way home, just beyond the village, her horse again shied. The
animal had been startled by an old Minorite monk who sat under a crab
apple tree. It was Father Benedictus, who had set out early to anticipate
Heinz and surprise him in his night quarters by his presence. But he had
overestimated his strength, and advanced so slowly that Heinz and his
troopers, from whom he had concealed himself behind a dusty hawthorn
bush, had not seen him. From Schweinau the walk had become difficult,
especially as it was contrary to the teaching of the saint to use a
staff. Many a compassionate peasant, many a miller's lad and Carter, had
offered him a seat on the back of his nag or in his waggon but, without
accepting their friendly offers, he had plodded on with his bare feet.

Perhaps this journey would be his last, but on it he would redeem the
promise which he had made his dying master, to go forth according to the
command of the Saviour, which Francis of Assisi had made his own and that
of his order, to preach and to proclaim, "The kingdom of heaven is at
hand!"

"Without price," ran the words, "have ye received, without price give."
He had no regard for earthly reward, therefore he yearned the more
ardently for the glad knowledge that he had saved a soul for heaven.

He had learned to love Heinz as the saint had formerly loved him, and he
did not grudge him the happiness which, at the knight's age, had fallen
to the lot of the man whose years now numbered eighty. How long he had
been permitted to enjoy this bliss! True, during the last decades it had
been clouded by many a shadow.

He had endured much hardship in the service of his sacred cause, but the
greater the sacrifice he offered the more exquisite was the reward reaped
by his soul. Oh, if this pilgrimage might yield him Heinz Schorlin's vow
to follow his saint and with him the Saviour!--if he might be permitted,
clasping in his the hand of the beloved youth he had saved, to exchange
this world for eternal bliss!

Earth had nothing more to offer; for he who was one of the leaders of his
brotherhood beheld with grief their departure from the paths of their
founder. Poverty, which secures freedom to the body, which knows nothing
of the anxieties of this world and the burden of possession, which
permits the soul to soar unfettered far above the dust--poverty, the
divine bride of St. Francis, was forsaken in many circles of his brother
monks. With property, ease and the long