hat
any woman would be proud of."

"Oh, I'm not nearly good enough for Poppy," he said deprecatingly. He
seemed used to Poppy's silence, and, indeed, whenever her silent absence
from speech was most marked, he bent towards her in a tender attitude
which showed a resolution to regard it as maidenly bashfulness. "Well,
to get back to my story. I stood there peering through the crowd for
another look at her, and an officer began preaching. Captain Harris it
was. I didn't take any particular notice of him." He jerked his whitish
face about contemptuously. "He's a poor preacher, isn't he, Poppy? He
never gets a grip on the crowd, does he? And they can't hear him beyond
the first few rows. I don't think I heard more than a few sentences that
first evening. If I'd had been in the Army as many years as he has, and
I couldn't preach any better than that, I'd find some other way of
serving Jesus. I would really.

"But after that"--he stopped, looked at some vision in the air before
him which filled his eyes with tears and fire, and sighed
deeply--"Captain Sampson preached the gospel. It's Captain Sampson I've
been working under since I joined the Army. Oh, mother, mother, I wish
you could hear him preach. He would give you Jesus. That first evening I
heard him I saw Jesus as plain as I see you. I saw Him then looking
fierce like He was when He scourged the moneychangers out of the temple.
But when I'm alone, I see the other Jesus, the way he was most times."
He put his head back and bleated: "'Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.' The
One that loves us when we're weak and when we fall, and loves us all the
better for it. Even you"--he looked at Richard with a faint, malign
joyfulness--"must feel the want of Him sometimes. Life can't be a path
of roses for any of us, however strong and clever we are. So I say it's
not good preaching to go on always about fighting for Jesus and being a
good soldier, and making it seem as if religion was just another trouble
we had to face." His voice broke with petulance. "It's a shame not to
show people Gentle Jesus."

He checked himself. Remorse ran red under his pale skin. "What am I
saying?" he cried out. "Captain Sampson is a holy man! If he's harsh to
those that work under him it's right he should be. God chasteneth whom
He loveth, and it's the same way with Captain Sampson I expect. It's
really a way of showing that he cares about you and is anxious about
you. And anyway, he did give me Jesus tha