The Diamond Drill

The Story of an African Farm.

By OLIVE SCHREINER.

"No; it never seems so to me," she answered.

The sun had dipped now below the hills, and the boy, suddenly remembering the ewes and lambs, started to his feet.

"Let us also go to the house and see who has come," said Em as the boy shuffled away to rejoin his flock, while Doss ran at his heels, snapping at the ends of the torn trousers as they fluttered in the wind.

CHAPTER III

"I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN."

As the two girls rounded the side of the "kopje" an unusual scene presented itself. A large group was gathered at the back door of the homestead.

On the doorstep stood the Boer woman, a hand on each hip, her face red and fiery, her head nodding fiercely.

At her feet sat the yellow Hottentot maid, her satellite, and around stood the black Kaffir maids with blankets twisted round their half-naked figures.

Two, who stamped mealies in a wooden block, held the great stampers in their hands and stared stupidly at the object of attraction. It certainly was not to look at the old German overseer, who stood in the center of the group, that they had all gathered together. His salt and pepper suit, grizzly black beard and gray eyes were as familiar to every one on the farm as the red gables of the homestead itself,

but beside him stood the stranger, and on him all eyes were fixed. Ever and anon the newcomer cast a glance over his pendulous red nose to the spot where the Boer woman stood and smiled faintly.

"I'm not a child," cried the Boer woman in low Cape Dutch. "and I wasn't born yesterday. No; by the Lord, no! You can't take me in! My mother didn't wean me on Monday. One wink of my eye, and I see the whole thing.

I'll have no tramps sleeping on my farm!" cried Tant' Sannie, blowing.

"No, by the devil, no, not though he had six times six red noses!"

There the German overseer mildly interposed that the man was not a tramp, but a highly respectable individual, whose horse had died by an accident three days before.

"Don't tell me!" cried the Boer woman. "The man isn't born that can take me in. If he'd had money, wouldn't he have bought a horse? Men who walk are thieves, liars, murderers, Rome's priests, seducers! I see the devil in his nose!" cried Tant' Sannie, shaking her fist at him. "And to come walking into the house of this Boer's child and shaking hands as though he came on horseback—oh, no, no!"

The stranger took off his hat, a tall battered chimney pot, and disclosed a bald head, at the back of which was a little fringe of curled white hair, and he bowed to Tant' Sannie.

"What does she remark, my friend?" he inquired, turning his crosswise looking eyes on the old German.

The German rubbed his hands and hesitated.

"Ah—well—ah—the—Dutch—you know—do not like people who walk—in this country—ah!"

"My dear friend," said the stranger, laying his hand on the German's arm, "I should have bought myself another horse, but crossing, five days ago, a full river, I lost my purse with £500 in it. I spent five days on the bank of the river trying to find it—couldn't; paid a Kaffir £9 to go in and look for it at the risk of his life—couldn't find it."

The German would have translated this information, but the Boer woman gave no ear.

"No, no! He goes tonight. See how he looks at me, a poor, unprotected female! If he wrongs me, who is to do me right?" cried Tant' Sannie.

"I think," said the German in an undertone, "if you didn't look at her quite so much it might be advisable.

She—ah—she—might—imagine that you liked her too well—in fact—ah—"

"Certainly, my dear friend, certainly," said the stranger, "I shall not look at her."

Saying this, he turned his nose full upon a small Kaffir 2 years of age.

That small naked son of Ham became instantly so terrified that he fled to his mother's blanket for protection, howling horribly.

Upon this the newcomer fixed his eyes pensively on the stamp block, folding his hand on the head of his cane. His boots were broken, but he still had the cane of a gentleman.

"You vagabonds se Engelschman!" said Tant' Sannie, looking straight at him.

This was a near approach to plain English, but the man contemplated the block abstractedly, wholly unconscious that any antagonism was being displayed toward him.

"You might not be a Scotchman or anything of that kind, might you?" suggested the German. "It is the English that she hates."

