the village. He met no one on the
way, and the street seemed deserted. He made his way to the house of
the old woman who was his friend; he put his small pack at the door
and entered. The little house was quite silent. But he heard a sound
of weeping; when he came into the outer room, he saw the maiden
sitting in a chair with her face bowed on the table. He called to her
by name; she lifted her head and looked at him for a moment and then
rose up and came to him, as a child comes to be comforted. He saw at
once that some grievous thing had happened; and presently with sobs
and tears she told him that her grandmother had died a few days
before, that she had been that day buried, and that she knew not what
she was to do. There seemed more behind; and David at last made out
that she was asked in marriage by a young fisherman whom she did not
love, and she knew not how else to live. And then he said that he was
come back and would not depart from her, and that she should be a
daughter to him.

Now of the rest of the life of David I must not here speak; he lived
in the village, and he did his part; a little chapel was built in the
place with the money of the pirates; and David went in and out among
the folk of the place, and drew many to the love of God; he went once
back to the cave, but he abode not long there; but of one thing I will
tell, and that is of a piece of carving that David did, working little
by little in the long winter nights at the piece of wood that came
from the pirate ship. The carving is of a man standing on the shore of
the sea, and holding up a lantern in his hand, and on the sea is
carved a ship. And David calls his carving "The Light of the World."
At the top of it is a scroll, with the words thereon, "He shall send
down from on high to fetch me, and shall take me out of many waters."
And beneath is another scroll on which is graven, "Thou also shalt
light my candle; the Lord my God shall make my darkness to be light."

THE WAVING OF THE SWORD

The things that are set down here happened in the ancient days when
there was sore fighting in the land; the King, who was an unjust man,
fighting to maintain his realm, and the barons fighting for the law;
and the end was not far off, for the King was driven backwards to the
sea, and at last could go no further; so he gathered all the troops
that he might in a strong fort that lay in the midst of the downs,
where the hills d