were the marks of tears. Gently she pushed back the thick,
black, wavy locks from his forehead, and kissed him once and again. The
boy turned his face toward her. A long sobbing sigh came from his parted
lips. He opened his eyes.

"That you, mother?" he asked, the old whimsical smile at his lips.
"Good-night."

He settled down into the clothes and in a moment was fast asleep. The
mother stood looking down upon her boy. He had not told her his trouble,
but her touch had brought him comfort, and for the rest she was content
to wait.

CHAPTER II

A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

The village schoolhouse was packed to the door. Over the crowded forms
there fell a murky light from the smoky swinging lamp that left
dark unexplored depths in the corners of the room. On the walls hung
dilapidated maps at angles suggesting the interior of a ship's cabin
during a storm, or a party of revellers, returning homeward, after
the night before, gravely hilarious. Behind the platform a blackboard,
cracked into irregular spaces, preserved the mental processes of the
pupils during their working hours, and in sharp contrast to these the
terribly depressing perfection of the teacher's exemplar in penmanship,
which reminded the self-complacent slacker that "Eternal vigilance is
the price of freedom."

It was an evangelistic meeting. Behind the table, his face illumined by
the lamp thereon, stood a man turning over the leaves of a hymn book.
His aspect suggested a soul, gentle, mild and somewhat abstracted from
its material environment. The lofty forehead gave promise of an idealism
capable of high courage, indeed of sacrifice--a promise, however, belied
somewhat by an irresolute chin partly hidden by a straggling beard. But
the face was sincere and tenderly human. At his side upon the platform
sat his wife behind a little portable organ, her face equally gentle,
sincere and irresolute.

The assembly--with the extraordinary patience that characterises public
assemblies--waited for the opening of the meeting, following with
attentive eyes the vague and trifling movements of the man at the table.
Occasionally there was a rumble of deep voices in conversation, and
in the dark corners subdued laughter--while on the front benches the
animated and giggling whispering of three little girls tended to relieve
the hour from an almost superhuman gravity.

At length with a sudden acquisition of resolution the evangelist glanced
at his watch, rose, and