She bent over the pavement.  There was nothing there, yet she had received a message.  After a last glance she turned away, new courage, new life, new hope in her heart.

She mounted the steps, she laid her hand upon the knob of the church door, she turned it and went bravely within.

VI

The Burden Bearer

“He, bearing his cross, went forth”

VI

The Burden Bearer

The sound of the running feet of the man smashing through the burned stubble ceased abruptly.  He stopped at the threshold of the door.  No friendly bark of dog welcomed him.  From the barn there came no gentle lowing of cattle, no homely clucking of chickens.  Like the house the byre too had been ruined, gutted with flame.

The soldier whose march had brought him back to his own village that night stood in the entrance of what had been his home and stared at the smoking walls, the charred roof gaping to the sky, the empty casements.  The enemy had been there.  He whispered his young wife’s name, he called softly to the baby, as if they might be sleeping somewhere within the devastated house.  He listened for a reply but none came.  Perhaps he would have been thankful even for a groan or a cry of agony, anything that meant life.  But all was silence within, without.

Yonder on the winding road at the foot of the hill he could hear the trampling of men, the groaning of wheels, the clank of iron cavalrymen, the jingling of bits and swords, sharp words of command.  The army was advancing.  He could delay no longer.  He must get back to his place in the ranks.  Summoning his courage he crossed the threshold and stepped into the vacant emptiness of the house.  Everything was gone but the four stone walls.  There were unrecognizable heaps of ashes here and there.  He bent over them fearfully in the twilight wondering whether the shapeless, formless masses were—­

Something caught his eye.  The one thing intact apparently.  He stooped over it.  It was the baby’s shoe—­white, it had been originally.  He remembered it.  Now it was stained with blood.  That was all that was left—­a little baby’s shoe, blood spotted.  He pressed it to his heart and groaned aloud.  A spasm of mortal anguish shook his frame.  He lifted his clenched hand toward the sky overshadowing the roofless walls.

Now he suddenly became aware that he was not alone.  There was someone else in the room.  He saw vaguely, indistinctly, a figure strangely clad, staggering on with bended back as if under some crushing load.  He stared in the twilight striving to concentrate his faculties.  The figure passed by.  On its back was a shadowy something—­beams of wood roughly crossed, he decided.  It raised its head and looked at him.  The face was somehow lighter than the rest.