. People puzzle us by their apparent inconsistencies, when
to themselves their actions seem perfectly logical. But, as Mr. Grabo
points out, “In life we expect inconsistencies; in a story we depend
upon their elimination.” The law of cause and effect, which we found
so indispensable in the story of plot, we find of equal importance
in the story of character. There must be no sudden and unaccountable
changes in the behavior or sentiments of the people in the story. On
the contrary, there must be reason in all they say and do.
Another demand of the character story is that the characters be
lifelike. In the plot story, or in the impressionistic story, we may
accept the flat figures on the canvas; our interest is elsewhere. But
in the character story we must have real people whose motives and
conduct we discuss pro and con with as much interest as if we knew them
in the flesh. A character of this convincing type is Hamlet. About him
controversy has always raged. It is impossible to think of him as other
than a real man. Whenever the writer finds that the characters in his
story have caused the reader to wax eloquent over their conduct, he may
rest easy: he has made his people lifelike.
Setting in the character story is important, for it is in this that the
chief actor moves and has his being. His environment is continually
causing him to speak and act. The incidents selected, even though
some of them may seem trivial in themselves, must reveal depth after
depth in his soul. Whatever the means by which the author reveals
the character—whether by setting, conduct, analysis, dialogue, or
soliloquy—his task is a hard one. In _Markheim_ we have practically
all of these used, with the result that the character is unmistakable
and convincing.
Stories of scenes are neither so numerous nor so easy to produce
successfully as those of plot and character. But sometimes a place so
profoundly impresses a writer that its demands may not be disregarded.
Robert Louis Stevenson strongly felt the influence of certain places.
“Certain dank gardens cry aloud for murder; certain old houses demand
to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. Other spots
seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable.” Perhaps all
of us have seen some place of which we have exclaimed: “It is like a
story!” When, then, scene is to furnish the dominant interest, plot and
character become relatively insignificant and shadowy. “The pressure of
the atmosphere,” says Brander Matthews, holds our attention. _The Fall
of the House of Usher_, by Edgar Allan Poe, is a story of this kind. It
is the scene that affects us with dread and horror; we have no peace
until we see the house swallowed up by the tarn, and have fled out of
sight of the tarn itself. The plot is extremely slight, and the Lady
Madeline and her unhappy brother hardly more than shadows.
It must not be supposed from the foregoing explanation that the three
essentials of the short story are ever really divorced. They are
happily blended in many of our finest stories. Nevertheless, analysis
of any one of these will show that in the mind of the writer one
purpose was pre-eminent. On this point Robert Louis Stevenson thus
speaks: “There are, so far as I know, three ways and three only of
writing a story. You may take a plot and fit characters to it, or you
may take a character and choose incidents and situations to develop
it, or, lastly, you may take a certain atmosphere and get actions and
persons to express and realize it.” When to this clear conception of
his limitations and privileges the author adds an imagination that
clearly visualizes events and the “verbal magic” by which good style is
secured, he produces the short story that is a masterpiece.
II
HOW THIS BOOK MAY BE USED
THIS book may be used in four ways. First, it may serve as an
appetizer. Even the casual reading of good literature has a tendency
to create a demand for more. Second, it may be made the basis for
discussion and comparison. By using these stories, the works of
recognized authors, as standards, the student may determine the value
of such stories as come into his home. Third, these selections may be
studied in a regular short-story course, such as many high schools
have, to illustrate the requirements and the types of this form of
narration. The chapter on “The Requirements of the Short Story” will
be found useful both in this connection and in the comparative study
of stories. Fourth, the student will better appreciate and understand
the short story if he attempts to tell or to write one. This does not
mean that we intend to train him for the literary market. Our object is
entirely different. No form of literature brings more real joy to the
child than the story. Not only does he like to hear stories; he likes
to tell them. And where the short-story course is rightly used, he
likes to write them. He finds that the pleasure of exercising creative
power more than offsets the drudgery inevitable in composition. A plan
that has been satisfactorily carried out in the classroom is here
briefly outlined.
The teacher reads with the class a story in which plot furnishes the
main interest. This type is chosen because it is more easily analyzed
by beginners. The class discusses this, applying the tests of the short
story given elsewhere in this book. Then a number of short stories of
different types are read and compared. Next, each member of the class
selects from some recent book or magazine a short story he enjoys.