"My dear friend," said the stranger, "I am Irish, every inch of me—father Irish, mother Irish. I've not a drop of English blood in my veins."

"And you might not be married—might you?" persisted the German.

"If you had a wife and children, now Dutch people do not like those who are not married."

"Ah," said the stranger, looking tenderly at the block, "I have a dear wife and three sweet little children, two lovely girls and a noble boy."

This information having been conveyed to the Boer woman, she, after some further conversation, appeared slightly mollified, but remained firm to her conviction that the man's designs were evil.

"For, dear Lord," she cried, "all Englishmen are ugly! But was there ever such a red raw nose think with broken boots and crooked eyes before?

Take him to your room!" she cried to the German. But all the sin he does I lay at your door."

The German having told him how matters were arranged, the stranger made a profound bow to Tant' Sannie and followed his host, who led the way to his own little room.

"I thought she would come to her better self soon," the German said joyously. "Tant' Sannie is not wholly bad—far from it, far." Then, seeing his companion cast a furtive glance at him, which he mistook for one of surprise, he added quickly: "Ah, yes, yes, we are all a primitive people here—not very lofty. We deal not in titles.

Every one is Tanta and Oom—aunt and uncle. This may be my room," he said, opening the door. "It is rough; the room is rough—not a palace, not quite. But it may be better than the fields, a little better," he said, glancing round at his companion.

"Come in, come in. There is something to eat, a mouthful, not the fare of emperors or kings, but we do not starve, not yet," he said, rubbing his hands together and looking round with a pleased, half nervous smile on his old face.

"My friend, my dear friend," said the stranger, seizing him by the hand, "may the Lord bless you, the Lord bless and reward you—the God of the fatherless and the stranger. But for you I would this night have slept in the fields, with the dews of heaven upon my head."

Late that evening Lyndall came down to the cabin with the German's rations. Through the tiny square window the light streamed forth, and without knocking she raised the latch and entered. There was a fire burning on the hearth, and it cast its ruddy glow over the little dingy room, with its worm-eaten rafters and mud floor and broken, whitewashed walls, a curious little place, filled with all manner of articles. Next to the fire was a great tool box; beyond that the little bookshelf with its well-worn books;

beyond that, in the corner, a heap of filled and empty grain bags. From the rafters hung down straps, "reims," old boots, bits of harness and a string of onions. The bed was in another corner, covered by a patchwork quilt of faded red lions and divided from the rest of the room by a blue curtain, now drawn back. On the mantel-shelf was an endless assortment of little bags and stones, and on the wall hung a map of south Germany, with a red line drawn through it to show where the German had wandered. This place was the one home the girls had known for many a year. The house where Tant' Sannie lived and ruled was a place to sleep in, to eat in, not to be happy in. It was in vain she told them they were grown too old to go there. Every morning and evening found them there. Were there not too many golden memories hanging about the old place for them to leave it?

Long winter nights, when they had sat round the fire and roasted potatoes and asked riddles and the old man had told of the little German village where, 50 years before, a little German boy had played at snowballs and had carried home the knitted stockings of a little girl who afterward became Waldo's mother, did they not seem to see the German peasant girls walking about with their wooden shoes and yellow, braided hair and the little children eating their suppers out of little wooden bowls when the good mothers called them in to have their milk and potatoes?

And were there not yet better times than these—moonlight nights, when they romped about the door, with the old man, yet more a child than any of them, and laughed till the old roof of the wagon house rang?

Or, best of all, were there not warm, dark, starlight nights, when they sat together on the doorstep, holding each other's hand, singing German hymns their voices rising clear in the still night air, till the German would draw away his hand suddenly to wipe quickly a tear the children must not see?

