Chapter I: HAD called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the (3)

IT was a sunny morning, and I was on my way to Torcello. Venice lay
behind us a dazzling line, with towers of gold against the blue
lagoon. All at once a breeze sprang up from the sea; the small,
feathery islands seemed to shake and quiver, and, like leaves driven
before a gale, those flocks of colored butterflies, the
fishing-boats, ran in before the storm. Far away to our left stood
the ancient tower of Altinum, with the island of Burano a bright
pink beneath the towering clouds. To our right, and much nearer, was
a small cypress-covered islet. One large umbrella-pine hung close to
the sea, and behind it rose the tower of the convent church. The two
gondoliers consulted together in hoarse cries and decided to make
for it.

“It is San Francesco del Deserto,” the elder explained to me. “It
belongs to the little brown brothers, who take no money and are very
kind. One would hardly believe these ones had any religion, they are
such a simple people, and they live on fish and the vegetables they
grow in their garden.”

We fought the crooked little waves in silence after that; only the
high prow rebelled openly against its sudden twistings and turnings.
The arrowy-shaped gondola is not a structure made for the rough
jostling of waves, and the gondoliers put forth all their strength
and skill to reach the tiny haven under the convent wall. As we did
so, the black bars of cloud rushed down upon us in a perfect deluge
of rain, and we ran speechless and half drowned across the tossed
field of grass and forget-me-nots to the convent door. A shivering
beggar sprang up from nowhere and insisted on ringing the bell for
us.

The door opened, and I saw before me a young brown brother with the
merriest eyes I have ever seen. They were unshadowed, like a
child’s, dancing and eager, and yet there was a strange gentleness
and patience about him, too, as if there was no hurry even about his
eagerness.

He was very poorly dressed and looked thin. I think he was charmed
to see us, though a little shy, like a hospitable country hostess
anxious to give pleasure, but afraid that she has not much to offer
citizens of a larger world.

“What a tempest!” he exclaimed. “You have come at a good hour.
Enter, enter, Signore! And your men, will they not come in?”

We found ourselves in a very small rose-red cloister; in the middle
of it was an old well under the open sky, but above us was a
sheltering roof spanned by slender arches. The young monk hesitated
for a moment, smiling from me to the two gondoliers. I think it
occurred to him that we should like different entertainment, for he
said at last:

“You men would perhaps like to sit in the porter’s lodge for a
while? Our Brother Lorenzo is there; he is our chief fisherman, with
a great knowledge of the lagoons; and he could light a fire for you
to dry yourselves by—Signori. And you, if I mistake not, are
English, are you not, Signore? It is probable that you would like to
see our chapel. It is not much. We are very proud of it, but that,
you know, is because it was founded by our blessed father, Saint
Francis. He believed in poverty, and we also believe in it, but it
does not give much for people to see. That is a misfortune, to come
all this way and to see nothing.” Brother Leo looked at me a little
wistfully. I think he feared that I should be disappointed. Then he
passed before me with swift, eager feet toward the little chapel.

It was a very little chapel and quite bare; behind the altar some
monks were chanting an office. It was clean, and there were no
pictures or images, only, as I knelt there, I felt as if the little
island in its desert of waters had indeed secreted some vast
treasure, and as if the chapel, empty as it had seemed at first, was
full of invisible possessions. As for Brother Leo, he had stood
beside me nervously for a moment; but on seeing that I was prepared
to kneel, he started, like a bird set free, toward the altar steps,
where his lithe young impetuosity sank into sudden peace. He knelt
there so still, so rapt, so incased in his listening silence, that
he might have been part of the stone pavement. Yet his earthly
senses were alive, for the moment I rose he was at my side again, as
patient and courteous as ever, though I felt as if his inner ear
were listening still to some unheard melody.

We stood again in the pink cloister. “There is little to see,” he
repeated. “We are _poverelli_; it has been like this for seven
hundred years.” He smiled as if that age-long, simple service of
poverty were a light matter, an excuse, perhaps, in the eyes of the
citizen of a larger world for their having nothing to show. Only the
citizen, as he looked at Brother Leo, had a sudden doubt as to the
size of the world outside. Was it as large, half as large, even, as
the eager young heart beside him which had chosen poverty as a
bride?

The rain fell monotonously against the stones of the tiny cloister.

“What a tempest!” said Brother Leo, smiling contentedly at the sky.
“You must come in and see our father. I sent word by the porter of
your arrival, and I am sure he will receive you; that will be a
pleasure for him, for he is of the great world, too. A very learnèd
man, our father; he knows the French and the English tongue. Once he
went to Rome; also he has been several times to Venice. He has been
a great traveler.”

“And you,” I asked—“have you also traveled?”

Brother Leo shook his head.

“I have sometimes looked at Venice,” he said, “across the water, and
once I went to Burano with the marketing brother; otherwise, no, I
have not traveled. But being a guest-brother, you see, I meet often
with those who have, like your Excellency, for instance, and that is
a great education.”

We reached the door of the monastery, and I felt sorry when another
brother opened to us, and Brother Leo, with the most cordial of
farewell smiles, turned back across the cloister to the chapel door.

“Even if he does not hurry, he will still find prayer there,” said a
quiet voice beside me.

I turned to look at the speaker. He was a tall old man with white
hair and eyes like small blue flowers, very bright and innocent,
with the same look of almost superb contentment in them that I had
seen in Brother Leo’s eyes.

