Nathaniel opened great solemn eyes upon him.  “I suppose it is the conviction of sin.  That is what they call it.”

For an instant the old man’s face was blank with astonishment, and then it wrinkled into a thousand lines of mirth.  He began to laugh as though he would never stop.  Nathaniel had never heard anyone laugh like that.  He clutched at the old man.

“How dare you laugh!”

The other wiped his eyes and rocked to and fro, “I laugh—­who would not—­that such a witless baby should talk of his sin.  You know not what sin is, you silly innocent!”

At the kindliness of the tone an aching knot in the boy’s throat relaxed.  He began to talk hurriedly, in a desperate whisper, his hands like little birds’ claws gripping the other’s great gauntleted fist.  “You do not know how wicked I am—­I am so wholly forward the wonder is the devil does not take me at once.  I live only in what my father calls the lust of the eye.  I—­I would rather look at a haw-tree in bloom than meditate on the Almighty!” He brought out this awful confession with a gasp at its enormity, but hurried on to a yet more terrible climax.  “I cannot be righteous, but many times there are those who cannot—­but oh, worse than that, I cannot even wish to be!  I can only wish to be a painter.”

At this unexpected ending the old man gave an exclamation of extreme amazement.

“But, boy, lad, what’s your name?  However did you learn that there are painters in the world, here in this prison-house of sanctity?”

Nathaniel had burrowed into his protector’s coat as though hiding from the imminent wrath of God.  He now spoke in muffled tones.  “Two years ago, when I was but a little child, there came a man to our town, a Frenchman, they said, and his horse fell lame, and he stopped two days at my Uncle Elzaphan’s.  My Uncle Elzaphan asked him what business did he in the world, and he said he put down on cloth or paper with brushes and colors all the fair and comely things he saw.  And he showed a piece of paper with on it painted the row of willows along our brook.  I sat in the chimney-corner and no one heeded me.  I saw—­oh, then I knew!  I have no paint, but ever since I have made pictures with burnt sticks on birchbark—­though my father says that of all the evil ways of evil men none lead down more swift to the chambers of death and the gates of hell than that.  Every night I make a vow unto the Lord that I will sin no more; but in the morning the devil whispers in my ear and I rise up and sin again—­no man knows this—­and I am never glad unless I think I have done well with my pictures, and I hate the meeting-house and—­” His voice died away miserably.

“Two years ago, was’t?” asked the old man.  “And the man was French?”

“Aye.”

The old soldier shifted his position, stretched out a stiff knee with a grimace of pain, and pulled the tall lad bodily into his lap like a child.  For some time the two were silent, the sun shining down warmly on them through the faint, vaporous green of the tiny leaves.  The old horse cropped the young shoots with a contented, ruminative air, once in a while pausing to hang his head drowsily, and bask motionless in the warmth.