Part 8

It is odd to see the animals with him; Don cannot be attentive enough, but you would expect a dog to understand. Puck is a wonder, standing as meekly as a lamb to let himself be harnessed by a one-armed man, though he used to dance an ancient British war-dance as the straps went on. The old racial love of fair fighting shines out in him; man to man it used to be, or man to pony, when both were able-bodied, but he will take no advantage of a handicap. He seldom shies now, even at a feather or a floating leaf, but he watches constantly in every direction, waiting for some great danger in which he can comport himself with perfect self-control for the sake of a one-armed man; defying the whole modern era to invent a mechanism that can frighten him. I should like an equestrian statue of Puck _not_ shying at a Zeppelin!

Madge is pathetic; she has lost her old moorings of prejudice and conviction and sails in an uncharted sea of life. Church and State are to her only a shade less reprehensible than the Germans, since Peter came home without an arm. While Peter, completely changed, and loyal to the government, for the country he has served so well is his country indeed, sits with her on the bench by the kitchen door in the twilight, full of affectionate talk of "Kitchener" and "Bobs"--his grief over Lord Roberts' death was both sincere and personal--Madge mutters fiercely against the 'Ouse of Lords for its selfishness and its incompetence. If women ruled, all would be different! Her condemnation of the government would suggest that she is in a fair way to become both an anarchist and a suffragette. She never would have let Peter go a step to war if she had supposed that he would be wounded.

Peter came home, not with a Victoria Cross, but with an Iron Cross, and I can never tell whether he is joking or in earnest when he explains his possession of it. When I asked him how he got it, he replied: "I bestowed it upon meself, Miss." It seems that he had taken it from a German with whom he had fought in a terrible bayonet charge.

"He was a man, he was," Peter says admiringly. "If I got the better of the man who had earned it, it stands to reason that I'm a better man than him and fit to wear it." So Peter wears his Iron Cross, to the wonder and admiration of the farmers baiting their horses at the Inn, the blacksmith's eleven children, and the inhabitants in general of our village. How much he tells those eager listeners of the horrors he has seen I do not know, but sometimes from that bench by the kitchen door, I hear fragments of his tales of suffering that make me sick and faint. Yet he is very reticent in regard to it, having evidently a feeling that he must protect others from knowing what he has known. As I make his acquaintance anew I realize that his great loss is truly exceeding gain; there is more of his real self in his wakened mind and soul than he lost in his arm.

But Peter, invalided home, returned not alone. It seemed to me, as he came up the walk, that he was over-heavily weighed down by luggage, though he had a brother soldier to help him.

"If you please, 'm," said Peter diffidently, when our first greetings were over, "I've taken the liberty of bringing some one 'ome."

"Nothing could please me better," I said, holding out a welcoming hand to the tall soldier at his side.

"If you please, 'm," said Peter, grinning,--if heroes can be said to grin,--"she's inside."

He opened the big old-fashioned basket he was carrying, made of osier, a kind that I remember seeing in my grandmother's attic many years ago, and there--O Pharaoh's daughter, how I understand you now!--was a little child of perhaps ten months, asleep. She had soft dark hair, hands a bit too thin for a baby, eyes that proved to be, when she wakened and opened them, big and brown; and a mouth that had learned and not forgotten, like so many sorrowful mouths to-day, how to smile.

"Where did you find her?" Madge and I cried out in one breath.

"She was in the village where I was taken when I was wounded; you will hexcuse me, 'm, but I cannot say its name, I really cannot. A woman had taken charge of her for weeks; she had been found quite deserted by the roadside, I believe, 'm, earlier in the war, when people were trying to escape from the henemy. The nurse used to bring her into the 'ospital just to let the soldiers see her."

Peter was disappointed that I could not speak, but speak I could not.

"She's a French baby, 'm," he added. "I took a great fancy to her, and when I came away I told them----"

"What did you tell them, Peter?" I asked sternly. The little thing had grasped my finger and was trying to pull herself up. It was the first touch from any of my fugitives that seemed to come from my very own, and I knew that the French baby had come into my life to stay.

"Knowing your 'abits, Miss, I told them I thought I knew a good 'ome for her, so they sent her on with a nurse who was coming back, reserved for me, as it were. They kindly allowed me to bring her down from London meself, but I 'ad difficulty in 'olding her, so I took out me clothes and put them in a paper, and she fitted very nicely in the basket."

Peter still mistook my silence for hesitation.

"I thought if you didn't care to adopt her, I would, 'm; but from what they told me about her clothing and all and from the look of her, I fancy she's rather your class than mine, 'm."

"I couldn't aspire to your class, Peter," I said; "you belong among the heroes. We will all adopt her, you and Madge and I and Don and Puck and the Atom and our English queens. Among us all she will get a well-rounded training."

* * * * *

The stream is rippling past with its old music; the pony is grazing in the meadow; my June roses glow within my garden, yellow, white, and deep red; and still the vast sea of human sorrow breaks, breaks against my garden wall, and no one knows whither its tides may draw. Is it thus that the whole earth must gain the finer knowledge that comes alone through suffering and learn how false are the gods it has been following with swift feet?

I hardly dare confess my foolishness, but when I saw Peter that day of his return come down the village street with a tall khaki-clad figure beside him, I thought for one whole blissful, awful moment that he had found you, living, and had brought you home. Through many such moments I could not live; all the joy and the anguish of time and of eternity were crowded into it. Yet even in that flash I knew that no mere human contact could ever bring you so close as you are now to me. Separated by walls of mere flesh and bone, there could no longer be this entire one-ness of soul with soul. You, belovèd, are forever too near to touch. What death may be I know not, but it is something far different from what we mortals think.

Then I saw that Peter's companion was only another British Tommy, who needed my hospitality; and I helped make ready his beef and beer with great gladness in my heart.

... Content for you. Men from old time have died for the faith they held, and men have died for dreams. I know no faith, no dream better worth dying for than this for which you gave your life, the dream of human freedom. It is our race pride that a passion for liberty was kindled early in our remotest forebears; there is no nobler task than keeping this divine spark alive upon the human hearth. In my moments of insight I know that life has no greater boon than a chance to die for one's faith, and you have died for this. I would not take from you, even if I could, your hour of glory, your great hour of death.

THE END