In a noble open space carpeted with grass on the high ground toward
Vaucouleur stood a most majestic beech tree with wide-reaching arms and
a grand spread of shade, and by it a limpid spring of cold water; and on
summer days the children went there—oh, every summer for more than five
hundred years—went there and sang and danced around the tree for hours
together, refreshing themselves at the spring from time to time, and it
was most lovely and enjoyable. Also they made wreaths of flowers and
hung them upon the tree and about the spring to please the fairies that
lived there; for they liked that, being idle innocent little creatures,
as all fairies are and fond of anything delicate and pretty like wild
flowers put together in that way. And in return for this attention the
fairies did any friendly thing they could for the children, such as
keeping the spring always full and clear and cold, and driving away
serpents and insects that sting; and so there was never any unkindness
between the fairies and the children during more than five hundred
years—tradition said a thousand—but only the warmest affection and the
most perfect trust and confidence; and whenever a child died the fairies
mourned just as that child’s playmates did, and the sign of it was there
to see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little
immortelle over the place where the child was used to sit under the
tree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the
reason it was known that the fairies did it was this—that it was made
all of black flowers of a sort not known in France anywhere.
Now from time immemorial all children reared in Domremy were called the
Children of the Tree; and they loved that name, for it carried with it a
mystic privilege not granted to any other of the children of this world.
Which was this: whenever one of these came to die, then beyond the vague
and formless images drifting through his darkening mind rose soft and
rich and fair a vision of the tree—if all was well with his soul. That
was what some said. Others said the vision came in two ways: once as a
warning, one or two years in advance of death, when the soul was the
captive of sin, and then the tree appeared in its desolate winter
aspect—then that soul was smitten with an awful fear. If repentance
came, and purity of life the vision came again, this time summer-clad
and beautiful; but if it were otherwise with that soul the vision was
withheld, and it passed from life knowing its doom. Still others said
that the vision came but once and then only to the sinless dying forlorn
in distant lands and pitifully longing for some last dear reminder of
their home. And what reminder of it could go to their hearts like the
picture of the tree that was the darling of their love and the comrade
of their joys and comforter of their small griefs all through the divine
days of their vanished youth?
Now the several traditions were as I have said, some believing one and
some another. One of them I know to be the truth, and that was the last
one. I do not say anything against the others; I think they were true,
but I only _know_ that the last one was; and it is my thought that if
one keep to the things he knows, and not trouble about the things which
he cannot be sure about, he will have the steadier mind for it—and there
is profit in that. I know that when the children of the tree die in a
far land, then—if they be at peace with God—they turn their longing eyes
toward home, and there, far-shining, as through a rift in a cloud that
curtains heaven, they see the soft picture of the fairy tree, clothed in
a dream of golden light; and they see the blooming meads sloping away to
the river, and to their perishing nostrils is blown faint and sweet the
fragrance of the flowers of home. And then the vision fades and
passes—but _they_ know, _they_ know! and by their transfigured faces you
know also, you stand looking on; yes, you know the message that has
come, and that it has come from heaven.
Joan and I believed alike about this matter. But Pierre Morel, and
Jacques d’Arc and many others believed that the vision appeared twice—to
a sinner. In fact, they and many others said they _knew_ it. Probably
because their fathers had known it and had told them; for one gets most
things at second hand in this world....
Always, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and
danced around the fairy tree they sang the song which was the tree’s
song, the song of _L’Arbre Fée de Bourlemont_. They sang it to a quaint
sweet air—a solacing sweet air which has gone murmuring through my
dreaming spirit all my life when I was weary and troubled, resting me
and carrying me through night and distance home again. No stranger can
know or feel what that song has been through the drifting centuries to
exiled Children of the Tree, homeless and heavy of heart in countries
foreign to their speech and ways. You will think it a simple thing, that
song, and poor, perchance; but if you will remember what it was to us,
and what it brought before our eyes when it floated through our
memories, then you will respect it. And you will understand how the
water wells up in our eyes and makes all things dim, and our voices
break and we cannot sing the last lines:
“And when, in exile wand’ring, we
Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,
Oh, rise upon our sight!”
and you will remember that Joan of Arc sang this song with us around the
tree when she was a little child, and always loved it. And _that_
hallows it, yes, you will grant that:
_L’Arbre Fée de Bourlemont._
Song of the children
Now what has kept your leaves so green,
Arbre Fée de Bourlemont?
The children’s tears! they brought each grief,
And you did comfort them and cheer
Their bruised hearts, and steal a tear
That, healèd, rose, a leaf.
And what has built you up so strong,
Arbre Fée de Bourlemont?
The children’s love! they’ve loved you long:
Ten hundred years, in sooth,
They’ve nourished you with praise and song,
And warmed your heart and kept it young—
A thousand years of youth!
Bide always green in our young hearts,
Arbre Fée de Bourlemont!
And we shall always youthful be,
Not heeding Time his flight;
And when, in exile wand’ring, we
Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,
Oh, rise upon our sight!