Would they not sit looking up at the stars and talking of them—of the dear Southern Cross; red, fiery Mars; Orion, with his belt, and the Seven Mysterious Sisters—and fall to speculating over them? How old are they? Who dwelt in them? And the old German would say that perhaps the souls we loved lived in them. There, in that little, twinkling point, was perhaps the little girl whose stockings he had carried home, and the children would look up at it lovingly and call it "Uncle Otto's star." Then they would fall to deeper speculations—of the times and seasons wherein the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll and the stars shall fall as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs and there shall be time no longer, "when the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all his holy angels with him." In lower and lower tones they would talk till at last they fell into whispers. Then they would wish good night softly and walk home hushed and quiet.

Tonight, when Lyndall looked in, Waldo sat before the fire watching a pot which simmered there, with his slate and pencil in his hand. His father sat at the table buried in the columns of a three weeks' old newspaper and the stranger lay stretched on the bed in the corner, fast asleep, his mouth open, his great limbs stretched out loosely, betokening much weariness. The girl put the rations down upon the table, snuffed the candle and stood looking at the figure on the bed.

"Uncle Otto," she said presently, laying her hand down on the newspaper and causing the old German to look up over his glasses, "how long did that man say he had been walking?"

"Since this morning, poor fellow! A gentleman, not accustomed to walking—horse died—poor fellow!" said the German, pushing out his lip and glancing commiseratingly over his spectacles in the direction of the bed where the stranger lay with his flabby double chin and broken boots through which the flesh shone.

"And do you believe him, Uncle Otto?"

"Believe him? Why, of course I do. He himself told me the story three times distinctly."

"If," said the girl slowly, "he—had walked for only one day, his boots would not have looked so, and if—"

"If!" said the German, starting up in his chair, irritated that any one should doubt such irrefutable evidence. "If! Why, he told me himself! Look how he lies there," added the German pathetically, "worn out, poor fellow! I have something for him, though," pointing with his forefinger over his shoulder to the saucepan that stood on the fire. "We are not cooks—not French cooks, not quite—but it's drinkable, drinkable, I think, better than nothing, I think," he added, nodding his head in a jocund manner that evinced his high estimation of the contents of the saucepan and his profound satisfaction therein. "Bish, bish, my chicken!" he said as Lyndall tapped her little foot up and down upon the floor. "Bish, bish, my chicken! You will wake him."

He moved the candle so that his own head might intervene between it and the sleeper's face, and, smoothing his newspaper, he adjusted his spectacles to read.

The child's gray black eyes rested on the figure on the bed, then turned to the German, then rested on the figure again.

"I think he is a liar! Good night, Uncle Otto," she said slowly, turning to the door.

Long after she had gone the German folded his paper up methodically and put it in his pocket.

The stranger had not awakened to partake of the soup, and his son had fallen asleep on the ground. Taking two white sheepskins from the heap of sacks in the corner, the old man doubled them up and, lifting the boy's head gently from the slate on which it rested, placed the skins beneath it.

"Poor lambie, poor lambie!" he said tenderly, patting the great rough bear-like head. "Tired, is he!"

He threw an overcoat across the boy's feet and lifted the saucepan from the fire. There was no place where the old man could comfortably lie down himself, so he resumed his seat. Opening a much worn Bible, he began to read, and, as he read, pleasant thoughts and visions thronged on him.

"I was a stranger, and ye took me in," he read.

He turned again to the bed where the sleeper lay.

"I was a stranger."

Very tenderly the old man looked at him. He saw not the bloated body nor the evil face of the man, but, as it were, under deep disguise and fleshly concealment, the form that long years of dreaming had made very real to him. "Jesus, lover, and is it given to us, weak and sinful, frail and erring, to serve thee, to take thee in?" he said softly as he rose from his seat. Full of joy, he began to pace the little room. Now and again as he walked he sang the lines of a German hymn or muttered broken words of prayer. The little room was full of light. It appeared to the German that Christ was very near him and that at almost any moment the thin mist of earthly darkness that clouded his human eyes might be withdrawn and that made manifest of which the friends at Emmaus, beholding it, said, "It is the Lord!"

