nepro, "which my father witnessed."

"Tell it as we go. Sweet converse shortens the toil of the way."

"Once, when he was preaching, the birds drowned his voice with
their songs of gladness, whereupon he said:

"'My sisters, the birds, it is now my turn to speak. You have sung
your sweet songs to God. Now let me tell men how good He is.'

"And the birds were silent."

"I can quite believe it."

"His power over animals was wonderful. Once a little hare was
brought in, all alive, for the food of the brotherhood, and they
were just going to kill the wee thing, when Francis came in and
pitied it.

"'Little brother leveret,' he said. 'How didst thou let thyself be
taken?'

"The poor hare rushed from the hands of him who held it, and took
refuge in the robe of the father.

"'Nay, go back to thy home, and do not let thyself be caught
again,' he said, and they took it back to the woods and let it go."

Just at this point they reached Chiddinglye, and as they emerged
from the forest on the green, Ginepro spied a number of children
playing at seesaw in a timber yard, laughing and shouting merrily.

Instantly he cried, "Oh, there they are; I love seesaw; I must go
and have a turn."

"Are we not too old for such sport?" said Martin.

"Not a bit. I feel quite like a child," and off he ran to join the
children amidst the laughter of a few older people.

But the young brother did not simply play at seesaw. He got the
children around him, after a while, and soon held them breathless
as he related the story of the Child of Bethlehem and the Holy
Innocents, stories which came quite fresh to them in those days,
when there were few books, and fewer readers. And these little
Sussex children drank in the touching story with all their little
ears and hearts. In all Ginepro did there was a wondrous freshness.
And that same evening, when the woodmen came home from work, Martin
preached to the whole village from the steps of the churchyard
cross.

It was a strangely impressive scene. The mighty background of the
forest; the friar in his gray dress, his features all animation and
life; the multitude listening as if they were carried away by the
eloquence of one whose like they had never seen before; the tears
running down furrows on their grimy cheeks, specially visible on
those of the iron smelters, of whom there were many in old Sussex.

Close by stood the parish priest, listening with delight and
without that jealousy whi