“But what will you have?” he added with a twinkle. “The young are
always afraid of losing time; it is, perhaps, because they have so
much. But enter, Signore! If you will be so kind as to excuse the
refectory, it will give me much pleasure to bring you a little
refreshment. You will pardon that we have not much to offer?”

The father—for I found out afterward that he was the superior
himself—brought me bread and wine, made in the convent, and waited
on me with his own hands. Then he sat down on a narrow bench
opposite to watch me smoke. I offered him one of my cigarettes, but
he shook his head, smiling.

“I used to smoke once,” he said. “I was very particular about my
tobacco. I think it was similar to yours—at least the aroma, which I
enjoy very much, reminds me of it. It is curious, is it not, the
pleasure we derive from remembering what we once had? But perhaps it
is not altogether a pleasure unless one is glad that one has not got
it now. Here one is free from things. I sometimes fear one may be a
little indulgent about one’s liberty. Space, solitude, and love—it
is all very intoxicating.”

There was nothing in the refectory except the two narrow benches on
which we sat, and a long trestled board which formed the table; the
walls were white-washed and bare, the floor was stone. I found out
later that the brothers ate and drank nothing except bread and wine
and their own vegetables in season, a little macaroni sometimes in
winter, and in summer figs out of their own garden. They slept on
bare boards, with one thin blanket winter and summer alike. The fish
they caught they sold at Burano or gave to the poor. There was no
doubt that they enjoyed very great freedom from “things.”

It was a strange experience to meet a man who never had heard of a
flying-machine and who could not understand why it was important to
save time by using the telephone or the wireless-telegraphy system;
but despite the fact that the father seemed very little impressed by
our modern urgencies, I never have met a more intelligent listener
or one who seized more quickly on all that was essential in an
explanation.

“You must not think we do nothing at all, we lazy ones who follow
old paths,” he said in answer to one of my questions. “There are
only eight of us brothers, and there is the garden, fishing,
cleaning, and praying. We are sent for, too, from Burano to go and
talk a little with the people there, or from some island on the
lagoons which perhaps no priest can reach in the winter. It is easy
for us, with our little boat and no cares.”

“But Brother Leo told me he had been to Burano only once,” I said.
“That seems strange when you are so near.”

“Yes he went only once, said the father, and for a moment or two he
was silent, and I found his blue eyes on mine, as if he were
weighing me.

“Brother Leo,” said the superior at last, “is our youngest. He is
very young, younger perhaps than his years; but we have brought him
up altogether, you see. His parents died of cholera within a few
days of each other. As there were no relatives, we took him, and
when he was seventeen he decided to join our order. He has always
been happy with us, but one cannot say that he has seen much of the
world.” He paused again, and once more I felt his blue eyes
searching mine. “Who knows?” he said finally. “Perhaps you were sent
here to help me. I have prayed for two years on the subject, and
that seems very likely. The storm is increasing, and you will not be
able to return until to-morrow. This evening, if you will allow me,
we will speak more on this matter. Meanwhile I will show you our
spare room. Brother Lorenzo will see that you are made as
comfortable as we can manage. It is a great privilege for us to have
this opportunity; believe me, we are not ungrateful.”

It would have been of no use to try to explain to him that it was
for us to feel gratitude. It was apparent that none of the brothers
had ever learned that important lesson of the worldly
respectable—that duty is what other people ought to do. They were so
busy thinking of their own obligations as to overlook entirely the
obligations of others. It was not that they did not think of others.
I think they thought only of one another, but they thought without a
shadow of judgment, with that bright, spontaneous love of little
children, too interested to point a moral. Indeed, they seemed to me
very like a family of happy children listening to a fairy-story and
knowing that the tale is true.

After supper the superior took me to his office. The rain had
ceased, but the wind howled and shrieked across the lagoons, and I
could hear the waves breaking heavily against the island. There was
a candle on the desk, and the tiny, shadowy cell looked like a
picture by Rembrandt.

“The rain has ceased now,” the father said quietly, “and to-morrow
the waves will have gone down, and you, Signore, will have left us.
It is in your power to do us all a great favor. I have thought much
whether I shall ask it of you, and even now I hesitate; but
Scripture nowhere tells us that the kingdom of heaven was taken by
precaution, nor do I imagine that in this world things come oftenest
to those who refrain from asking.

“All of us,” he continued, “have come here after seeing something of
the outside world; some of us even had great possessions. Leo alone
knows nothing of it, and has possessed nothing, nor did he ever wish
to; he has been willing that nothing should be his own, not a flower
in the garden, not anything but his prayers, and even these I think
he has oftenest shared. But the visit to Burano put an idea in his
head. It is, perhaps you know, a factory town where they make lace,
and the people live there with good wages, many of them, but also
much poverty. There is a poverty which is a grace, but there is also
a poverty which is a great misery, and this Leo never had seen
before. He did not know that poverty could be a pain. It filled him
with a great horror, and in his heart there was a certain rebellion.
It seemed to him that in a world with so much money no one should
suffer for the lack of it.

“It was useless for me to point out to him that in a world where
there is so much health God has permitted sickness; where there is
so much beauty, ugliness; where there is so much holiness, sin. It
is not that there is any lack in the gifts of God; all are there,
and in abundance, but He has left their distribution to the soul of
man. It is easy for me to believe this. I have known what money can
buy and what it cannot buy; but Brother Leo, who never has owned a
penny, how should he know anything of the ways of pennies?