This he outlines and reports to the class. If this report is not
satisfactory, the class insists that either the author or the reporter
be exonerated. The story is accordingly read to the class, or is read
and reported on by another member. The class is then usually able to
decide whether the story is faulty or the first report inadequate.
Next the class gives orally incidents that might or might not be
expanded into short stories. The students soon discover that some of
these require the lengthy treatment of a novel, that others are good
as simple incidents but nothing more, and that still others might
develop into satisfactory short stories. The class is now asked to
develop original plots. Since plots cannot be produced on demand, but
require time for the mind to act subconsciously, the class practises,
during the “period of incubation,” the writing of dialogue. For these
the teacher suggests a list of topics, although any student is free
to substitute one of his own. Among the topics that have been used
are: “Johnny goes with his mother to church for the first time,” “Mrs.
Hennessy is annoyed by the chickens of Mrs. Jones,” “Albert applies for
a summer job.” Sometimes the teacher relates an incident, and has the
class reproduce it in dialogue. By comparing their work with dialogue
by recognized writers the youthful authors soon learn how to punctuate
and paragraph conversation, and where to place necessary comment and
explanation. They also discover that dialogue must either reveal
character or advance the story; and that it must be in keeping with
the theme and maintain the tone used at the beginning. A commonplace
dialogue must not suddenly become romantic in tone, and dialect must
not lapse into ordinary English.
The original plots the class offers later may have been suggested in
many ways. Newspaper accounts, court reports, historical incidents,
family traditions—all may contribute. Sometimes the student proudly
declares of his plot, “I made it out of my own head.” These plots are
arranged in outline form to show how incident 1 developed incident 2,
that incident 3, and so on to the conclusion. The class points out
the weak places in these plots and offers helpful suggestions. This
co-operation often produces surprisingly good results. A solution that
the troubled originator of the plot never thought of may come almost
as an inspiration from the class. Criticism throughout is largely
constructive. After the student has developed several plots in outline,
he usually finds among them one that he wishes to use for his story.
This is worked out in some detail, submitted to the class, and later in
a revised form to the teacher. The story when complete is corrected and
sometimes rewritten.
Most of the class prefer to write stories of plot, but some insist upon
trying stories of character or of setting. These pupils are shown the
difficulties in their way, but are allowed to try their hand if they
insist. Sometimes the results are good; more often the writer, after
an honest effort, admits that he cannot handle his subject well and
substitutes a story of plot.
In any case the final draft is sure to leave much to be desired; but
even so, the gain has been great. The pupil writer has constantly been
measuring his work by standards of recognized excellence in form and
in creative power; as a result he has learned to appreciate the short
story from the art side. Moreover, he has had a large freedom in his
work that has relieved it of drudgery. And, best of all, he has been
doing original work with plastic material; and to work with plastic
material is always a source of joy, whether it be the mud that the
child makes into pies, the clay that the artist moulds into forms of
beauty, or the facts of life that the creative imagination of the
writer shapes into literature.
THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE
A STORY OF THE FOREST
BY
HENRY VAN DYKE
This story is placed first because it is of the type that first
delighted man. It is the story of high adventure, of a struggle with
the forces of nature, barbarous men, and heathen gods. The hero is
“a hunter of demons, a subduer of the wilderness, a woodman of the
faith.” He seeks hardships and conquers them. The setting is the
illimitable forest in the remote past. The forest, like the sea, makes
an irresistible appeal to the imagination. Either may be the scene of
the marvellous and the thrilling. Quite unlike the earliest tales,
this story is enriched with description and exposition; nevertheless,
it has their simplicity and dignity. It reminds us of certain of the
great Biblical narratives, such as the contest between Elijah and the
prophets of Baal and the victory of Daniel over the jealous presidents
and princes of Darius. In “The First Christmas Tree,” as in many others
of these stories, a third person is the narrator. But the hero may
tell his own adventures. “I did this. I did that. Thus I felt at the
conclusion.” Instances are Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” and Stevenson’s
“Kidnapped.” But whether in the first or third person, the story holds
us by the magic of adventure.
THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE[3]
I
THE CALL OF THE WOODSMAN
The day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722.
Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river
Moselle; pallid hill-sides blooming with mystic roses where the glow
of the setting sun still lingered upon them; an arch of clearest,
faintest azure bending overhead; in the centre of the aerial landscape
the massive walls of the cloister of Pfalzel, gray to the east, purple
to the west; silence over all,—a gentle, eager, conscious stillness,
diffused through the air like perfume, as if earth and sky were hushing
themselves to hear the voice of the river faintly murmuring down the
valley.
In the cloister, too, there was silence at the sunset hour. All day
long there had been a strange and joyful stir among the nuns. A breeze
of curiosity and excitement had swept along the corridors and through
every quiet cell.
The elder sisters,—the provost, the deaconess, the stewardess, the
portress with her huge bunch of keys jingling at her girdle,—had been
hurrying to and fro, busied with household cares. In the huge kitchen
there was a bustle of hospitable preparation. The little bandy-legged
dogs that kept the spits turning before the fires had been trotting
steadily for many an hour, until their tongues hung out for want of
breath. The big black pots swinging from the cranes had bubbled and
gurgled and shaken and sent out puffs of appetizing steam.
St. Martha was in her element. It was a field-day for her virtues.
The younger sisters, the pupils of the convent, had forsaken their
Latin books and their embroidery-frames, their manuscripts and their
miniatures, and fluttered through the halls in little flocks like
merry snow-birds, all in black and white, chattering and whispering
together. This was no day for tedious task-work, no day for grammar or
arithmetic, no day for picking out illuminated letters in red and gold
on stiff parchment, or patiently chasing intricate patterns over thick
cloth with the slow needle. It was a holiday. A famous visitor had come
to the convent.
It was Winfried of England, whose name in the Roman tongue was
Boniface, and whom men called the Apostle of Germany. A great preacher;
a wonderful scholar; he had written a Latin grammar himself,—think of
it,—and he could hardly sleep without a book under his pillow; but,
more than all, a great and daring traveller, a venturesome pilgrim, a
high-priest of romance.
He had left his home and his fair estate in Wessex; he would not stay
in the rich monastery of Nutescelle, even though they had chosen him
as the abbot; he had refused a bishopric at the court of King Karl.
Nothing would content him but to go out into the wild woods and preach
to the heathen.
Up and down through the forests of Hesse and Thuringia, and along
the borders of Saxony, he had wandered for years, with a handful of
companions, sleeping under the trees, crossing mountains and marshes,
now here, now there, never satisfied with ease and comfort, always in
love with hardship and danger.
What a man he was! Fair and slight, but straight as a spear and strong
as an oaken staff. His face was still young; the smooth skin was
bronzed by wind and sun. His gray eyes, clear and kind, flashed like
fire when he spoke of his adventures, and of the evil deeds of the
false priests with whom he contended.
What tales he had told that day! Not of miracles wrought by sacred
relics; not of courts and councils and splendid cathedrals; though he
knew much of these things, and had been at Rome and received the Pope’s
blessing. But to-day he had spoken of long journeyings by sea and land;
of perils by fire and flood; of wolves and bears and fierce snowstorms
and black nights in the lonely forest; of dark altars of heathen gods,
and weird, bloody sacrifices, and narrow escapes from murderous bands
of wandering savages.
The little novices had gathered around him, and their faces had grown
pale and their eyes bright as they listened with parted lips, entranced
in admiration, twining their arms about one another’s shoulders and
holding closely together, half in fear, half in delight. The older nuns
had turned from their tasks and paused, in passing by, to hear the
pilgrim’s story. Too well they knew the truth of what he spoke. Many a
one among them had seen the smoke rising from the ruins of her father’s
roof. Many a one had a brother far away in the wild country to whom
her heart went out night and day, wondering if he were still among the
living.
But now the excitements of that wonderful day were over; the hour of
the evening meal had come; the inmates of the cloister were assembled
in the refectory.
On the daïs sat the stately Abbess Addula, daughter of King Dagobert,
looking a princess indeed, in her violet tunic, with the hood and cuffs
of her long white robe trimmed with fur, and a snowy veil resting like
a crown on her snowy hair. At her right hand was the honored guest, and
at her left hand her grandson, the young Prince Gregor, a big, manly
boy, just returned from the high school.
