“More riddles, messire?  Yet now will I speak thee plain, as thus:  I am a smith, and have no lust to strife or knightly deeds, nor will I e’er attempt them, for strife begetteth bitter strife and war is an evil thing.  ‘They that trust to the sword shall perish by the sword,’ ’tis so written, and is, meseemeth, a faithful saying.  This sorry world hath known over much of war and hate, of strife and bloodshed, so shall these my hands go innocent of more.”

Then indeed did the stranger stare with jaws agape for wonder at my Beltane’s saying, and, so staring, turned him to the door and back again, and fain would speak, yet could not for a while.  Then: 

“Besotted boy!” he cried.  “O craven youth!  O babe!  O suckling!  Was it for this thou wert begot?  Hast thou no bowels, no blood, no manhood?  Forsooth, and must I spit on thee indeed?”

“And so it be thy will, messire,” said Beltane, steady-eyed.

But as they stood thus, Beltane with arms yet crossed, his lips up-curving at the other’s fierce amaze, the stranger grim-faced and frowning, came a shadow athwart the level glory of the sun, and, turning, Beltane beheld the hermit Ambrose, tall and spare beneath his tattered gown, bareheaded and bare of foot, whose eyes were bright and quick, despite the snow of hair and beard, and in whose gentle face and humble mien was yet a high and noble look at odds with his lowly guise and tattered vesture; at sight of whom the grim-faced stranger, of a sudden, bowed his grizzled head and sank upon his knee.

“Lord!” he said, and kissed the hermit’s long, coarse robe.  Whereon the hermit bent and touched him with a gentle hand.

“Benedicite, my son!” said he.  “Go you, and leave us together a while.”

Forthwith the stranger rose from his knee and went out into the glory of the morning.  Then the hermit came to Beltane and set his two hands upon his mighty shoulders and spake to him very gently, on this wise: 

“Thou knowest, my Beltane, how all thy days I have taught thee to love all fair, and sweet, and noble things, for they are of God.  ’Twere a fair thought, now, to live out thy life here, within these calm, leafy solitudes—­but better death by the sword for some high, unselfish purpose, than to live out a life of ease, safe and cloistered all thy days.  To live for thine own ends—­’tis human; to die for some great cause, for liberty, or for another’s good—­that, my son, were God-like.  And there was a Man of Sorrows Whose word was this, that He came ‘not to bring peace on this earth, but a sword.’  For good cannot outface evil but strife must needs follow.  Behold now here another sword, my Beltane; keep it henceforth so long as thou keep honour.”  So saying, Ambrose the Hermit took from beneath his habit that for which Beltane had yearned, that same great blade whereon whose steel was graven the legend: 

Resurgam.

So Ambrose put the sword in Beltane’s hand, saying: