Paul the Minstrel | Page 3

we came to a little church off the track in a tiny churchyard full of
high-seeded grasses. On the wall of the chancel hung an old trophy of
armour, a helmet and a cuirass, black with age. The boy climbed
quickly up upon the choir-stalls, took the helmet down, enclosed his
own curly head in it, and then knelt down suddenly on the altar-step;
after which he replaced the helmet again on its nail. "What put it into
your head to do that?" I said. "Oh," he said lightly, "I thought of the old
man who wore it; and they used to kneel before the altar in their armour
when they were made knights, didn't they? I wanted just to feel what it
was like!"
Life was too strong for that boy, and he was worsted! He won little
credit in the fight. But it had been a pretty fancy of his, and perhaps
something more than a fancy. I have often thought of the little slender
figure, so strangely helmeted, kneeling in the summer sunlight, with
Heaven knows what thoughts of what life was to be; it seems to me a
sorrowful enough symbol of boyhood--so eager to share in the fray, so
unfit to bear the dinted helm.
And yet I do not wish to be sorrowful, and it would be untrue to life to
yield oneself to foolish pity. My own little company is broken up long
ago; I wonder if they remember the old days and the old stories. They
are good citizens most of them, standing firmly and sturdily, finding
out the meaning of life in their own way and contributing their part to
the business of the world. But some of them have fallen by the way,
and those not the faultiest or coarsest, but some of fine instinct and
graceful charm, who evoked one's best hopes and most affectionate
concern.
If one believed that life were all, that there was no experience beyond
the dark grave and the mouldering clay, it would be a miserable task
enough to creep cautiously through life, just holding on to its tangible
advantages and cautiously enjoying its delights. But I do most utterly
believe that there is a truth beyond that satisfies our sharpest cravings
and our wildest dreams, and that if we have loved what is high and

good, even for a halting minute, it will come to bless us consciously
and abundantly before we have done with experience. Many of our
dreams are heavy-hearted enough; we are hampered by the old faults,
and by the body that not only cannot answer the demands of the spirit,
but bars the way with its own urgent claims and desires. But whatever
hope we can frame or conceive of peace and truth and nobleness and
light shall be wholly and purely fulfilled; and even if we are separated
by a season, as we must be separated, from those whom we love and
journey with, there is a union ahead of us when we shall remember
gratefully the old dim days, and the path which we trod in hope and
fear together; when all the trouble we have wrought to ourselves and
others will vanish into the shadow of a faded dream, in the sweetness
and glory of some great city of God, full of fire and music and all the
radiant visions of uplifted hearts, which visited us so faintly and yet so
beckoningly in the old frail days.

CONTENTS
PAGE
PAUL THE MINSTREL 1
THE ISLES OF SUNSET 70
THE WAVING OF THE SWORD 113
RENATUS 127
THE SLYPE HOUSE 138
OUT OF THE SEA 159
THE TROTH OF THE SWORD 178
THE HILL OF TROUBLE 197
THE GRAY CAT 224

THE RED CAMP 247
THE LIGHT OF THE BODY 279
THE SNAKE, THE LEPER, AND THE GREY FROST 301
BROTHER ROBERT 322
THE CLOSED WINDOW 348
THE BROTHERS 363
THE TEMPLE OF DEATH 378
THE TOMB OF HEIRI 402
CERDA 419
LINUS 428

PAUL THE MINSTREL
I
The old House of Heritage stood just below the downs, in the few
meadows that were all that was left of a great estate. The house itself
was of stone, very firmly and gravely built; and roofed with thin slabs
of stone, small at the roof-ridge, and increasing in size towards the
eaves. Inside, there were a few low panelled rooms opening on a large
central hall; there was little furniture, and that of a sturdy and solid
kind--but the house needed nothing else, and had all the beauty that
came of a simple austerity.
Old Mistress Alison, who abode there, was aged and poor. She had but
one house-servant, a serious and honest maid, whose only pride was to
keep the place sweet, and save her mistress from