“I saw that he could not be contented with my answer; and then this
other idea came to him—the idea that is, I think, the blessèd hope
of youth: that this thing being wrong, he, Leo, must protest against
it, must resist it! Surely, if money can do wonders, we who set
ourselves to work the will of God should have more control of this
wonder-working power? He fretted against his rule. He did not permit
himself to believe that our blessèd father, Saint Francis, was
wrong, but it was a hardship for him to refuse alms from our kindly
visitors. He thought the beggars’ rags would be made whole by gold;
he wanted to give them more than bread, he wanted, _poverino!_ to
buy happiness for the whole world.”

The father paused, and his dark, thought-lined face lighted up with
a sudden, beautiful smile till every feature seemed as young as his
eyes.

“I do not think the human being ever has lived who has not thought
that he ought to have happiness,” he said. “We begin at once to get
ready for heaven; but heaven is a long way off. We make haste
slowly. It takes us all our lives, and perhaps purgatory, to get to
the bottom of our own hearts. That is the last place in which we
look for heaven, but I think it is the first in which we shall find
it.”

“But it seems to me extraordinary that, if Brother Leo has this
thing so much on his mind, he should look so happy,” I exclaimed.
“That is the first thing I noticed about him.”

“Yes, it is not for himself that he is searching,” said the
superior. “If it were, I should not wish him to go out into the
world, because I should not expect him to find anything there. His
heart is utterly at rest; but though he is personally happy, this
thing troubles him. His prayers are eating into his soul like flame,
and in time this fire of pity and sorrow will become a serious
menace to his peace. Besides, I see in Leo a great power of sympathy
and understanding. He has in him the gift of ruling other souls. He
is very young to rule his own soul, and yet he rules it. When I die,
it is probable that he will be called to take my place, and for that
it is necessary he should have seen clearly that our rule is right.
At present he accepts it in obedience, but he must have more than
obedience in order to teach it to others; he must have a personal
light.

“This, then, is the favor I have to ask of you, Signore. I should
like to have you take Brother Leo to Venice to-morrow, and, if you
have the time at your disposal, I should like you to show him the
towers, the churches, the palaces, and the poor who are still so
poor. I wish him to see how people spend money, both the good and
the bad. I wish him to see the world. Perhaps then it will come to
him as it came to me—that money is neither a curse nor a blessing in
itself, but only one of God’s mysteries, like the dust in a
sunbeam.”

“I will take him very gladly; but will one day be enough?” I
answered.

The superior arose and smiled again.

“Ah, we slow worms of earth,” he said, “are quick about some things!
You have learned to save time by flying-machines; we, too, have
certain methods of flight. Brother Leo learns all his lessons that
way. I hardly see him start before he arrives. You must not think I
am so myself. No, no. I am an old man who has lived a long life
learning nothing, but I have seen Leo grow like a flower in a tropic
night. I thank you, my friend, for this great favor. I think God
will reward you.”

Brother Lorenzo took me to my bedroom; he was a talkative old man,
very anxious for my comfort. He told me that there was an office in
the chapel at two o’clock, and one at five to begin the day, but he
hoped that I should sleep through them.

“They are all very well for us,” he explained, “but for a stranger,
what cold, what disturbance, and what a difficulty to arrange the
right thoughts in the head during chapel! Even for me it is a great
temptation. I find my mind running on coffee in the morning, a thing
we have only on great feast-days. I may say that I have fought this
thought for seven years, but though a small devil, perhaps, it is a
very strong one. Now, if you should hear our bell in the night, as a
favor pray that I may not think about coffee. Such an imperfection!
I say to myself, the sin of Esau! But he, you know, had some excuse;
he had been hunting. Now, I ask you—one has not much chance of that
on this little island; one has only one’s sins to hunt, and, alas!
they don’t run away as fast as one could wish! I am afraid they are
tame, these ones. May your Excellency sleep like the blessèd saints,
only a trifle longer!”

I did sleep a trifle longer; indeed, I was quite unable to assist
Brother Lorenzo to resist his coffee devil during chapel-time. I did
not wake till my tiny cell was flooded with sunshine and full of the
sound of St. Francis’s birds. Through my window I could see the
fishing-boats pass by. First came one with a pair of lemon-yellow
sails, like floating primroses; then a boat as scarlet as a dancing
flame, and half a dozen others painted some with jokes and some with
incidents in the lives of patron saints, all gliding out over the
blue lagoon to meet the golden day.

I rose, and from my window I saw Brother Leo in the garden. He was
standing under St. Francis’s tree—the old gnarled umbrella-pine
which hung over the convent-wall above the water by the island’s
edge. His back was toward me, and he was looking out over the blue
stretch of lagoon into the distance, where Venice lay like a moving
cloud at the horizon’s edge; but a mist hid her from his eyes, and
while I watched him he turned back to the garden-bed and began
pulling out weeds. The gondoliers were already at the tiny pier when
I came out.

“_Per Bacco, Signore!_” the elder explained. “Let us hasten back to
Venice and make up for the Lent we have had here. The brothers gave
us all they had, the holy ones—a little wine, a little bread, cheese
that couldn’t fatten one’s grandmother, and no macaroni—not so much
as would go round a baby’s tongue! For my part, I shall wait till I
get to heaven to fast, and pay some attention to my stomach while I
have one.” And he spat on his hands and looked toward Venice.

“And not an image in the chapel!” agreed the younger man. “Why,
there is nothing to pray to but the Signore Dio Himself!
_Veramente_, Signore, you are a witness that I speak nothing but the
truth.”