Again and yet again, through the long hours of that night, as the old man walked, he looked up to the roof of his little room, with its blackened rafters, and yet saw them not. His rough bearded face was illuminated with a radiant gladness, and the night was not shorter to the dreaming sleepers than to him whose waking dreams brought heaven near.

So quickly the night fled that he looked up with surprise when at 4 o'clock the first gray streaks of summer dawn showed themselves through the little window. Then the old man turned to rake together the few coals that lay under the ashes, and his son, turning on the sheepskins, muttered sleepily to know if it were time to rise.

"Lie still, lie still! I would only make a fire," said the old man.

"Have you been up all night?" asked the boy.

"Yes; but it has been short, very short. Sleep again, my chicken. It is yet early."

And he went out to fetch more fuel.

CHAPTER IV.

BLESSED IS HE THAT BELIEVETH.

Bonaparte Blenkins sat on the side of the bed. He had wonderfully revived since the day before, held his head high, talked in a full, sonorous voice and ate greedily of all the viands offered him. At his side was a basin of soup, from which he took a deep draft now and again as he watched the fingers of the German, who sat on the mud floor before him mending the bottom of a chair.

Presently he looked out, where, in the afternoon sunshine, a few half-grown ostriches might be seen wandering listlessly about, and then he looked in again at the little whitewashed room and at Lyndall, who sat in the doorway looking at a book. Then he raised his chin and tried to adjust an imaginary shirt collar. Finding none, he smoothed the little gray fringe at the back of his head and began:

"You are a student of history, I perceive, my friend, from the study of these volumes that lie scattered about this apartment. This fact has been made evident to me."

"Well—a little—perhaps—it may be," said the German meekly.

"Being a student of history, then," said Bonaparte, raising himself loftily, "you will doubtless have heard of my great, of my celebrated, kinsman, Napoleon Bonaparte?"

"Yes, yes," said the German, looking up.

"I, sir," said Bonaparte, "was born at this hour on an April afternoon three and sixty years ago. The nurse, sir—she was the same who attended when the Duke of S—— was born—brought me to my mother. 'There is only one name for this child,' she said. 'He has the nose of his great kinsman,' and so Bonaparte Blenkins became my name—Bonaparte Blenkins. Yes, sir," said Bonaparte, "there is a stream on my maternal side that connects me with a stream on his maternal side."

The German made a sound of astonishment.

"The connection," said Bonaparte, "is—one which could not be easily comprehended by one unaccustomed to the study of aristocratic pedigrees, but the connection is close."

"Is it possible?" said the German, pausing in his work with much interest and astonishment. "Napoleon an Irishman!"

"Yes," said Bonaparte, "on the mother's side, and that is how we are related. There wasn't a man to beat him," said Bonaparte, stretching himself, "not a man, except the Duke of Wellington. And it's a strange coincidence," added Bonaparte, bending forward, "but he was a connection of mine. His nephew, the Duke of Wellington's nephew, married a cousin of mine. She was a woman! See her at one of the court balls—amber satin, daisies in her hair! Worth going a hundred miles to look at her! Often seen her there myself, sir!"

The German moved the leather thongs in and out and thought of the strange vicissitudes of human life which might bring the kinsmen of dukes and emperors to his humble room.

Bonaparte appeared lost among old memories.

"Ah, that Duke of Wellington's nephew!" he broke forth suddenly. "Many's the joke I've had with him. Often came to visit me at Bonaparte Hall. Grand place I had then—park, conservatory, servants. He had only one fault, that Duke of Wellington's nephew," said Bonaparte, observing that the German was deeply interested in every word. "He was a coward—what you might call a coward. You've never been in Russia, I suppose?" said Bonaparte, fixing his crosswise looking eyes on the German's face.

"No, no," said the old man humbly. "France, England, Germany, a little in this country—it is all I have traveled."