The long, shadowy hall, with its dark-brown rafters and beams; the
double rows of nuns, with their pure veils and fair faces; the ruddy
glow of the slanting sunbeams striking upwards through the tops of the
windows and painting a pink glow high up on the walls,—it was all as
beautiful as a picture, and as silent. For this was the rule of the
cloister, that at the table all should sit in stillness for a little
while, and then one should read aloud, while the rest listened.
“It is the turn of my grandson to read to-day,” said the abbess to
Winfried; “we shall see how much he has learned in the school. Read,
Gregor; the place in the book is marked.”
The tall lad rose from his seat and turned the pages of the manuscript.
It was a copy of Jerome’s version of the Scriptures in Latin, and the
marked place was in the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians,—the
passage where he describes the preparation of the Christian as the
arming of a warrior for glorious battle. The young voice rang out
clearly, rolling the sonorous words, without slip or stumbling, to the
end of the chapter.
Winfried listened smiling. “My son,” said he, as the reader paused,
“that was bravely read. Understandest thou what thou readest?”
“Surely, father,” answered the boy; “it was taught me by the masters at
Treves; and we have read this epistle clear through, from beginning to
end, so that I almost know it by heart.”
Then he began again to repeat the passage, turning away from the page
as if to show his skill.
But Winfried stopped him with a friendly lifting of the hand.
“Not so, my son; that was not my meaning. When we pray, we speak to
God; when we read, it is God who speaks to us. I ask whether thou hast
heard what He has said to thee, in thine own words, in the common
speech. Come, give us again the message of the warrior and his armor
and his battle, in the mother-tongue, so that all can understand it.”
The boy hesitated, blushed, stammered; then he came around to
Winfried’s seat, bringing the book. “Take the book, my father,” he
cried, “and read it for me. I cannot see the meaning plain, though I
love the sound of the words. Religion I know, and the doctrines of our
faith, and the life of priests and nuns in the cloister, for which my
grandmother designs me, though it likes me little. And fighting I know,
and the life of warriors and heroes, for I have read of it in Virgil
and the ancients, and heard a bit from the soldiers at Treves; and I
would fain taste more of it, for it likes me much. But how the two
lives fit together, or what need there is of armor for a clerk in holy
orders, I can never see. Tell me the meaning, for if there is a man in
all the world that knows it, I am sure it is none other than thou.”
So Winfried took the book and closed it, clasping the boy’s hand with
his own.
“Let us first dismiss the others to their vespers,” said he, “lest they
should be weary.”
A sign from the abbess; a chanted benediction; a murmuring of sweet
voices and a soft rustling of many feet over the rushes on the floor;
the gentle tide of noise flowed out through the doors and ebbed away
down the corridors; the three at the head of the table were left alone
in the darkening room.
Then Winfried began to translate the parable of the soldier into the
realities of life.
At every turn he knew how to flash a new light into the picture out
of his own experience. He spoke of the combat with self, and of the
wrestling with dark spirits in solitude. He spoke of the demons that
men had worshipped for centuries in the wilderness, and whose malice
they invoked against the stranger who ventured into the gloomy forest.
Gods, they called them, and told strange tales of their dwelling among
the impenetrable branches of the oldest trees and in the caverns of the
shaggy hills; of their riding on the wind-horses and hurling spears
of lightning against their foes. Gods they were not, but foul spirits
of the air, rulers of the darkness. Was there not glory and honor in
fighting with them, in daring their anger under the shield of faith, in
putting them to flight with the sword of truth? What better adventure
could a brave man ask than to go forth against them, and wrestle with
them, and conquer them?
“Look you, my friends,” said Winfried, “how sweet and peaceful is this
convent to-night, on the eve of the nativity of the Prince of Peace! It
is a garden full of flowers in the heart of winter; a nest among the
branches of a great tree shaken by the winds; a still haven on the edge
of a tempestuous sea. And this is what religion means for those who are
chosen and called to quietude and prayer and meditation.
“But out yonder in the wide forest, who knows what storms are raving
to-night in the hearts of men, though all the woods are still? who
knows what haunts of wrath and cruelty and fear are closed to-night
against the advent of the Prince of Peace? And shall I tell you what
religion means to those who are called and chosen to dare and to
fight, and to conquer the world for Christ? It means to launch out into
the deep. It means to go against the strongholds of the adversary. It
means to struggle to win an entrance for their Master everywhere. What
helmet is strong enough for this strife save the helmet of salvation?