The father superior and Leo appeared at this moment down the path
between the cypresses. The father gave me thanks and spoke in a
friendly way to the gondoliers, who for their part expressed a very
pretty gratitude in their broad Venetian patois, one of them saying
that the hospitality of the monks had been like paradise itself, and
the other hasting to agree with him.

The two monks did not speak to each other, but as the gondolier
turned the huge prow toward Venice, a long look passed between
them—such a look as a father and son might exchange if the son were
going out to war, while his father, remembering old campaigns, was
yet bound to stay at home.

It was a glorious day in early June; the last traces of the storm
had vanished from the serene, still waters; a vague curtain of heat
and mist hung and shimmered between ourselves and Venice; far away
lay the little islands in the lagoon, growing out of the water like
strange sea-flowers. Behind us stood San Francesco del Deserto, with
long reflections of its one pink tower and arrowy, straight
cypresses, soft under the blue water.

The father superior walked slowly back to the convent, his
brown-clad figure a shining shadow between the two black rows of
cypresses. Brother Leo waited till he had disappeared, then turned
his eager eyes toward Venice.

He was looking out over the blue stretch of lagoon into the distance
where Venice lay
]

As we approached the city the milky sea of mist retreated, and her
towers sprang up to greet us. I saw a look in Brother Leo’s eyes
that was not fear or wholly pleasure; yet there was in it a certain
awe and a strange, tentative joy, as if something in him stretched
out to greet the world. He muttered half to himself:

“What a great world, and how many children _il Signore Dio_ has!”

When we reached the piazzetta, and he looked up at the amazing
splendor of the ducal palace, that building of soft yellow, with its
pointed arches and double loggias of white marble, he spread out
both hands in an ecstasy.

“But what a miracle!” he cried. “What a joy to God and to His
angels! How I wish my brothers could see this! Do you not imagine
that some good man was taken to paradise to see this great building
and brought back here to copy it?”

“_Chi lo sa?_” I replied guardedly, and we landed by the column of
the Lion of St. Mark’s. That noble beast, astride on his pedestal,
with wings outstretched, delighted the young monk, who walked round
and round him.

“What a tribute to the saint!” he exclaimed. “Look, they have his
wings, too. Is not that faith?”

“Come,” I said, “let us go on to Saint Mark’s. I think you would
like to go there first; it is the right way to begin our
pilgrimage.”

The piazza was not very full at that hour of the morning, and its
emptiness increased the feeling of space and size. The pigeons
wheeled and circled to and fro, a dazzle of soft plumage, and the
cluster of golden domes and sparkling minarets glittered in the
sunshine like flames. Every image and statue on St. Mark’s wavered
in great lines of light like a living pageant in a sea of gold.

Brother Leo said nothing as he stood in front of the three great
doorways that lead into the church. He stood quite still for a
while, and then his eyes fell on a beggar beside the pink and cream
of the new campanile, and I saw the wistfulness in his eyes suddenly
grow as deep as pain.

“Have you money, Signore?” he asked me. That seemed to him the only
question. I gave the man something, but I explained to Brother Leo
that he was probably not so poor as he looked.

“They live in rags,” I explained, “because they wish to arouse pity.
Many of them need not beg at all.”

“Is it possible?” asked Brother Leo, gravely; then he followed me
under the brilliant doorways of mosaic which lead into the richer
dimness of St. Mark’s.

When he found himself within that great incrusted jewel, he fell on
his knees. I think he hardly saw the golden roof, the jeweled walls,
and the five lifted domes full of sunshine and old gold, or the dark
altars, with their mysterious, rich shimmering. All these seemed to
pass away beyond the sense of sight; even I felt somehow as if those
great walls of St. Mark’s were not so great as I had fancied.
Something greater was kneeling there in an old habit and with bare
feet, half broken-hearted because a beggar had lied.

I found myself regretting the responsibility laid on my shoulders.
Why should I have been compelled to take this strangely innocent,
sheltered boy, with his fantastic third-century ideals, out into the
shoddy, decorative, unhappy world? I even felt a kind of anger at
the simplicity of his soul. I wished he were more like other people;
I suppose because he had made me wish for a moment that I was less
like them.

“What do you think of Saint Mark’s?” I asked him as we stood once
more in the hot sunshine outside, with the strutting pigeons at our
feet and wheeling over our heads.

Brother Leo did not answer for a moment, then he said:

“I think Saint Mark would feel it a little strange. You see, I do
not think he was a great man in the world, and the great in
paradise—” He stooped and lifted a pigeon with a broken foot nearer
to some corn a passer-by was throwing for the birds. “I cannot
think,” he finished gravely, “that they care very much for palaces
in paradise; I should think every one had them there or
else—nobody.”

I was surprised to see the pigeons that wheeled away at my approach
allow the monk to handle them, but they seemed unaware of his touch.

“_Poverino!_” he said to the one with the broken foot. “Thank God
that He has given you wings!”

Brother Leo spoke to every child he met, and they all answered him
as if there was a secret freemasonry between them; but the grown-up
people he passed with troubled eyes.

“It seems strange to me,” he said at last, “not to speak to these
brothers and sisters of ours, and yet I see all about me that they
do not salute one another.”

“They are many, and they are all strangers,” I tried to explain.

“Yes, they are very many,” he said a little sadly. “I had not known
that there were so many people in the world, and I thought that in a
Christian country they would not be strangers.”