"I, my friend," said Bonaparte, "have been in every country in the world and speak every civilized language excepting only Dutch and German. I wrote a book of my travels—noteworthy incidents. Publisher got it—cheated me out of it. Great rascals, those publishers! Upon one occasion the Duke of Wellington's nephew and I were traveling in Russia. All of a sudden one of the horses dropped down dead as a doornail. There we were—cold night—snow four feet thick—great forest—one horse not being able to move sledge—night coming on—wolves,

" 'Spree!' says the Duke of Wellington's nephew.

" 'Spree, do you call it?' says I. 'Look out.

There, sticking out under a bush was nothing less than the nose of a bear. The Duke of Wellington's nephew was up a tree like a shot. I stood quietly on the ground, as cool as I am this moment, loaded my gun and climbed up the tree. There was only one bough.

" 'Bon,' said the Duke of Wellington's nephew, 'you'd better sit in front.'

" 'All right,' said I, 'but keep your gun ready. There are more coming.'

He'd got his face buried in my back.

" 'How many are there?' said he.

" 'Four,' said I.

" 'How many are there now?' said he.

" 'Eight,' said I.

" 'How many are there now?' said he.

" 'Ten,' said I.

" 'Ten, ten!' said he, and down goes his gun.

" 'Wally,' I said, 'what have you done? We're dead men now.'

" 'Bon, my old fellow,' said he, 'I couldn't help it, my hands trembled so!'

" 'Well,' said I, turning round and seizing his hand, 'Wally, my dear lad, goodby. I'm not afraid to die. My legs are long; they hang down. The first bear that comes, and I don't hit him, off goes my foot. When he takes it, I shall give you my gun and go. You may yet be saved, but tell, oh, tell Mary Ann that I thought of her, that I prayed for her!'

" 'Goodby, old fellow!' said he.

" 'God bless you,' said I.

By this time the bears were sitting in a circle all round the tree. Yes," said Bonaparte, impressively fixing his eyes on the German, "a regular, exact circle. The marks of their tails were left in the snow, and I measured it afterward. A drawing master couldn't have done it better. It was that saved me. If they'd rushed on me at once, poor old Bon would never have been here to tell this story. But they came on, sir, systematically, one by one. All the rest sat on their tails and waited. The first fellow came up, and I shot him; the second fellow—I shot him; the third—I shot him. At last the tenth came. He was the biggest of all—the leader, you may say.

" 'Well,' I said, 'give me your hand. My fingers are stiff with the cold. There is only one bullet left. I shall miss him. While he is eating me you get down and take your gun, and live, dear friend, live to remember the man who gave his life for you!' By that time the bear was at me. I felt his paw on my trousers.

" 'Oh, Bonnie, Bonnie!' said the Duke of Wellington's nephew. But I just took my gun and put the muzzle to the bear's ear. Over he fell—dead!"

Bonaparte Blenkins waited to observe what effect his story had made. Then he took out a dirty white handkerchief and stroked his forehead and more especially his eyes.

"It always affects me to relate that adventure," he remarked, returning the handkerchief to his pocket. "Ingratitude—base, ingratitude—is recalled by it. That man, that man, who but for me would have perished in the pathless wilds of Russia, that man in the hour of my adversity forsook me."

The German looked up.

"Yes," said Bonaparte, "I had money, I had lands. I said to my wife: 'There is Africa, a struggling country. They want capital; they want men of talent; they want men of ability to open up that land. Let us go.'

"I bought £5,000 worth of machinery—winnowing, plowing, reaping machines. I loaded a ship with them. Next steamer I came out, wife, children, all. Got to the Cape. Where is the ship with the things? Lost—gone to the bottom! And the box with the money? Lost—nothing saved!

"My wife wrote to the Duke of Wellington's nephew. I didn't wish her to. She did it without my knowledge.

"What did the man whose life I saved do? Did he send me £30,000, say, 'Bonaparte, my brother, here is a crumb?' No; he sent me nothing.

"My wife said, 'Write.' I said: 'Mary Ann, no; while these hands have power to work, no; while this frame has power to endure, no. Never shall it be said that Bonaparte Blenkins asked of any man.'"

