ong
cross-hilted swords, in the name of Christ and of the poor.

Theodoric seemed to look down on him with benignant eyes from under the
raised visor; and our poor Findelkind, weeping, threw his small arms
closer and closer around the bronze knees of the heroic figure, and
sobbed aloud, "Help me, help me! Oh, turn the hearts of the people to
me, and help me to do good!"

But Theodoric answered nothing.

There was no sound in the dark, hushed church; the gloom grew darker
over Findelkind's eyes; the mighty forms of monarchs and of heroes grew
dim before his sight. He lost consciousness, and fell prone upon the
stones at Theodoric's feet; for he had fainted from hunger and emotion.

When he awoke it was quite evening; there was a lantern held over his
head; voices were muttering curiously and angrily; bending over him were
two priests, a sacristan of the church, and his own father. His little
wallet lay by him on the stones, always empty.

"Boy of mine! were you mad?" cried his father, half in rage, half in
tenderness. "The chase you have led me!--and your mother thinking you
were drowned!--and all the working day lost, running after old women's
tales of where they had seen you! Oh, little fool, little fool! What was
amiss with Martinswand, that you must leave it?"

Findelkind slowly and feebly rose, and sat up on the pavement, and
looked up, not at his father, but at the knight Theodoric.

"I thought they would help me to keep the poor," he muttered, feebly, as
he glanced at his own wallet. "And it is empty,--empty."

"And are we not poor enough?" cried his father, with natural impatience,
ready to tear his hair with vexation at having such a little idiot for
a son. "Must you rove afield to find poverty to help, when it sits cold
enough, the Lord knows, at our own hearth? Oh, little ass, little dolt,
little maniac, fit only for a madhouse, talking to iron figures and
taking them for real men! What have I done, O heaven, that I should be
afflicted thus?"

And the poor man wept, being a good affectionate soul, but not very
wise, and believing that his boy was mad. Then, seized with sudden rage
once more, at thought of his day all wasted, and its hours harassed and
miserable through searching for the lost child, he plucked up the light,
slight figure of Findelkind in his own arms, and, with muttered thanks
and excuses to the sacristan of the church, bore the boy out with him
into the evening air, and lifted him in