I took another gondola by the nearest bridge, and we rowed to the
Frari. I hardly knew what effect that great church, with its famous
Titian, would have upon him. A group of tourists surrounded the
picture. I heard a young lady exclaiming:

“My! but I’d like her veil! Ain’t she cute, looking round it that
way?”

Brother Leo did not pause; he passed as if by instinct toward the
chapel on the right which holds the softest, tenderest of Bellinis.
There, before the Madonna with her four saints and two small
attendant cherubs, he knelt again, and his eyes filled with tears. I
do not think he heard the return of the tourists, who were rather
startled at seeing him there. The elder lady remarked that he might
have some infectious disease, and the younger that she did not think
much of Bellini, anyway.

He knelt for some time, and I had not the heart to disturb him;
indeed, I had no wish to, either, for Bellini’s “Madonna” is my
favorite picture, and that morning I saw in it more than I had ever
seen before. It seemed to me as if that triumphant, mellow glow of
the great master was an eternal thing, and as if the saints and
their gracious Lady, with the stalwart, standing Child upon her
knee, were more real than flesh and blood, and would still be more
real when flesh and blood had ceased to be. I never have recaptured
the feeling; perhaps there was something infectious about Brother
Leo, after all. He made no comment on the Madonna, nor did I expect
one, for we do not need to assert that we find the object of our
worship beautiful; but I was amused at his calm refusal to look upon
the great Titian as a Madonna at all.

“No, no,” he said firmly. “This one is no doubt some good and
gracious lady, but the Madonna! Signore, you jest. Or, if the
painter thought so, he was deceived by the devil. Yes, that is very
possible. The father has often told us that artists are exposed to
great temptations: their eyes see paradise before their souls have
reached it, and that is a great danger.”

I said no more, and we passed out into the street again. I felt
ashamed to say that I wanted my luncheon, but I did say so, and it
did not seem in the least surprising to Brother Leo; he merely drew
out a small wallet and offered me some bread, which he said the
father had given him for our needs.

I told him that he must not dream of eating that; he was to come and
dine with me at my hotel. He replied that he would go wherever I
liked, but that really he would prefer to eat his bread unless
indeed we were so fortunate as to find a beggar who would like it.
However, we were not so fortunate, and I was compelled to eat my
exceedingly substantial five-course luncheon while my companion sat
opposite me and ate his half-loaf of black bread with what appeared
to be appetite and satisfaction.

He asked me a great many questions about what everything in the room
was used for and what everything cost, and appeared very much
surprised at my answers.

“This, then,” he said, “is not like all the other houses in Venice?
Is it a special house—perhaps for the English only?”

I explained to him that most houses contained tables and chairs;
that this, being a hotel, was in some ways even less furnished than
a private house, though doubtless it was larger and was arranged
with a special eye to foreign requirements.

“But the poor—they do not live like this?” Leo asked. I had to own
that the poor did not. “But the people here are rich?” Leo
persisted.

“Well, yes, I suppose so, tolerably well off,” I admitted.

“How miserable they must be!” exclaimed Leo, compassionately. “Are
they not allowed to give away their money?”

This seemed hardly the way to approach the question of the rich and
the poor, and I do not know that I made it any better by an
after-dinner exposition upon capital and labor. I finished, of
course, by saying that if the rich gave to the poor to-day, there
would still be rich and poor to-morrow. It did not sound very
convincing to me, and it did nothing whatever to convince Brother
Leo.

“That is perhaps true,” he said at last. “One would not wish,
however, to give all into unready hands like that poor beggar this
morning who knew no better than to pretend in order to get more
money. No, that would be the gift of a madman. But could not the
rich use their money in trust for the poor, and help and teach them
little by little till they learned how to share their labor and
their wealth? But you know how ignorant am I who speak to you. It is
probable that this is what is already being done even here now in
Venice and all over the world. It would not be left to a little one
like me to think of it. What an idea for the brothers at home to
laugh at!”

“Some people do think these things,” I admitted.

“But do not all?” asked Brother Leo, incredulously.

“No, not all,” I confessed.

“_Andiamo!_” said Leo, rising resolutely. “Let us pray to the
Madonna. What a vexation it must be to her and to all the blessèd
saints to watch the earth! It needs the patience of the Blessèd One
Himself, to bear it.”

In the Palazzo Giovanelli there is one of the loveliest of
Giorgiones. It is called “His Family,” and it represents a beautiful
nude woman with her child and her lover. It seemed to me an outrage
that this young brother should know nothing of the world, of life. I
was determined that he should see this picture. I think I expected
Brother Leo to be shocked when he saw it. I know I was surprised
that he looked at it—at the serene content of earth, its exquisite
ultimate satisfaction—a long time. Then he said in an awed voice:

“It is so beautiful that it is strange any one in all the world can
doubt the love of God who gave it.”

“Have you ever seen anything more beautiful; do you believe there is
anything more beautiful?” I asked rather cruelly.

“Yes,” said Brother Leo, very quietly; “the love of God is more
beautiful, only that cannot be painted.”

After that I showed him no more pictures, nor did I try to make him
understand life. I had an idea that he understood it already rather
better than I did.

When I took him back to the piazza, it was getting on toward sunset,
and we sat at one of the little tables at Florian’s, where I drank
coffee. We heard the band and watched the slow-moving, good-natured
Venetian crowd, and the pigeons winging their perpetual flight.