The man's noble independence touched the German.

"Your case is hard; yes, that is hard," said the German, shaking his head.

Bonaparte took another draft of the soup, leaned back against the pillows and sighed deeply.

"I think," he said after a while, rousing himself, "I shall now wander in the benign air and taste the gentle cool of the evening. The stiffness hovers over me yet. Exercise is beneficial."

So saying, he adjusted his hat carefully on the bald crown of his head and moved to the door. After he had gone the German sighed again over his work:

"Ah, Lord! So it is! Ah!"

He thought of the ingratitude of the world.

"Uncle Otto," said the child in the doorway, "did you ever hear of ten bears sitting on their tails in a circle?"

"Well, not of ten exactly, but bears do attack travelers every day. It is nothing unheard of," said the German. "A man of such courage too! Terrible experience that!"

"And how do we know that the story is true, Uncle Otto?"

The German's ire was roused.

"That is what I do hate!" he cried. "Know that it is true! How do you know that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to question everything—proof, proof, proof—what will we have to believe left? How do you know the angel opened the prison door for Peter except that Peter said so? How do you know that God talked to Moses except that Moses wrote it? That is what I hate!"

The girl knit her brows. Perhaps her thoughts made a longer journey than the German dreamed of, for, mark you, the old dream little how their words and lives are texts and studies to the generation that shall succeed them. Not what we are taught, but what we see, makes us, and the child gathers the food on which the adult feeds to the end.

When the German looked up next there was a look of supreme satisfaction in the little mouth and the beautiful eyes.

"What do you see, chicken?" he asked.

The child said nothing, and an agonizing shriek was borne on the afternoon breeze.

"O God, my God, I am killed!" cried the voice of Bonaparte as he, with wide open mouth and shaking flesh, fell into the room, followed by a half-grown ostrich, which put its head in at the door, opened its beak at him and went away.

"Shut the door! Shut the door! As you value my life, shut the door!" cried Bonaparte, sinking into a chair, his face blue and white, with a greenish ness about the mouth. "Ah, my friend," he said, tremulously, "eternity has looked me in the face! My life's thread hung upon a cord! The valley of the shadow of death!" said Bonaparte, seizing the German's arm.

"Dear, dear, dear!" said the German who had closed the lower half of the door and stood much concerned beside the stranger. "You have had a fright. I never knew so young a bird to chase before, but they will take dislikes to certain people. I sent a boy away once because a bird would chase him. Ah, dear, dear!"

"When I looked round," said Bonaparte, "the red and yawning cavity was above me and the reprehensible paw raised to strike me. My nerves," said Bonaparte, suddenly growing faint, "always delicate, highly strung, are broken, broken! You could not give a little wine, a little brandy, my friend?"

The old German hurried away to the bookshelf and took from behind the books a small bottle, half of whose contents he poured into a cup. Bonaparte drained it eagerly.

"How do you feel now?" asked the German, looking at him with much sympathy.

"A little, slightly, better."

The German went out to pick up the battered chimney pot which had fallen before the door.

"I am sorry you got the fright. The birds are bad things till you know them," he said sympathetically as he put the hat down.

"My friend," said Bonaparte, holding out his hand, "I forgive you. Do not be disturbed. Whatever the consequences, I forgive you. I know, I believe, it was with no ill intent that you allowed me to go out. Give me your hand. I have no ill feeling, none!"

"You are very kind," said the German, taking the extended hand and feeling suddenly convinced that he was receiving magnanimous forgiveness—for some great injury: "you are very kind."

"Don't mention it," said Bonaparte. He knocked out the crown of his caved-in old hat, placed it on the table before him, leaned his elbows on the table and his face to his hands and contemplated it.

"Ah, my old friend"—he thus apostrophized the hat—“you have served me long, you have served me faithfully, but the last day has come! Never more shall you be borne upon the head of your master; never more shall you protect his brow from the burning rays of summer or the cutting winds of winter. Henceforth bareheaded must your master go. Goodby, goodby, old hat!"

