r.

And how was he to know, innocent peasant lad, of an ignorant and
superstitious ancestry, brought up on miraculous tales of saints and
seers, that the Christ of his visit was no other than that priest whose
attention Stephen had attracted by his emotion at Chartres, who with
crafty keenness had chosen the peasant boy to carry out his purpose of
arousing the youth of the land to undertake a new Crusade? How was
Stephen, all aflame as he was, to be supposed to penetrate the priest's
disguise, to realise his purpose, and throw off the thrill? He could
not and he did not.

Leaving his flocks to ramble at will over the plains and neighbouring
hills, with the divine letter clasped in his hand, Stephen ran homeward
through the little village where he lived, past its dilapidated church,
its quaint shops and rows of houses, over the old stone bridge by which
the main street crosses the little river Loir, running in a southerly
direction to join the beautiful Loire. The bridge is a pleasant place
to linger on a summer day, and recalls many a historic memory of Joan
of Arc, who once passed that way, on her way to Orleans--of Philip
Augustus--of Richard Coeur-de-Lion--but on naught save his divine
mission was the lad Stephen intent as he crossed the bridge on that
April day.

Having reached home, he hastily called his parents from their labour,
and gathering together such neighbours as could be summoned, he told of
his talk with the Saviour, who had come to call him, Stephen, the
shepherd boy, from tending his flocks, to rescue the Holy City and tomb
from wicked hands, and in proof of the truth of his story he showed the
letter from Jesus Christ to the King of France asking the king's aid
for Stephen in his holy mission.

As I have said, this was an age of dense ignorance and superstition
among the peasant classes. Those who had heard Stephen's tale were dumb
with awe and wonder and doubted not its truth. Only his father spoke
against the plan, mentioning his son's youth--commanding him to go back
to his flocks. But to these commands Stephen turned a deaf ear, for was
not he the Lord's anointed? Who could dictate to him, now that the
Divine voice had spoken in accents clear and strong?

On the next day and the next, even until darkness fell over the little
town, Stephen narrated his story in the market-place to ever-increasing
audiences, telling that now when the defenders of the Holy Sepulchre
were so few, and older and s