All the light of the gathered day seemed to fall on the great golden
church at the end of the piazza. Brother Leo did not look at it very
much; his attention was taken up completely in watching the faces of
the crowd, and as he watched them I thought to read in his face what
he had learned in that one day in Venice—whether my mission had been
a success or a failure; but, though I looked long at that simple and
childlike face, I learned nothing.

What is so mysterious as the eyes of a child?

But I was not destined to part from Brother Leo wholly in ignorance.
It was as if, in his open kindliness of nature, he would not leave
me with any unspoken puzzle between us. I had been his friend and he
told me, because it was the way things seemed to him, that I had
been his teacher.

We stood on the piazzetta. I had hired a gondola with two men to row
him back; the water was like beaten gold, and the horizon the
softest shade of pink.

“This day I shall remember all my life,” he said, “and you in my
prayers with all the world—always, always. Only I should like to
tell you that that little idea of mine, which the father told me he
had spoken to you about, I see now that it is too large for me. I am
only a very poor monk. I should think I must be the poorest monk God
has in all His family of monks. If He can be patient, surely I can.
And it came over me while we were looking at all those wonderful
things, that if money had been the way to save the world, Christ
himself would have been rich. It was stupid of me. I did not
remember that when he wanted to feed the multitude, he did not empty
the great granaries that were all his, too; he took only five loaves
and two small fishes; but they were enough.

“We little ones can pray, and God can change His world. _Speriamo!_”
He smiled as he gave me his hand—a smile which seemed to me as
beautiful as anything we had seen that day in Venice. Then the
high-prowed, black gondola glided swiftly out over the golden waters
with the little brown figure seated in the smallest seat. He turned
often to wave to me, but I noticed that he sat with his face away
from Venice.

He had turned back to San Francesco del Deserto, and I knew as I
looked at his face that he carried no single small regret in his
eager heart.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A FIGHT WITH DEATH[10]
By IAN MACLAREN

Footnote 10:

From _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_. Copyright, 1894, by Dodd,
Mead & Company.

WHEN Drumsheugh’s grieve was brought to the gates of death by fever,
caught, as was supposed, on an adventurous visit to Glasgow, the
London doctor at Lord Kilspindie’s shooting lodge looked in on his
way from the moor, and declared it impossible for Saunders to live
through the night.

“I give him six hours, more or less; it is only a question of time,”
said the oracle, buttoning his gloves and getting into the brake.
“Tell your parish doctor that I was sorry not to have met him.”

Bell heard this verdict from behind the door, and gave way utterly,
but Drumsheugh declined to accept it as final, and devoted himself
to consolation.

“Dinna greet like that, Bell, wumman, sae lang as Saunders is still
livin’; a’ll never give up houp, for ma pairt, till oor ain man says
the word.

“A’ the doctors in the land dinna ken as muckle aboot us as Weelum
MacLure, an’ he’s ill tae beat when he’s tryin’ tae save a man’s
life.”

MacLure, on his coming, would say nothing, either weal or woe, till
he had examined Saunders. Suddenly his face turned into iron before
their eyes, and he looked like one encountering a merciless foe. For
there was a feud between MacLure and a certain mighty power which
had lasted for forty years in Drumtochty.

“The London doctor said that Saunders wud sough awa’ afore mornin’,
did he? Weel, he’s an’ authority on fevers an’ sic like diseases,
an’ ought tae ken.

“It’s may be presumptuous o’ me tae differ frae him, and it wudna be
verra respectfu’ o’ Saunders tae live aifter this opeenion. But
Saunders wes aye thraun an’ ill tae drive, an’ he’s as like as no
tae gang his ain gait.

“A’m no meanin’ tae reflect on sae clever a man, but he didna ken
the seetuation. He can read fevers like a buik, but he never cam’
across sic a thing as the Drumtochty constitution a’ his days.

“Ye see, when onybody gets as low as puir Saunders here, it’s a
juist a hand-to-hand wrastle atween the fever and his constitution,
an’ of coorse, if he hed been a shilpit, stuntit, feckless effeegy
o’ a cratur, fed on tea an’ made dishes and pushioned wi’ bad air,
Saunders wud hae nae chance; he wes boond tae gae oot like the snuff
o’ a candle.

“But Saunders has been fillin’ his lungs for five and thirty year
wi’ strong Drumtochty air, an’ eatin’ naethin’ but kirny aitmeal,
and drinkin’ naethin’ but fresh milk frae the coo, an’ followin’ the
ploo through the new-turned, sweet-smellin’ earth, an’ swingin’ the
scythe in haytime and harvest, till the legs an’ airms o’ him were
iron, an’ his chest wes like the cuttin’ o’ an oak tree.

“He’s a waesome sicht the nicht, but Saunders wes a buirdly man
aince, and wull never lat his life be taken lichtly frae him. Na,
na; he hesna sinned against Nature, and Nature ’ill stand by him noo
in his oor o’ distress.

“A’ daurna say yea, Bell, muckle as a’ wud like, for this is an evil
disease, cunnin’ an’ treacherous as the deevil himsel’, but a’ winna
say nay, sae keep yir hert frae despair.

“It wull be a sair fecht, but it ’ill be settled one wy or anither
by six o’clock the morn’s morn. Nae man can prophecee hoo it ’ill
end, but ae thing is certain, a’ll no see Deith tak a Drumtochty man
afore his time if a’ can help it.