What breastplate can guard a man against these fiery darts but the
breastplate of righteousness? What shoes can stand the wear of these
journeys but the preparation of the gospel of peace?”
“Shoes?” he cried again, and laughed as if a sudden thought had struck
him. He thrust out his foot, covered with a heavy cowhide boot, laced
high about his leg with thongs of skin.
“See here,—how a fighting man of the cross is shod! I have seen the
boots of the Bishop of Tours,—white kid, broidered with silk; a day in
the bogs would tear them to shreds. I have seen the sandals that the
monks use on the highroads,—yes, and worn them; ten pair of them have
I worn out and thrown away in a single journey. Now I shoe my feet with
the toughest hides, hard as iron; no rock can cut them, no branches can
tear them. Yet more than one pair of these have I outworn, and many
more shall I outwear ere my journeys are ended. And I think, if God
is gracious to me, that I shall die wearing them. Better so than in a
soft bed with silken coverings. The boots of a warrior, a hunter, a
woodsman,—these are my preparation of the gospel of peace.”
“Come, Gregor,” he said, laying his brown hand on the youth’s shoulder,
“come, wear the forester’s boots with me. This is the life to which we
are called. Be strong in the Lord, a hunter of the demons, a subduer of
the wilderness, a woodsman of the faith. Come!”
The boy’s eyes sparkled. He turned to his grandmother. She shook her
head vigorously.
“Nay, father,” she said, “draw not the lad away from my side with
these wild words. I need him to help me with my labors, to cheer my old
age.”
“Do you need him more than the Master does?” asked Winfried; “and will
you take the wood that is fit for a bow to make a distaff?”
“But I fear for the child. Thy life is too hard for him. He will perish
with hunger in the woods.”
“Once,” said Winfried, smiling, “we were camped by the bank of the
river Ohru. The table was spread for the morning meal, but my comrades
cried that it was empty; the provisions were exhausted; we must go
without breakfast, and perhaps starve before we could escape from
the wilderness. While they complained, a fish-hawk flew up from the
river with flapping wings, and let fall a great pike in the midst of
the camp. There was food enough and to spare. Never have I seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”
“But the fierce pagans of the forest,” cried the abbess,—“they may
pierce the boy with their arrows, or dash out his brains with their
axes. He is but a child, too young for the dangers of strife.”
“A child in years,” replied Winfried, “but a man in spirit. And if the
hero must fall early in the battle, he wears the brighter crown, not a
leaf withered, not a flower fallen.”
The aged princess trembled a little. She drew Gregor close to her side,
and laid her hand gently on his brown hair.
“I am not sure that he wants to leave me yet. Besides, there is no
horse in the stable to give him, now, and he cannot go as befits the
grandson of a king.”
Gregor looked straight into her eyes.
“Grandmother,” said he, “dear grandmother, if thou wilt not give me a
horse to ride with this man of God, I will go with him afoot.”
II
THE TRAIL THROUGH THE FOREST
Two years had passed, to a day, almost to an hour, since that Christmas
eve in the cloister of Pfalzel. A little company of pilgrims, less than
a score of men, were creeping slowly northward through the wide forest
that rolled over the hills of central Germany.
At the head of the band marched Winfried, clad in a tunic of fur, with
his long black robe girt high about his waist, so that it might not
hinder his stride. His hunter’s boots were crusted with snow. Drops of
ice sparkled like jewels along the thongs that bound his legs. There
was no other ornament to his dress except the bishop’s cross hanging on
his breast, and the broad silver clasp that fastened his cloak about
his neck. He carried a strong, tall staff in his hand, fashioned at the
top into the form of a cross.
Close beside him, keeping step like a familiar comrade, was the young
Prince Gregor. Long marches through the wilderness had stretched his
limbs and broadened his back, and made a man of him in stature as well
as in spirit. His jacket and cap were of wolf-skin, and on his shoulder
he carried an axe, with broad, shining blade. He was a mighty woodsman
now, and could make a spray of chips fly around him as he hewed his way
through the trunk of spruce-tree.
Behind these leaders followed a pair of teamsters, guiding a rude
sledge, loaded with food and the equipage of the camp, and drawn by two
big, shaggy horses, blowing thick clouds of steam from their frosty
nostrils. Tiny icicles hung from the hairs on their lips. Their flanks
were smoking. They sank above the fetlocks at every step in the soft
snow.
