Now the several traditions were as I have said, some believing one and some another.  One of them I knew to be the truth, and that was the last one.  I do not say anything against the others; I think they were true, but I only know that the last one was; and it is my thought that if one keep to the things he knows, and not trouble about the things which he cannot be sure about, he will have the steadier mind for it—­and there is profit in that.  I know that when the Children of the Tree die in a far land, then—­if they be at peace with God—­they turn their longing eyes toward home, and there, far-shining, as through a rift in a cloud that curtains heaven, they see the soft picture of the Fairy Tree, clothed in a dream of golden light; and they see the bloomy mead sloping away to the river, and to their perishing nostrils is blown faint and sweet the fragrance of the flowers of home.  And then the vision fades and passes—­but they know, they know! and by their transfigured faces you know also, you who stand looking on; yes, you know the message that has come, and that it has come from heaven.

Joan and I believed alike about this matter.  But Pierre Morel and Jacques d’Arc, and many others believed that the vision appeared twice —­to a sinner.  In fact, they and many others said they knew it.  Probably because their fathers had known it and had told them; for one gets most things at second hand in this world.

Now one thing that does make it quite likely that there were really two apparitions of the Tree is this fact:  From the most ancient times if one saw a villager of ours with his face ash-white and rigid with a ghastly fright, it was common for every one to whisper to his neighbor, “Ah, he is in sin, and has got his warning.”  And the neighbor would shudder at the thought and whisper back, “Yes, poor soul, he has seen the Tree.”

Such evidences as these have their weight; they are not to be put aside with a wave of the hand.  A thing that is backed by the cumulative evidence of centuries naturally gets nearer and nearer to being proof all the time; and if this continue and continue, it will some day become authority—­and authority is a bedded rock, and will abide.

In my long life I have seen several cases where the tree appeared announcing a death which was still far away; but in none of these was the person in a state of sin.  No; the apparition was in these cases only a special grace; in place of deferring the tidings of that soul’s redemption till the day of death, the apparition brought them long before, and with them peace—­peace that might no more be disturbed—­the eternal peace of God.  I myself, old and broken, wait with serenity; for I have seen the vision of the Tree.  I have seen it, and am content.