“Noo, Bell, ma wumman, yir near deid wi’ tire, an’ nae wonder. Ye’ve
dune a’ ye cud for yir man an’ ye ’ill lippen (trust) him the nicht
tae Drumsheugh an’ me; we ’ill no fail him or you.

“Lie doon an’ rest, an’ if it be the wull o’ the Almichty a’ll
wauken ye in the mornin’ tae see a livin’, conscious man, an’ if it
be itherwise a’ll come for ye the suner, Bell,” and the big red hand
went out to the anxious wife. “A’ gie ye ma word.”

Bell leant over the bed, and at the sight of Saunders’ face a
superstitious dread seized her.

“See, doctor, the shadow of deith is on him that never lifts. A’ve
seen it afore, on ma father an’ mither. A’ canna leave him; a’ canna
leave him!”

“It’s hoverin’, Bell, but it hesna fallen; please God it never wull.
Gang but and get some sleep, for it’s time we were at oor wark.

“The doctors in the toons hae nurses an’ a’ kinds o’ handy
apparatus,” said MacLure to Drumsheugh when Bell had gone, “but you
an’ me ’ill need tae be nurse the nicht, an’ use sic things as we
hev.

“It ’ill be a lang nicht and anxious wark, but a’ wud raither hae
ye, auld freend, wi’ me than ony man in the Glen. Ye’re no feared
tae gie a hand?”

“Me feared? No likely. Man, Saunders cam’ tae me a haflin, an’ hes
been on Drumsheugh for twenty years, an’ though he be a dour chiel,
he’s a faithfu’ servant as ever lived. It’s waesome tae see him
lyin’ there moanin’ like some dumb animal frae mornin’ to nicht, an’
no able tae answer his ain wife when she speaks.

“Div ye think, Weelum, he hes a chance?”

“That he hes, at ony rate, and it ’ill no be your blame or mine if
he hesna mair.”

While he was speaking, MacLure took off his coat and waistcoat and
hung them on the back of the door. Then he rolled up the sleeves of
his shirt and laid bare two arms that were nothing but bone and
muscle.

“It gar’d ma very blood rin faster tae the end of ma fingers juist
tae look at him,” Drumsheugh expatiated afterwards to Hillocks, “for
a’ saw noo that there was tae be a stand-up fecht atween him an’
Deith for Saunders, and when a’ thocht o’ Bell an’ her bairns, a’
kent wha wud win.

“‘Aff wi’ yir coat, Drumsheugh,’ said MacLure; ‘ye ’ill need tae
bend yir back the nicht; gither a’ the pails in the hoose and fill
them at the spring, an’ a’ll come doon tae help ye wi’ the
carryin’.’”

It was a wonderful ascent up the steep pathway from the spring to
the cottage on its little knoll, the two men in single file,
bareheaded, silent, solemn, each with a pail of water in either
hand, MacLure limping painfully in front, Drumsheugh blowing behind;
and when they laid down their burden in the sick room, where the
bits of furniture had been put to a side and a large tub held the
centre, Drumsheugh looked curiously at the doctor.

“No, a’m no daft; ye needna be feared; but yir tae get yir first
lesson in medicine the nicht, an’ if we win the battle ye can set up
for yersel’ in the Glen.

“There’s twa dangers—that Saunders’ strength fails, an’ that the
force o’ the fever grows; and we have juist twa weapons.

“Yon milk on the drawers’ head an’ the bottle of whisky is tae keep
up the strength, and this cool caller water is tae keep doon the
fever.

“We ’ill cast oot the fever by the virtue o’ the earth an’ the
water.”

“Div ye mean tae pit Saunders in the tub?”

“Ye hiv it noo, Drumsheugh, and that’s hoo a’ need yir help.”

“Man, Hillocks,” Drumsheugh used to moralise, as often as he
remembered that critical night, “it wes humblin’ tae see how low
sickness can bring a pooerfu’ man, an’ ocht tae keep us frae pride.

“A month syne there wesna a stronger man in the Glen than Saunders,
an’ noo he wes juist a bundle o’ skin and bone, that naither saw nor
heard, nor moved nor felt, that kent naethin’ that was dune tae him.

“Hillocks, a’ wudna hae wished ony man tae hev seen Saunders—for it
wull never pass frae before ma een as long as a’ live—but a’ wish a’
the Glen hed stude by MacLure kneelin’ on the floor wi’ his sleeves
up tae his oxters and waitin’ on Saunders.

“Yon big man wes as pitifu’ an’ gentle as a wumman, and when he laid
the puir fallow in his bed again, he happit him ower as a mither dis
her bairn.”

Thrice it was done, Drumsheugh ever bringing up colder water from
the spring, and twice MacLure was silent; but after the third time
there was a gleam in his eye.

“We’re haudin’ oor ain; we’re no bein’ maistered, at ony rate; mair
a’ canna say for three oors.

“We ’ill no need the water again, Drumsheugh; gae oot and tak a
breath o’ air; a’m on gaird masel’.”

It was the hour before daybreak, and Drumsheugh wandered through the
fields he had trodden since childhood. The cattle lay sleeping in
the pastures; their shadowy forms, with a patch of whiteness here
and there, having a weird suggestion of death. He heard the burn
running over the stones; fifty years ago he had made a dam that
lasted till winter. The hooting of an owl made him start; one had
frightened him as a boy so that he ran home to his mother—she died
thirty years ago. The smell of ripe corn filled the air; it would
soon be cut and garnered. He could see the dim outlines of his
house, all dark and cold; no one he loved was beneath the roof. The
lighted window in Saunders’ cottage told where a man hung between
life and death, but love was in that home. The futility of life
arose before this lonely man, and overcame his heart with an
indescribable sadness. What a vanity was all human labor; what a
mystery all human life!

