“All right,” said Jean, “climb on my back.”

The little boy climbed on to his back, and Jean trudged through the snow.  In an hour’s time they reached the Sieur de Ranquet’s castle; the place was alive with bustling men and flaring torches, for the Sieur’s heir had been missed.

The Sieur looked at Jean and recognised him immediately.  Jean was a public character, and especially well known to the Sieur de Ranquet.  A few words were whispered.  The child was sent to bed, and the archers civilly lead Jean to his dungeon.  Jean was tired and sleepy.  He fell asleep at once on the straw.  They told him he would have to get up early the next morning, in time for a long, cold journey.  The gallows, they added, would be ready.

But in the night Jean dreamed a dream:  he saw a child in glittering clothes and with a shining face who came into the dungeon and broke the bars.

The child said:  “I am little St. Nicholas, the children’s friend, and I think you are tired, so I’m going to take you to a quiet place.”

Jean followed the child, who led him by the hand till they came to a nice inn, very high up on the top of huge mountains.  There was a blazing log fire in the room, a clean warm bed, and the windows opened on a range of snowy mountains, bright as diamonds.  And the stars twinkled in the sky like the candles of a Christmas tree.

“You can go to bed here,” said St. Nicholas, “nobody will disturb you, and when you do wake you will be quite happy and rested.  Good-night, Jean.”  And he went away.

* * * * *

The next day in the dawn, when the archers came to fetch Jean, they found he was fast asleep.  They thought it was almost a pity to wake him, because he looked so happy and contented in his sleep; but when they tried they found it was impossible.

THE FLUTE OF CHANG LIANG

To P. Kershaw

The village was called Moe-tung.  It was on the edge of the big main road which leads from Liao-yang to Ta-shi-chiao.  It consisted of a few baked mud-houses, a dilapidated temple, a wall, a clump of willows, and a pond.  One of the houses I knew well; in its square open yard, in which the rude furniture of toil lay strewn about, I had halted more than once for my midday meal, when riding from Liao-yang to the South.  I had been entertained there by the owner of the house, a brawny husbandman and his fat brown children, and they had given me eggs and Indian corn.  Now it was empty; the house was deserted; the owner, his wife and his children, had all gone, to the city probably, to seek shelter.  We occupied the house; and the Cossacks at once made a fire with the front door and any fragments of wood they could find.  The house was converted into a stable and a kitchen, and the officers’ quarters were established in another smaller building across the road, on the edge of a great plain, which was bright green with the standing giant millet.