Last of all came the rear guard, armed with bows and javelins. It was
no child’s play, in those days, to cross Europe afoot.
The weird woodland, sombre and illimitable, covered hill and vale,
tableland and mountain-peak. There were wide moors where the wolves
hunted in packs as if the devil drove them, and tangled thickets where
the lynx and the boar made their lairs. Fierce bears lurked among the
rocky passes, and had not yet learned to fear the face of man. The
gloomy recesses of the forest gave shelter to inhabitants who were
still more cruel and dangerous than beasts of prey,—outlaws and sturdy
robbers and mad were-wolves and bands of wandering pillagers.
The pilgrim who would pass from the mouth of the Tiber to the mouth of
the Rhine must travel with a little army of retainers, or else trust in
God and keep his arrows loose in the quiver.
The travellers were surrounded by an ocean of trees, so vast, so
full of endless billows, that it seemed to be pressing on every side
to overwhelm them. Gnarled oaks, with branches twisted and knotted
as if in rage, rose in groves like tidal waves. Smooth forests of
beech-trees, round and gray, swept over the knolls and slopes of land
in a mighty ground-swell. But most of all, the multitude of pines and
firs, innumerable and monotonous, with straight, stark trunks, and
branches woven together in an unbroken flood of darkest green, crowded
through the valleys and over the hills, rising on the highest ridges
into ragged crests, like the foaming edge of breakers.
Through this sea of shadows ran a narrow stream of shining
whiteness,—an ancient Roman road, covered with snow. It was as if some
great ship had ploughed through the green ocean long ago, and left
behind it a thick, smooth wake of foam. Along this open track the
travellers held their way,—heavily, for the drifts were deep; warily,
for the hard winter had driven many packs of wolves down from the moors.
The steps of the pilgrims were noiseless; but the sledges creaked over
the dry snow, and the panting of the horses throbbed through the still,
cold air. The pale-blue shadows on the western side of the road grew
longer. The sun, declining through its shallow arch, dropped behind the
tree-tops. Darkness followed swiftly, as if it had been a bird of prey
waiting for this sign to swoop down upon the world.
“Father,” said Gregor to the leader, “surely this day’s march is done.
It is time to rest, and eat, and sleep. If we press onward now, we
cannot see our steps; and will not that be against the word of the
psalmist David, who bids us not to put confidence in the legs of a man?”
Winfried laughed. “Nay, my son Gregor,” said he, “thou hast tripped,
even now, upon thy text. For David said only, ’I take no pleasure in
the legs of a man.’ And so say I, for I am not minded to spare thy legs
or mine, until we come farther on our way, and do what must be done
this night. Draw the belt tighter, my son, and hew me out this tree
that is fallen across the road, for our camp-ground is not here.”
The youth obeyed; two of the foresters sprang to help him; and while
the soft fir-wood yielded to the stroke of the axes, and the snow flew
from the bending branches, Winfried turned and spoke to his followers
in a cheerful voice, that refreshed them like wine.
“Courage, brothers, and forward yet a little! The moon will light us
presently, and the path is plain. Well know I that the journey is
weary; and my own heart wearies also for the home in England, where
those I love are keeping feast this Christmas eve. But we have work to
do before we feast to-night. For this is the Yuletide, and the heathen
people of the forest have gathered at the thunder-oak of Geismar to
worship their god, Thor. Strange things will be seen there, and deeds
which make the soul black. But we are sent to lighten their darkness;
and we will teach our kinsmen to keep a Christmas with us such as the
woodland has never known. Forward, then, and let us stiffen up our
feeble knees!”
A murmur of assent came from the men. Even the horses seemed to take
fresh heart. They flattened their backs to draw the heavy loads, and
blew the frost from their nostrils as they pushed ahead.
The night grew broader and less oppressive. A gate of brightness was
opened secretly somewhere in the sky; higher and higher swelled the
clear moon-flood, until it poured over the eastern wall of forest
into the road. A drove of wolves howled faintly in the distance, but
they were receding, and the sound soon died away. The stars sparkled
merrily through the stringent air; the small, round moon shone like
silver; little breaths of the dreaming wind wandered whispering across
the pointed fir-tops, as the pilgrims toiled bravely onward, following
their clue of light through a labyrinth of darkness.
