orgiven!' I should believe it then."

The stranger turned towards her, and the goodness in his face made her
tremble.

"Have faith," he said, "and you will be saved."

"May God reward you, good sir," she answered. "If what you say is true,
I will go on pilgrimage barefooted to Our Lady of Loretto to pray to her
for you and for me."

The two peasants, father and son, were silent, patient, and submissive
to the will of God, like folk whose wont it is to fall in instinctively
with the ways of Nature like cattle. At the one end of the boat stood
riches, pride, learning, debauchery, and crime--human society, such as
art and thought and education and worldly interests and laws have made
it; and at this end there was terror and wailing, innumerable different
impulses all repressed by hideous doubts--at this end, and at this only,
the agony of fear.

Above all these human lives stood a strong man, the skipper; no doubts
assailed him, the chief, the king, the fatalist among them. He was
trusting in himself rather than in Providence, crying, "Bail away!"
instead of "Holy Virgin," defying the storm, in fact, and struggling
with the sea like a wrestler.

But the helpless poor at the other end of the wherry! The mother rocking
on her bosom the little one who smiled at the storm; the woman once
so frivolous and gay, and now tormented with bitter remorse; the old
soldier covered with scars, a mutilated life the sole reward of his
unflagging loyalty and faithfulness. This veteran could scarcely count
on the morsel of bread soaked in tears to keep the life in him, yet he
was always ready to laugh, and went his way merrily, happy when he could
drown his glory in the depths of a pot of beer, or could tell tales
of the wars to the children who admired him, leaving his future with a
light heart in the hands of God. Lastly, there were the two peasants,
used to hardships and toil, labor incarnate, the labor by which the
world lives. These simple folk were indifferent to thought and its
treasures, ready to sink them all in a belief; and their faith was but
so much the more vigorous because they had never disputed about it nor
analyzed it. Such a nature is a virgin soil, conscience has not been
tampered with, feeling is deep and strong; repentance, trouble, love,
and work have developed, purified, concentrated, and increased their
force of will a hundred times, the will--the one thing in man that
resembles what learned doctors call the S