The First Christmas Tree | Page 4

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 labours, 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."

[Illustration--The fields around lay bare to the moon.]

II
THE TRAIL THROUGH THE FOREST
II
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 a 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 wolfskin, 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,