But while he stood, a subtle change came over the night, and the air
trembled round him as if one had whispered. Drumsheugh lifted his
head and looked eastward. A faint gray stole over the distant
horizon, and suddenly a cloud reddened before his eyes. The sun was
not in sight, but was rising, and sending forerunners before his
face. The cattle began to stir, a blackbird burst into song, and
before Drumsheugh crossed the threshold of Saunders’ house, the
first ray of the sun had broken on a peak of the Grampians.

MacLure left the bedside, and as the light of the candle fell on the
doctor’s face, Drumsheugh could see that it was going well with
Saunders.

“He’s nae waur; an’ it’s half six noo; it’s ower sune tae say mair,
but a’m houpin’ for the best. Sit doon and take a sleep, for ye’re
needin’ ’t, Drumsheugh, an’, man, ye hae worked for it.”

As he dozed off, the last thing Drumsheugh saw was the doctor
sitting erect in his chair, a clenched fist resting on the bed, and
his eyes already bright with the vision of victory.

He awoke with a start to find the room flooded with the morning
sunshine, and every trace of last night’s work removed.

The doctor was bending over the bed, and speaking to Saunders.

“It’s me, Saunders; Doctor MacLure, ye ken; dinna try tae speak or
move; juist let this drap milk slip ower—ye ’ill be needin’ yir
breakfast, lad—and gang tae sleep again.”

Five minutes, and Saunders had fallen into a deep, healthy sleep,
all tossing and moaning come to an end. Then MacLure stepped softly
across the floor, picked up his coat and waistcoat, and went out at
the door.

Drumsheugh arose and followed him without a word. They passed
through the little garden, sparkling with dew, and beside the byre,
where Hawkie rattled her chain, impatient for Bell’s coming, and by
Saunders’ little strip of corn ready for the scythe, till they
reached an open field. There they came to a halt, and Dr. MacLure
for once allowed himself to go.

His coat he flung east and his waistcoat west, as far as he could
hurl them, and it was plain he would have shouted had he been a
complete mile from Saunders’ room. Any less distance was useless for
adequate expression. He struck Drumsheugh a mighty blow that
well-nigh levelled that substantial man in the dust, and then the
doctor of Drumtochty issued his bulletin.

“Saunders wesna tae live through the nicht, but he’s livin’ this
meenut, an’ like to live.

“He’s got by the warst clean and fair, and wi’ him that’s as good as
cure.

“It ’ill be a graund waukenin’ for Bell; she ’ill no be a weedow
yet, nor the bairnies fatherless.

“There’s nae use glowerin’ at me, Drumsheugh, for a body’s daft at a
time, an’ a’ canna contain masel’, and a’m no gaein’ tae try.”

Then it dawned upon Drumsheugh that the doctor was attempting the
Highland fling.

“He’s ill made, tae begin wi’,” Drumsheugh explained in the kirkyard
next Sabbath, “and ye ken he’s been terrible mishannelled by
accidents, sae ye may think what like it wes, but, as sure as deith,
o’ a’ the Hielan’ flings a’ ever saw yon wes the bonniest.

“A’ hevna shaken ma ain legs for thirty years, but a’ confess tae a
turn masel’. Ye may lauch an’ ye like, neeburs, but the thocht o’
Bell an’ the news that wes waitin’ her got the better o’ me.”

Drumtochty did not laugh. Drumtochty looked as if it could have done
quite otherwise for joy.

“A’ wud hae made a third gin a’ hed been there,” announced Hillocks
aggressively.

“Come on, Drumsheugh,” said Jamie Soutar, “gie’s the end o’t; it wes
a michty mornin’.”

“‘We’re twa auld fules,’ says MacLure tae me, as he gaithers up his
claithes. ‘It wud set us better tae be tellin’ Bell.’

“She was sleepin’ on the top o’ her bed wrapped in a plaid, fair
worn oot wi’ three weeks’ nursin’ o’ Saunders, but at the first
touch she was oot upon the floor.

“‘Is Saunders deein’, doctor?’ she cries. ‘Ye promised tae wauken
me; dinna tell me it’s a’ ower.’

“There’s nae deein’ aboot him, Bell; ye’re no tae lose yir man this
time, sae far as a’ can see. Come ben an’ jidge for yersel’."

“Bell lookit at Saunders, and the tears of joy fell on the bed like
rain.

“‘The shadow’s lifted,’ she said; ‘he’s come back frae the mooth o’
the tomb.

“‘A’ prayed last nicht that the Lord wud leave Saunders till the
laddies cud dae for themselves, an’ thae words came intae ma mind,
“Weepin’ may endure for a nicht, but joy cometh in the mornin’.”

“‘The Lord heard ma prayer, and joy hes come in the mornin’,’ an’
she gripped the doctor’s hand.

“‘Ye’ve been the instrument, Doctor MacLure. Ye wudna gie him up,
and ye did what nae ither cud for him, an’ a’ve ma man the day, and
the bairns hae their father.’

“An’ afore MacLure kent what she was daein’, Bell lifted his hand to
her lips an’ kissed it.”

“Did she, though?” cried Jamie. “Wha wud hae thocht there wes as
muckle spunk in Bell?”