At the end of this affecting appeal the German rose. He went to the box at the foot of his bed. Out of it he took a black hat which had evidently been seldom worn and carefully preserved.

"It's not exactly what you may have been accustomed to," he said nervously, putting it down beside the battered chimney pot, "but it might be of some use, a protection to the head, you know."

"My friend," said Bonaparte, "you are not following my advice. You are allowing yourself to be reproached on my account. Do not make yourself unhappy. No: I shall go bareheaded."

"No, no, no!" cried the German energetically. "I have no use for the hat—none at all. It is shut up in the box."

"Then I will take it, my friend. It is a comfort to one's own mind when you have unintentionally injured any one to make reparation. I know the feeling. The hat may not be of that refined cut of which the old one was, but it will serve; yes, it will serve. Thank you," said Bonaparte, adjusting it on his head and then replacing it on the table. "I shall lie down now and take a little repose," he added. "I much fear my appetite for supper will be lost."

"I hope not; I hope not," said the German, reseating himself at his work and looking much concerned as Bonaparte stretched himself on the bed and turned the end of the patchwork quilt over his feet.

"You must not think to make your departure, not for many days," said the German presently. "Tant' Sannie gives her consent, and"—

"My friend," said Bonaparte, closing his eyes sadly, "you are kind, but were it not that tomorrow is the Sabbath, weak and trembling as I lie here, I would proceed on my way. I must seek work. Idleness but for a day is painful. Work, labor—that is the secret of all true happiness."

He doubled the pillow under his head and watched how the German drew the leather thongs in and out.

After a while Lyndall silently put her book on the shelf and went home, and the German stood up and began to mix some water and meal for rooster cakes.

As he stirred them with his hands he said:

"I bake always a double supply on Saturday night. The hands are then free as the thoughts for Sunday."

"The blessed Sabbath!" said Bonaparte.

There was a pause. Bonaparte twisted his eyes without moving his head to see if supper were already on the fire.

"You must sorely miss the administration of the Lord's word in this desolate spot," added Bonaparte. "Oh, how love I thine house and the place where thine honor dwelleth!"

"Well, we do; yes," said the German. "But we do our best. We meet together, and I—well, I say a few words, and perhaps they are not wholly lost, not quite."

"Strange coincidence," said Bonaparte. "My plan always was the same. Was in the Free State once—solitary farm—one neighbor. Every Sunday I called together friend and neighbor, child and servant, and said, 'Rejoice with me, that we may serve the Lord,' and then I addressed them. Ah, those were blessed times!" said Bonaparte. "Would they might return!"

The German stirred at the cakes, and stirred and stirred and stirred. He could give the stranger his bed, and he could give the stranger his hat, and he could give the stranger his brandy, but his Sunday service!

After a good while he said:

"I might speak to Tant' Sannie. I might arrange. You might take the service in my place if it"—

"My friend," said Bonaparte, "it would give me the profoundest felicity, the most unbounded satisfaction, but in these worn-out habiliments, in these deteriorated garments, it would not be possible, it would not be fitting, that I should officiate in service of One who for respect we shall not name. No, my friend. I will remain here, and, while you are assembling yourselves together in the presence of the Lord, I, in my solitude, will think of and pray for you. No; I will remain here."

It was a touching picture—the solitary man there praying for them. The German cleared his hands from the meal and went to the chest from which he had taken the black hat.

After a little careful feeling about he produced a black cloth coat, trousers and waistcoat, which he laid on the table, smiling knowingly. They were of new, shining cloth, worn twice a year, when he went to the town to "nachtmahl."

He looked with great pride at the coat as he unfolded it and held it up.

"It's not the latest fashion, perhaps, not a west end cut, not exactly, but it might do, it might serve at a push. Try it on, try it on!" he said, his old gray eyes twinkling with pride.

(To be continued.)