After a while the road began to open out a little. There were spaces of
meadow-land, fringed with alders, behind which a boisterous river ran,
clashing through spears of ice.
Rude houses of hewn logs appeared in the openings, each one casting a
patch of inky blackness upon the snow. Then the travellers passed a
larger group of dwellings, all silent and unlighted; and beyond, they
saw a great house, with many out-buildings and enclosed courtyards,
from which the hounds bayed furiously, and a noise of stamping horses
came from the stalls. But there was no other sound of life. The fields
around lay bare to the moon. They saw no man, except that once, on a
path that skirted the farther edge of a meadow, three dark figures
passed by, running very swiftly.
Then the road plunged again into a dense thicket, traversed it, and
climbing to the left, emerged suddenly upon a glade, round and level
except at the northern side, where a swelling hillock was crowned with
a huge oak-tree. It towered above the heath, a giant with contorted
arms, beckoning to the host of lesser trees. “Here,” cried Winfried,
as his eyes flashed and his hand lifted his heavy staff, “here is the
thunder-oak; and here the cross of Christ shall break the hammer of the
false god Thor.”
III
THE SHADOW OF THE THUNDER-OAK
Withered leaves still clung to the branches of the oak: torn and
faded banners of the departed summer. The bright crimson of autumn
had long since disappeared, bleached away by the storms and the cold.
But to-night these tattered remnants of glory were red again: ancient
blood-stains against the dark-blue sky. For an immense fire had been
kindled in front of the tree. Tongues of ruddy flame, fountains of
ruby sparks, ascended through the spreading limbs and flung a fierce
illumination upward and around. The pale, pure moonlight that bathed
the surrounding forests was quenched and eclipsed here. Not a beam of
it sifted downward through the branches of the oak. It stood like a
pillar of cloud between the still light of heaven and the crackling,
flashing fire of earth.
But the fire itself was invisible to Winfried and his companions. A
great throng of people were gathered around it in a half-circle, their
backs to the open glade, their faces towards the oak. Seen against that
glowing background, it was but the silhouette of a crowd, vague, black,
formless, mysterious.
The travellers paused for a moment at the edge of the thicket, and took
counsel together.
“It is the assembly of the tribe,” said one of the foresters, “the
great night of the council. I heard of it three days ago, as we passed
through one of the villages. All who swear by the old gods have been
summoned. They will sacrifice a steed to the god of war, and drink
blood, and eat horse-flesh to make them strong. It will be at the peril
of our lives if we approach them. At least we must hide the cross, if
we would escape death.”
“Hide me no cross,” cried Winfried, lifting his staff, “for I have come
to show it, and to make these blind folk see its power. There is more
to be done here to-night than the slaying of a steed, and a greater
evil to be stayed than the shameful eating of meat sacrificed to idols.
I have seen it in a dream. Here the cross must stand and be our rede.”
At his command the sledge was left in the border of the wood, with
two of the men to guard it, and the rest of the company moved forward
across the open ground. They approached unnoticed, for all the
multitude were looking intently towards the fire at the foot of the oak.
Then Winfried’s voice rang out, “Hail, ye sons of the forest! A
stranger claims the warmth of your fire in the winter night.”
Swiftly, and as with a single motion, a thousand eyes were bent upon
the speaker. The semicircle opened silently in the middle; Winfried
entered with his followers; it closed again behind them.
Then, as they looked round the curving ranks, they saw that the hue of
the assemblage was not black, but white,—dazzling, radiant, solemn.
White, the robes of the women clustered together at the points of the
wide crescent; white, the glittering byrnies of the warriors standing
in close ranks; white, the fur mantles of the aged men who held
the central place in the circle; white, with the shimmer of silver
ornaments and the purity of lamb’s-wool, the raiment of a little group
of children who stood close by the fire; white, with awe and fear, the
faces of all who looked at them; and over all the flickering, dancing
radiance of the flames played and glimmered like a faint, vanishing
tinge of blood on snow.
The only figure untouched by the glow was the old priest, Hunrad, with
his long, spectral robe, flowing hair and beard, and dead-pale face,
who stood with his back to the fire and advanced slowly to meet the
strangers.
“Who are you? Whence come you, and what seek you here?” His voice was
heavy and toneless as a muffled bell.